Movie Reviews for Writers: Killer Book Club

Oh my God! A horror slasher about a book club that focuses on horror fiction?! Can't believe I just discovered this one. It's as if it were written for me in particular. 

El club de los lectores criminales, the film's original Spanish title, is based on the book of the same name by García Miranda. From a plot standpoint, it shares a lot with Scream. In fact, much of the plot and the tone are lifted almost directly from Kevin Williamson's deconstruction of modern slashers. 

But Killer Book Club takes the premise of a campus slasher and moves it into territory I love -- writing and reading books. Even the mysterious death that sets the plot into action involved writing and coming up with story ideas. Any more than that, well, that would be spoilers. 

Writing that lacks truth. What is truth?

In the first few minutes of the movie, we have a scene set in a writing course at college. Our professor, who is clearly not in favor of horror writing, says: "Monsters, demons, ghosts, witches… and other representations of darkness have never been well received by critics, despite their commercial success. I've always seen horror as a mediocre genre. It has a major weakness. It always seems to be missing something. What could it be?"

A student responds: "Maybe that the stories lack authenticity?"

Says the hoity-toity prof: "Exactly. Horror might have fog and doors that close on their own, but it lacks the essential ingredient of a good story. The truth."

Critics have long leveled unjust and biased harshness toward genre writing. It's just a part of life in the writing world. Critics tend to favor literary style. The average reader tends to favor genre adventures. 

However, it's possible to balance both as a writer. As I've said in a previous tutorial, the writer's toolkit for writing literary work and the toolkit for writing genre work IS THE SAME DAMN TOOLKIT. There's nothing stopping you from writing genre plots into literary fiction or from writing literary style into your genre stories. 

How's that for truth, Professor Stuffypants?

Fan Fic

Professor Stuffypants doesn't just have it in for horror, but also for the idea of fan fiction. 

Professor: Today, authors are rewriting other people's ideas. I myself get a ton of essays, and I won't name names, where students just plagiarize their favorite authors.

Student: It isn't plagiarism. It's fan fiction. You take a story and rewrite it. Then you post it online for your followers to read. It's dope.

Professor: That's what we call stealing stories.

Now, I'll admit that a lot of fan fic is hit or miss with me. But let's be honest, a lot of writing is hit or miss, too. And not just with me. With every reader everywhere. 

Fan fic gets a bad rap sometimes for being amateurish, and it can be, but it's a place where lots of modern writers cut their teeth and learn the basics of writing technique by practicing with characters who already have an established well, character. 

And there's a lot of fan fic out there that's literary-competent. Not just competent, but masterful. And, let's be fair, as long as you're not breaking laws or receiving a cease and desist letter, you're not hurting anyone with your fan fic story -- even if it's slash fan fic (admittedly not my fave). 

Writing requires living

One of my favorite quotes from Killer Book Club is from our very biased professor. Only, this time I think he gets it right finally. 

He asks his students (almost yelling at them): "Why are you all here? You want to be writers, don't you? The key to being a writer is living. Stop stealing stories, and start living your own. Those will be worth reading."

Of course, he can't help but tack on another dig at fan fic or being unoriginal in your story, but not even that takes away from the truth of his central idea. 

The key to being a writer is living. 

And...

Start living your own stories. Those will be worth reading.

That right there is what you call truth. It's the crux of writing. You have to live to write, no matter what genre you write. If you don't live, you don't emote. You don't experience pain. You don't experience loss. Nor do you experience happiness. Without living things, the real things, the true things, you can't write them. 

All the rest can be researched, can be learned -- or can even be made up. As long as the people are real, little else can destroy a book. (A caveat: Unless you're writing something that can be made or broken by the details, such as a book where gun specifics are crucial, or where a certain science fact must be correct.) 

Yucking your yum

A teacher I work with says this a lot: "Don't yuck somebody else's yum." I can dig it. 

We get that a long in genre fiction. Instead of it drawing us together, though, it can often make us turn on each other, like geeks trying to establish a hierarchy of geekdom that puts them above another, more socially outcast, level of geek. 

"The Librarian" -- yes, that's how she's identified in the movie at the beginning -- shows this right off when she shuts down someone asking her for the romance section. "The romance section?" she says. "Over there. Next to your bad taste."

How often do we hear this: 

Oh, you like ________________ ?!

Fill in the blank. Romance. Horror. Space Opera. Hard sci-fi. Space Fantasy. Sword and sorcery fantasy. Urban fantasy. Romantasy. Changeling romantasy? Vampire books? Werewolf books? Ad naseum. You name it. The list goes on. 

Repeat after me. Downing someone else's favorite genre doesn't elevate yours. 

Scary

Writing scary is hard. Movie scary can be a lot easier. In a book, the camera controls what viewers see and hear and the order in which they experience the story. In a book, folks can jump ahead to relieve tension, can "stop" the story for days by leaving the book on their bedside table. Not only that, but there's also the lack of visuals. Sure, your prose may be viscerally perfect, but as the cliche goes, a picture is worth a thousand words -- especially in horror. 

A writer is limited by the imaginative ability of the reader. And as a reading teacher, let me tell you, not all readers can create that movie in their mind that is needed to fully immerse them into a horror novel -- or any novel really. 

It's an idea echoed by the characters in the flick.

Nando: Seeing one of these dudes would freak me out. More than any book.

Angela: Well, reading can be just as terrifying. It just requires some imagination.

The blessing that is imagination can also be a curse when a reader has a limited one, or when a writer fails to fully engage the reader's imagination. The onus, the extra work, the need to master the skill of that engagement is fully on the writer, and the story succeeds or fails by that ability to activate the imagination of the reader with words and images. 

Imposter Syndrome

Ah. The dreaded imposter syndrome. When you pair that plague with the idea of writer's block, you've got a one-two punch of "Why even try?" Still, it seems to be a rite of passage for most writers. 

It's one that the "heroine," as she is introduced to viewers (named Angela), is currently experiencing. She had a hit novel she wrote in her teens, but hasn't been able to follow it up. (There's a reason for that, but spoilers, darling, spoilers.) As she and her friend discuss after the dressing down by their professor:

Angela: Sebas, I've had writer's block for six years.

Sebastion: Ángela, you're a writer. You'll finish your second novel.

Angela: But that's the thing. I don't see myself as a writer. Nando says that's what's causing my writer's block.

"I don't see myself as a writer." That's the crux of it, isn't it? "I'm just pretending." 

No matter how many times we are told that if we're writing, we're writers. We still draw that capital "A" when we talk about authors, as if the sole purpose of the word is to tell us that we're just faking it. 

So...

All in all, there's a lot to be gleaned from this little horror flick about writing horror. Well worth a watch.