Movie Reviews for Writers: If You Believe

This Hallmark-style Christmas fantasy rom-com is my new, second-fave contemporary version of the Scrooge story (not that there isn't a huge gap between it and the number-one on the list, Scrooged, with Bill Murray and Carol Kane). Susan is a book editor for a big publisher who hasn't had a hit in a long time, and she has lost her zeal not only for the job but also for the people in her life. So, instead of three ghosts, she is visited by her inner child. Little Suze appears in her apartment one particularly awful day and won't go away, determined to remind Susan about the joy that she used to derive from both people and from her work finding and presenting new authors and new books to the world. 

After that, we get a lot of Hallmark city girl meets country boy tropes, but luckily, keeping the story centered in the publishing world makes it feel more original than merely formulaic.

But first, before the movie gets into any of that, we see a younger Susan at a Thanksgiving dinner, where she and her stick-in-the-mud husband Peter bicker as she brags about a wonderful new writer she has discovered. 

Susan: Last week, I found the most extraordinary first-time writer.

Susan's Father: Sounds great.

Susan: He's beyond great --

Peter: Susan, darling, you know I hate it when you gush. William Faulkner is great. Dylan Lewis is just okay.

Susan: I thought you liked him, Peter.

Peter: I do like him. I also like Donne. It doesn't mean I think it's great.

Regardless of Peter's party-pooper vibes, Dylan becomes a best-selling author and helps cement Susan's place at work. However, the honeymoon doesn't go on forever. By the time the movie begins in the present, Susan is trying to get new pages from a very late Dylan. Not only that, but she has one author already two advances in with nothing to show for it and another writer unavailable because she's in for treatment at Betty Ford. 

Susan: Dilly. Dylan, pick up, I know you're there. We need to talk. We have now entered the realm of the ridiculous. Walter is extremely upset and I have lost what little patience I have left. I need a real date when you are going to be finished, all right? No more excuses. Call me.

All these things lead Susan to question the choices that led her to her career. She isn't dating. She isn't doing anything she used to enjoy. She has become a sort of professional recluse and shut-in, at least outside of the office. 

She ends up distancing herself from both co-workers and family, leading to the possibility of a very, very lonely holiday. Finally, inner-Susan, little Suze, can stand it no more, and she appears in grown-up Susan's apartment. Here begins the comedy. 

Somewhere in all the situational jokes, Suze helps Susan rediscover her need to fight for her job and rekindle the joy of finding and promoting new authors. Her unappreciated assistant Robin mentions a new manuscript coming her way. 

Robin: Hi. Your weekend reading.

Susan: Robin, that's it? That's all there is?

Robin: Well, it's all that's come in so far, but I'm actually hoping to get this manuscript.

Susan: From whom?

Robin: Uh, his name is Tom Weller. He was a partner in Ben's law firm --

Susan: Who's Ben?

Robin: Ben's my fiancé. You've met him several times.

Susan: Lawyer? You mean courtroom stuff?

Robin: Family history, actually. Anyway, he was a partner until about two years ago, when his dead Aunt Pru came to him in a dream, and she told him to write this novel.

Susan: His dead Aunt Pru?

Begrudgingly, Susan accepts the book to read mostly because little Suze encourages her to take a risk. As Robin hands her the manuscript, she says:

Robin: I warned him that, you know, that you might want to trim a few things because of course I know how much you hate when things aren't concise, and so he's totally prepared. If you feel that you might want to cut anything --

Of course, it needs editing. All our work needs editing. 

Only once have I worked with an author who believed their work was practically ready-to-go upon the first draft. They edited as they wrote, they said. 

To resist editing is to resist being a writer, pure and simple. 

But sometimes our preconceptions can be confused for needed edits. For example, Susan, with her years of editing for "markets," has unlearned how to take a risk on a more experimental work. When she begins to read the manuscript, this becomes abundantly clear to little Suze.

Susan: "Phooey"? 758 pages! Robin, you idiot! You expect me to read a 758-page book called "Phooey"?!

Suze: I like it -- "Phooey." Easy to remember, and it says a lot.

Susan: "Phooey" says a lot?

Suze: At least read the first chapter. Come on, what do you have to lose?

Susan: "As the old carriage rattled past the graveyard, "through the fine mist, she could see her firstborn, "the avowed atheist himself,

risen from the dead, sitting in a gigantic, old Chestnut tree, laughing." That is intolerable.

Suze: How could it be intolerable? You've only read a paragraph!

Now, to be fair, as an editor who used to have to be a first-read from a slush pile, I didn't (and still don't) give a writer much attention beyond the first page, sometimes the first paragraph. My thought is that if a writer can't grab me immediately, then they've failed in their job. (Yes, I know that's harsh.) When you work a slush pile, you have to find the shovel that works for you to get through the manuscripts, particularly when you're looking for works that fit a house style or a "type" your company is known to publish. 

Even after reading the first pages, Susan isn't convinced. That is, she likes it and thinks the story has merit and can be edited into shape, but there's still something bothering her. Pride. Suze cuts right to the proverbial chase.

Suze: Why? You afraid you'll like it and everyone else will think it's a stink bomb and say, "Susan Stone's a dope!" Well, fine. Just remember, playing it safe is very risky business.

It's a great lesson. "Playing it safe is a very risky business." I've not many writers who chase markets. I've known many who write the kind of stories that they want to even if they don't fit the market. Guess which ones are happier? 

Besides, it's become an industry cliché, but by the time a market can be chased, it's already dying out. 

Convinced (eventually). Susan finds her fire again. She tells Suze.

Susan: Well, it could be good if you took a hatchet to it. And the title, "Phooey," that's absolutely out of the question. Just get him on the phone, okay? ... I am gonna bag Tom Weller. I am gonna look him in the eye and tell him the truth. Yes. And together we are gonna shape and hone and sculpt that manuscript into a book that will not only wow the literary critics, but make it to the top of every bestseller list in every major city in the United States of America!

That's the dream. The goal. No, not the best-seller list (though that's not a downside, to be sure). It's the attitude Susan rediscovers, the drive to create. 

Now, let's get beyond the plot and find those wonderful nuggets of writing life wisdom. Here's a favorite:

Suze: If you spent as much time doing actual work, like you used to, instead of pretending to work, like you do, maybe you wouldn't be in such a mess.

Ouch. This one hits way too close to my little target on my heart. I know so many people who don't like writing; they like to have written. (Read that again -- it's important.) The hard work of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard IS INDEED hard work. It's so much easier to be "researching" or "promoting." 

Now, don't get mad. There's a lot of legitimate research and promotion needed in this business, but they're also a lot of it that goes on purely to distract us from the work. 

Next up is sticking to your guns. When Susan meets with Tom to sell him on working with her, she says: 

Susan: Tom, if we're gonna work together, I need to be completely open and honest with you. I can't hold back what I think.

Tom: Uh-huh.

Susan: Now, frankly, those first five chapters aren't as good or as vivid or as affecting as what follows. Look, I know how hard it is to have someone sweep in out of the blue and tell you that you have to

give up a part of yourself, but I don't think that I would be doing my job if I didn't argue for those cuts. If it's not a lot shorter,

the book will probably not get published.

Tom: Well, then, maybe it shouldn't be. ... This is my story. It's about my family. I want to tell it my way.

There are two things going on here that have to be balanced. 

One -- your story belongs to you and you alone. You get to tell it your way, and when you and a publisher have different visions, sometimes it's time to cut the contract (so to speak). 

Two -- editors have a lot of experience in what will work and sell and what probably won't. You choose not to trust them and their feedback at your peril quite often. 

Taking an editor's advice and doing the hard work of cutting can become freeing, once a writer opens up to it, as Tom learns. 

Tom: After cutting the third chapter, I realized I was starting to enjoy it. By the fourth and the fifth, I thought, "This is the way

that serial killers must feel."

Susan: Don't worry, Tom.

Nothing's ever lost. It all simply gets rearranged...

Susan's correct. Nothing is lost. It shows up in other ways. If it doesn't, it wasn't work keeping in the story in the first place. 

Let's move on to the story nugget. There are lots of little things that inspire our stories. It could be a song lyric, a photograph, a random "what if" statement, or a stray comment overheard in public. For Tom, it was a promotional poster for his Aunt Pru's psychic performances. He shows it to Suan.

Tom: I want to show you something. You'll like this. Here she is...Aunt Pru. Now, see, I always pictured this poster would be on the dust jacket with "'Phooey' by Tom Weller" printed in that same type style, huh?

Sometimes, the nugget is only the inspiration, and it doesn't actually make it into the book. So embrace the idea, but don't marry it. The book, the story in total is the goal, not the incident or image that spurred it in your head. 

Finally, not everyone is going to be excited about your story, especially if you stick to your guns as above. But even with great editing and reworking, not every story works for every reader (or editor/marketer in the case of the movie). 

After all the work getting Tom's manuscript ready for the real pitch meeting, Susan encounters quite a bit of pushback (much along the lines of her fear Suze pointed out above). One things its too silly, too frivolous. Another thinks it's too long. Another feels it doesn't meet any existing market. However, one editor, Mark, has somehow snagged a copy and loves it. 

Dorinda: Mark, you weren't on Susan's list.

Mark: I overheard several assistants raving about it in the kitchen, so I bootlegged a copy. And, uh, look, this guy may be a little unusual, but that's the whole point. I think Susan's absolutely correct. I mean, wake up. Would you not say publish John Irving because sometimes he's a little fantastic? And that's just one tiny aspect of it. I mean, what about the Americana of it all? And the romance? And, Dorinda... Don't tell me you didn't at least love all the dirty parts. Come on, guys, get with it. If we don't nail this guy down, somebody else will. And won't we be embarrassed when it gets out that we had him first and didn't publish him?

No matter who doesn't like your work, it will find a champion. But that's another avenue of work involving beta readers, editors, and your network.