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. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Snowed Under

There's something special -- at least to me -- about those screwball, over-the-top, situation-gone-from-bad-to-loony comedies of yesteryear. Snowed Under is no less effective than the classic greats. 

Alan Tanner is a playwright with a rotten case of what we call writer's block. It's so bad that his play is set to begin practice in one week, but he still doesn't have a third act. 

To that, let's add the screwball situations. 

1. He's seeing a new girl who won't leave him alone so he can write during his retreat to the country cottage.
   
   
2. His producer sends his first ex-wife to help him finish the work like she did when they were married. 
   
   
3. His second ex-wife and her lawyer are arriving to either take his back alimony or, failing that, send him to jail until he does pay it. 
   
   
4. They're about to be snowed in together. 

So, as you can predict, hijinks ensue. I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say it's not a good day for our hero, Alan Tanner. 

One of my favorite parts is when Alan tries to explain writer's block to his housekeeper, Mrs. Canterbury. 

MRS. CANTERBURY: I figured you’d be coming up again sooner or later. Nice to see somebody in the old place again.

ALAN: I thought, if I drove up here for even one night, I could crash through the wall . . .

MRS. CANTERBURY: . . . crash through the wall . . !

ALAN: Of my writer’s block. I just can’t seem to get any work done.

MRS. CANTERBURY: Mmph. If Luke used that excuse in the barn, the work’d just keep piling up, anyway!

I love this way of looking at writer's block. It's something that only creatives seem to run into. I've often heard that plumbers don't get plumbers' block. Electricians don't get electricians' block. Middle managers don't get middle managers' block. Nor do marketing consultants don't get marketing consultant's block. They either work through any "funks" or they lose paying business opportunities. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Amy Tan -- Unintended Memoir

I only met Amy Tan once. She was the guest speaker at my college's literary festival, and she had only recently written her smash novel, The Joy Luck Club. I was able to sit in on her reading, and trust me, I hung on every word. 

Then I went out and bought a copy. 

When I learned about this PBS American Masters documentary, I knew I needed to watch it. 

What Is a Writer?

We each have differing meanings of what we are and what we do as a thing called "writer" or "author." When asked the questions, Tan gave perhaps my favorite definition for the term. 

During the writing of this book, I delved into the contents. Memorabilia, letters, photos, and the like. And what I found had the force of glaciers calving.

I am not the subject matter of mothers and daughters or Chinese culture or immigrant experience that most people cite as my domain.

I am a writer compelled by a subconscious neediness to know, which is different from a need to know. The latter can be satisfied with information. The former is a perpetual state of uncertainty and a tether to the past.

The writer, then, is an ongoing nature of curiosity -- an ever-longing, an ever-searching person putting together life's puzzle. 

You know, when you're writing, I think you're naturally going through some kind of subconscious, philosophical construct, your own cosmology, how the world is put together and how events happened and what's related, what's coincidental.

I love that. 

Beneath the thing we think of as "writer" is a subconscious idea, what Tan calls a philosophical construct, constantly trying to make sense of the real world and put all those truths into a fictional one. That's certainly a better definition than "some yahoo sitting at a laptop for way too many hours at a time fighting against a blank page."

The "Before" Days

How often do we take into account the life stuff that happened to make a writer a, well, writer? It's often glossed over (at least until the memoir is written or a biopic is made) as if authors were born fully formed the day their book (at least the one that "matters") was released into the wild, wild world. 

There's a lot of past that formed the bricks of the structure that eventually became the author.

For Tan, that started with reading, in particular, a book she wasn't supposed to be reading:

Two weeks before my father died, a minister came to counsel me because I had been discovered reading a very bad book, "Catcher in the Rye. " Banned book.

He was a youth minister, and he came into the room, and we were sitting on the bed, and he was talking about how I had caused my father more pain than the brain tumor.

Just as sacred cows make the best hamburgers, banned books make the best inspiration when it comes to creating writers. But it's not just the reading. She also was already writing, just not in the world of fiction... yet.

She says: 

You know, I had another bestseller. It sold. You know what these numbers are. When you have a bestseller, you have to sell a certain amount in the first week. I'd sold 80,000 copies and went in for two reprints. It was called "Telecommunications and You." It was published for IBM, and I was a business writer before I started writing fiction.

She also got a little help from a friend's husband. 

Amy was a linguistics and English major. And I remember her wanting to write. John, my husband, started a business. He had one phone line that was Dial-a-Joke, another phone line that was Dial Michael Jackson, and another one that had astrology. So he hired Amy to write astrology. She was very creative, and she would make it up.

Maybe this wasn't the fictional masterpiece that The Joy Luck Club or The Kitchen God's Wife are recognized as, but it was writing. All writing counts toward mastery. All writing gets you closer to locking in technique and talent. All writing moves you closer, step by step, to the place where you can finally, eventually write the stuff you want to. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: House of Long Shadows

 

It's not the most common trope in movies about writers, but it is common enough to be a trope. What is it? It's the bet, the wager, that an author can whip out a novel in a limited amount of time when given the proper place and the proper incentive. 

One of the best examples is the star-riddled comedy murder story The House of Long Shadows. Featuring the classic horror talents of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, and John Carradine -- as well as the teen heartthrob Desi Arnez Jr. -- it's hard to imagine it not being amazing (or at least a wink-and-a-nod, tongue-in-cheek pastiche of classic horror tropes).

Arnez plays novelist Kenneth Magee, an author of contemporary novels who feels they greatly outweigh the quality and humanity of classic Gothic literature. While discussing the idea with his publisher, they indulge in the following conversation.

Sam Allyson: When I think of Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, where are they all now I ask myself?

Kenneth Magee: I think they're dead, Sam.

Sam Allyson: You know what I mean. They dealt with people, human passions on the grand scale.

Kenneth Magee: People have different behavior patterns now. They just don't go around acting like they're out of Wuthering Heights.

Sam Allyson: Are you trying to tell me that Wuthering Heights with all its brooding intensity, isn't as involving and real as a contemporary novel?

Kenneth Magee: It's over the top. I mean anyone can write one of those things. It's just a question of letting your imagination go bananas. Jesus! You want that kind of novel? I can knock it off for you in 24 hours.

Sam Allyson: That I don't believe.

Kenneth Magee: $10,000.

Sam Allyson: Oh come now.

Kenneth Magee: $10,000, I'll bet you.

Sam Allyson: Kenneth I rea...

Kenneth Magee: $20,000.

Movie Reviews for Writers: The House in Marsh Road

In this fun little ghost flick based on the book The House in Marsh Road by Laurence Meynell, David Linton is a "novelist" who is working on the novel that's going to end all his and his wife Jean's problems -- once he gets something down on paper, that is. In the meantime, Jean inherits a large house (yes, on Marsh Road), and the two move in so they can stop scamming rent-free boarding from landlords and landladies. Only, the place is haunted by a ghost named Patrick. Oh, yeah, that and David begins an affair with his typist and plans (in classic Film Noir style) to kill his wife so he can inherit and sell off the house. 

Making Excuses

For a "by the numbers" thriller, this one gets quite a few things right about the writing life, starting with the negative -- but accurate -- depiction of the always aspiring "author." David isn't writing as much as he is planning to write, getting distracted, dreaming of having written, basically, everything but actually writing. And like those of us who fall into this category (we all do from time to time, sadly), he has an excuse for every issue. 

While arguing with Jean, he says:

David: If only I could get six months peace and quiet to write my book.  

Jean: Ah, the book. 

David: You don't believe in it, do you? You don't think I'm capable of writing a book.

But we haven't exhausted David's greatest hits yet. When he is down at the bar, he gets into a conversation with a local. "Well," he says. "I'm trying to get down to a novel at the moment, but, I have to keep stopping to review other people's books. Anyway, I'm a lousy typist."

For those keeping score, that's not one, but two excuses delivered like a one-two punch. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: The Green Woman

Full disclosure. This is not a great movie. This is probably not even a good movie. But it is an interesting movie. 

There, I said it. 

There's some fun acting and an intriguing premise, but this one does suffer from the defects of a lot of indie film projects of the low-budget variety. So, if you can't enjoy micro-budget movies, just avoid this one. If you still find weird, little "writer meets alien while breaking up with his girlfriend" oddness potential to be fun, then The Green Woman just might make you happy for an hour and a half. 

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk plot. 

Rommy (short for Romulus -- Pretentious much?!) is a writer who is earning his keep but just barely. He's living with his girlfriend Mary, who is a severe Type A who constantly tries to push him into some kind of corporate, stable working environment. To add more stress to his life, Rommy begins to have visitations by a green-skinned alien woman who claims to have been sent by him (from the future) to help him in the present. Did I mention she's cute? That'll be important later. She also has a few favors she needs from him, mostly gathering random electronic parts he can steal from around his neighborhood. 

The questions abound? Who is the green-skinned alien? Will Rommy and Mary reconcile? Why does he have to collect random electronics? Is the green woman even real or just a figment of his stressed, addled, alcohol-riddled, breaking-down brain?

I'm not going to answer those questions. You'll just have to watch the movie. Suffice it to say that it'll surprise you even after you think you have it all figured out. 

If there's a lesson for writers to be learned, it is this: Being a writer can be a tough gig when you are with someone who (a) doesn't get it, (b) doesn't support it, or (c) wants you to relegate it to a hobby. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Sinister

Sinister is the story of Ellison Oswalt, a true crime writer, and his family as they move to a famous "murder house" for him to write his new book -- one that he hopes will put his name back at the top of the charts after a few years off it. While living in the home, his daughter Ashley begins to act strangely. Ellison also discovers a cache of Super 8 footage that shows the truth behind the murders in the house -- and other murders. 

On the surface, this is probably one of the best ghost/supernatural monster stories to come out in years, and it (at least for me) was "scare the crap out of you" creepy. Nightmare-inducingly so. 

Beneath that surface, as we see Oswalt's struggle with his writing history and his new book, the movie has a lot to say about how we writers exist from book to book and how we are constantly needing to be and do more. 

Ten years ago, Ellison had a huge hit true crime book, one that helped shift the direction of a case and get the killer caught and brought to justice. But since? Crickets. Not only that, but he wrote a book that actually helped a killer go free. 

So, to say he is living with issues is one hell of an understatement. 

We Write Because We Have To

As writers we all have different catalysts for beginning to write, but ultimately we all keep writing for the same reason. We write because we are writers. We write because that's the action word that defines us. We write because we are driven to keep doing it. 

There are always thousands of other action words we could do -- cook, clean, manage, wait tables, code, etc. -- you name it, but because writing is the infection of choice, it's the thing we chase, the thing we do. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Kate Chopin: A Reawakening

Full disclosure. I teach Kate Chopin's The Awakening every year to my students when we reach our unit about literature as protest. And I fully believe her work is as seminal to the feminist experience as the works of Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, and Zora Neale Hurston are to desegratation. Not only that, it's a master class in writing outward clues to the subtle inner life of a character who is only slowly growing to actually DO anything as an act of her will. 

Okay, that said, I found this awesome documentary for my students to watch to introduce her work. So, now you have to suffer... I mean jump for joy through it too.

There's a bit from The Awakening that I think applies here to Kate herself, both as a woman and as a writer: "She was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her."

That's where we all start as creators though, isn't it? If we don't realize our positions as an individual with something worth saying and how crucial that message might be to the world within and around us, then what's the point of writing anything at all? It would be as empty as shoveling air into a truck for load after load all day as empty trucks drive off and return for another load of nothing. 

Write What You Know

From that kernel of knowing she was a unique individual with something to say, Kate found a voice that began with the stuff she had experienced and knew something about. 

Say's the narrator: 

"On the eve of the 20th century, Kate Chopin confronted the fundamental dilemma of what it meant to be a woman. In a stream of stories and in her novel, The Awakening, she explored the unsparing truth of women's submerged lives."

What Kate knew was what it meant to be a woman in the late 1800s, valued merely as a mom or wife, judged by housekeeping and childrearing with little thought given to dreams that may have reached beyond that cage. This idea wove into her work, from short stories such as "The Story of an Hour" and "A Pair of Silk Stockings" to her magnum opus novel The Awakening. 

I would guess that she wasn't trying to start a movement, just tell the kind of story she could relate to and she figured maybe other people could as well, society be damned. 

As the documentary voiceover tells us, "Chopin's stories were set in Louisiana in the aftermath of war. It would be a landscape she would draw from memory in the final years of her life." Perhaps that is why her settings seem so effortless and precise. And not only the settings but the people who, well, peopled them. As Barbara Ewell says:

"There was great demand for short fiction at that period, and one of the genres that was most popular was the one known as 'local color,' which offered descriptions of the varied parts of the country, exotic parts of the country. It was pretty clear to her early on that it was her southern stories, her Louisiana stories that sold... While the land inspired her imagination, her time there was limited."

No matter how limited, her experiences in New Orleans offered characters and settings to explore.

And explore them she did.

After her husband, Oscar, and her mother, Eliza, died, Kate was alone with six children to support on a modest income. In the 1880s, writing was one of the few ways women could make a living, averaging from "$l5 to $30 a story, and a few hundred for a novel" according to our narrator. So, at 45 years old, Chopin started on the path toward becoming a published writer.

Her first work was a poem that appeared in January 1889. However, she soon learned that her short stories were what was in demand -- and were her most successful published works. 

Write Passionately

Chopin's writing was not just filled with well-described settings and people though. It had a passion that was part of who she herself was. She chose short stories as a form because that's where her passion lay. 

Says Barbara Ewell: 

What drove Kate Chopin was her passion for writing, and her willingness to let writing take her into places that she had never been herself, necessarily. And certainly, the literary traditions out of which she came had never really gone.

Adding to this, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese says: 

She's one of those writers whose sense of craft puts her right on the edge of poetry... The writer she especially admired was the short story and novella writer, Guy de Maupassant, who perfected a kind of writing that she took very seriously.

'Here was life, not fiction," she wrote in a private diary aout the novella writer Guy de Maupassant. "Here was a man who escaped from tradition and authority, who had entered into himself and looked out upon life through his own being and with his own eyes; and who, in a direct and simple way, told us what he saw."

Write To Change the World,
(Even If It's Not Intentional)

In 1897, Chopin began work on her most ambitious novel, The Awakening. Understand, Chopin did not set out with the goal of becoming a feminist writer. Truth be told, she probably couldn't have told you what a feminist writer was, if such a thing existed in the zeitgeist of her times. What she did set out to do, however, was to tell stories about the human beings she knew inside and out -- people who just happened to be female and who just happened to be denied the very right to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness their husbands, fathers, and even sons could grasp on a daily basis. 

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese says: 

"With Chopin the dark crannies of the human soul were part of what is to be human. It was part of her war against platitudes. If you look only at the surfaces you're not going to begin to understand what people are about. It's a measure of both her talent and her character, her strength as a woman, that she didn't find the depths of the human soul, even human depravity, threatening."

Through Edna, Chopin wrote of what a life awakened to the idea of embracing the daily joys might mean... for a woman. Sure, a man could also identify with her needs (if you don't believe me, read Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome -- I once did a paper on how similar these two awakenings are), but to a woman reader, the story takes on an additional meaning, one that a man will not typically be able to identity as missing from his own life. 

Barbara Ewell says of this: 

Its spontaneity, and its physical demands opens up Edna to places in her heart and in her soul she'd lost contact with, maybe had never known were there...

I don't think any other writer of the period, certainly no male writer, and I don't think any other woman writer tried to understand what happens when a woman experiences her own sexual being and her own self. And of course, that's exactly the tragedy and the dilemma that Chopin is exploring in her fiction which is, what happens, how do you get past this, this bind for women that if you possess your own self, if you possess your own body, you know that the options the society offers you are marriage and death.

By novel's end, Edna has awakened to herself, but finds no place for that self in the world she knows. She swims out to sea till her strength is gone.

For Edna, awakening can bring only defeat. The world will simply not allow her to not be a "mother-woman." For Kate Chopin, the novel was something of a defeat as well. While there were a few positive letters and reviews, by and large, the reviews were critical and somewhat scathing. Americans, it seemed, simply were not ready for such emancipated fiction. 

The question was whether Americans were prepared to read such emancipated fiction. There were a few positive letters, but then the critical reviews came in.

David Chopin says of this: "They destroyed her spirit when they came out with all this adverse reaction and one of the newspapers called it pure poison and not fit for babes, and there was an awful lot of criticism."

The world isn't often ready to see change happen. 

Says Barbara Ewell: 

"Once you begin to push against those margins, against those limits, you begin to offend people. You begin to offend convention and expectations, and that's exactly what Kate Chopin ran into with The Awakening."

After such an unforgiving reception of the novel, Kate disappeared into her private life and became more or less obscure in literary circles. 

However, in the late 20th century, her work was rediscovered. Stories and books came back into print, and they found new audiences and new acceptance, even praise, among the critics. Not only that, her stories were being taught in schools, and let's be honest, that's what really brings a writer back from the etherous void.

So, even if she never saw it in her time or even approached writing as a form of protest or world-changing action, she accomplished it just the same. 

According to Emily Toth: 

I'd first read her when I was given a copy of The Awakening by a woman who said to me, "You should read this book," and the big question that we asked ourselves was how did Kate Chopin know all that in 1899?

Can you imagine someone asking something similar about you in the year 2099? Why not?

Movie Reviews for Writers: Fantastic Britain

What is it about Britain and the U.K. that fosters such a rich history of fantasy literature? Not only modern best-sellers like Harry Potter, but also classics like C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, Tolkien's Middle Earth books, George McDonald's children and adult fantasies, and Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Or does it begin long before that with the country's legends of King Arthur and his knights?

Or, is it as host Robin Bennett claims, that because of the rigid outer life of manners and mannerisms, the inner life of British writers is so filled with fantastic eccentricities?

Or perhaps it has more to do with Britain being geologically separated and having such a long history?

Or finally, does it have more to do with colonialism? Just like Britain took opium and other resources from countries, they also plundered the mythology and legends of the countries they suppressed. 

You can watch the documentary to find out for yourself. What I'm concerned about is more what this whimsical documentary has to say to us as writers. 

On that front, there's quite a bit to cover. 

Perhaps my favorite bit from this documentary hits at about the halfway point. It says quite adamantly that a write "can only get away with one big lie." Everything else must be true. For example, the narrator goes on to say, in Narnia the one big lie is a wardrobe that takes children to another world. After that, the characters must act and interact as if real. I love that. I think that works not just for fantasy but other genres as well. The suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far, after all. 

The next point is that of why Fantasy books, and books in general, matter. Sometimes a book is a child's (or an adult's I would add) only friend, a secret friend. I can vouch for this in my life. As a child I hid myself in my room during my years of having few friends and escaped into books, particularly my Childcraft Encyclopedias and my Illustrated Classics by Verne, Dickens, and Wells. You never know. That book you're writing at this very moment might be the safe haven some reader is looking for. 

The importance of Fantasy can't be overstated, regardless of how some wish to relegate it to childish flights of fancy. Without the safe otherworld provided by Fantasy literature, it might be too risky or painful to address certain topics. Fantasy can be a way of investigating things that are real, and perhaps things that are too sore to address directly. Dune (a sci-fi fantasy of the first order) deals with corporate greed in a way that makes readers think, maybe more than something more realistically based (like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle). Lord of the Rings can tell us more about the nature of humanity to embrace power for power's sake than a thousand biographies about famous politicians. 

There's also a great nod to the steadfastness of the writers themselves. After all, any author who can continue through the editing process without stopping and calling it quits is already a champion storyteller. And what process is that? Writing the first draft. Editing it. Finished the final draft to send to the publisher. Changing it yet again for a structural edit. After that, more changes for a story edit. Then a line edit. All through that the author is continuing to go back and redo work. That takes tremendous dedication.

The best way to close this review is with a quote from Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, that sums up the power of the Fantasy story--dreaming has no boundaries. Therefore, neither should dreamers who put these dreams onto paper and into digital devices. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Christmas in Connecticut

I'm a sucker for Barbara Stanwyck. Not only is she a compelling dramatic actress in such films as Double Indemnity and The Secret Loves of Martha Ivers and Meet John Doe, but she is also a gifted comedic genius, whether the sharp wit of Lady of Burlesque and Ball of Fire or the almost Lucille Ball-like sense of manic panic as it this one.  

Holiday movies, I'm not usually so much a fan. They tend to either smack of forced melodrama or cutesy romantic intrigue that's about as believable as the romance between Anakin and Padme. 

But I do love this charming little flick about a magazine writer who gets herself in trouble by "faking it" without "making it."

Stanwyck is Elizabeth Lane, a sort of Martha Stewart before there was a Martha Stewart. She writes home décor and cooking articles for a major magazine, and she's a rock star in the world of doilies and fancy dining. The only trouble is she's a total fake. When she is called out on it and has to put on a holiday dinner for a returning war hero, she finds that as a Fifth Avenue dame, she's way out of her element, no where close to the ranch, newborns, and homey world she pretends to inhabit. To save her job, she had to pull off the con of her life.

So, to use our writer slang, she fakes it. 

But making it, well, that's a little more difficult. 

It's a classic sort of screwball comedy, so the laughs are built around her flailing attempts to pretend to be a mother and a homemaker and a cook of the first order, all while balancing a pretend husband and the soldier she finds herself falling for. But underneath all those laughs (and trust me, there are a lot -- Stanwyck gets accolades for her dramatic thrillers but not nearly enough for her comedy chops, if you ask me) is a cautionary tale about writing what you know. 

Have you ever taken on a writing assignment that was clearly out of your depth, the sort of job where you figure you can learn everything you need to know to make it happen by the deadline? The kind you sort of bluff your way through the initial meeting, knowing it will "all be fine"? 

• Accepting a blog writing gig for B2B articles for a corporate client
• Ghostwriting a romance book when you do mainly thrillers
• Editing a textbook in a subject you know little about

Sure, research is always a writer's best friend, and the only way to grow into new areas of "writing what you know" is to learn new things. But there's a difference between pushing yourself and cheating your client or publisher. Let's say you've worked for a company in a similar industry. Well, then, that blog article might not be too much of a stretch with a rudimentary bit of research. Let's say you've only blogged about sports and the client is in international cosmetics. Then, that rudimentary research turns into a doctorate-level dive that might mean you turn in work that might (a) misrepresent your client or (b) reveal your lack of knowledge. 

Now, that's a rather extreme example, and that's a far cry from thriller writers trying their hands at romance -- as long as both the publisher knows up front it's that writer's first excursion into romance. And proofreading that textbook might not be an issue, whereas content editing it might. 

The simple truth of it all is this: Unlike Stanwyck's Elizabeth Lane, you and I don't usually have the kind of people on hand to pull ourselves out of the fire if we misrepresent ourselves, and even if we did, it doesn't override the moral obligation to be honest in our business dealings with our writing. The trick is to know where that fine line between "I can research this" and "I will have to fake this" lies. One side is fair play. The other is dirty pool. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Salem's Lot

Stephen King is perhaps the writer most guilty (not that it's a bad thing) of using writers as his main characters. You'll find them everywhere in his work. 

Secret Window. The Shining. Misery. But this wonderful vampire flick is often forgotten among King's writer stories. 

David Soul (Starsky and Hutch) is Ben Mears, a successful novelist who has returned to the town in which he grew up so he can be near the old Marsten house, a building that has haunted him since he was a kid and that he wants to write about in his newest novel. Only, the house is soon to become a nest of creatures of the night that plan to take over the town of Salem's Lot. While most of the movie's plot is focused on the action of trying to fight the vamps as they grow in number and become an increasingly dangerous infestation in town, there are several moments when Ben gets to demonstrate the way being a writer affects his life. 

For starters, perhaps the most common stereotype of a writer is based in the need to be valued as an author, to have been read, and to be appreciated for what he or she or they contributed to the world. When Mears goes into the local property rental company to see about renting the Marsten house, he is confronted by the owner Larry Crockett, played with subtle comedic panache by Fred Willard.

Crockett: Are you a writer?

Mears: Yes.

Crockett: What do you write?

Mears: Books.

Crockett: Have I read any?

Mears: Have you read any books?

Crockett: Your books.

Mears: I don't know.

I remember when I visited the library in the town I grew up in a few after I had become a published author, and particularly after having several books on the shelves in Barnes & Noble, and even one in Wal-Mart. I had a conversation very similar to this with the librarian when I dropped off a few of my books. While I was reminiscing about looking up "wrong" books and making out with my then girlfriend in one of the nonfiction aisles back in my younger days at that very library, she was gazing through me, ready to ask the question: "Anything I might have read?"

It's the question that sounds an awful lot like "Are you a New York Times best-seller or do you have a movie based on one of your books? If not, why would I care?"

It can hurt the first time you hear it. Then it becomes a sort of expected inside joke between you and every other writer you know. 

There's a famous quote that goes like this: You can't go home again. There's a lot of psychological and emotional truth to that statement, but it's a truth we writers tend to ignore and always go back home again. 

For some (like me) it's literally turning my MeMe's house into my preferred writer haven, physically going home (since we moved around a lot, MeMe's house was my only real home growing up) again to find my most at peace place to write. 

For others it's returning to the themes and story ideas of our earlier work (whether finished or just old ideas jotted down in notebooks) to return home to the parts of you that made you want to write in the first place. 

For Mears, it's a combination of both. The Marsten house has haunted him since he was a child, and he not only wants to return to it as inspiration for his new novel, but he also needs to return home physically to be near it (since he couldn't rent it himself and live in it to write). While on a date with a local teacher, Susan Norton, Mears confesses the following:

Norton: You had to come home. Retreat.

Mears: Sanctuary. I was all beat up. Glad to have a little loving care.

Norton: How long since your wife died?

Mears: Two years.

Norton: Are you writing about that?

Mears: No. I'm writing about a house.

Norton: A house?

Mears: The Marsten house.

Norton: The Marsten house? I see. No, I don't see. 

Of course Susan doesn't see. It's not her "home again." It's Mears' compulsion, not hers. Only he truly understands why he wants or needs to write about that house. Just like only you understand why you want or need to write about zombies or growing up in the city or raising horses or superheroes in space or, well, whatever. 

Last, Mears has an opportunity to catch up with a former teacher, Mr. Burke to share something vital to all creators of fiction. 

Mears: My name is Ben Mears. You probably don't remember me.

Burke: Of course I do. I've read your books.

Mears: I wouldn't have written them if it hadn't been for you.

Burke: You just said a very large thing. I'd like you to explain it to me.

For me, Mr. Burke was Ms. Geraldine Warren, my high school Literature and Composition teacher. She's the one who instilled in me a love for reading and writing. And Shakespeare, but that's a story for another time. At the college level it was an American Lit professor, David, with whom I became a friend over the course of the class (I really wanted to say "course of the course") and kept in touch with over lunch afterward. He ignited my zeal and passion for short stories. 

It's Burke's line "You just said a very large thing" that resonates in this exchange, at least to me. 

At the time they were inspiring me, neither David nor Ms. Warren knew anything about the thing they were causing to happen inside me. Hell, neither did I. Not really, anyway. Not fully. It was only in hindsight I could see the picture form in its entirety. And it was a very large thing. And I do wish I could let them both know now that "I wouldn't have written them if it hadn't been for you." 

One has died, and the other has been lost across the changing of the Web from bulletin board systems to the original AOL to a real web of interconnected websites and various trendy email services of the moment. So, I really have no way to let them know. 

All that to say, tell somebody if you still can. Find your Mr. Burke. 

It's telling in this conversation that Mr. Burke actually knew about Mears' writing and had read his books, as opposed to the conversation with Mr. Crockett. The people who matter, ultimately really matter to you as an author, they'll know. They'll value you. They'll have read your work. They'll appreciate your contributions. And they'll have most likely been there throughout the journey in more cases than not. But you'll never know unless you let them know how important they are to your writer's life. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Dirty Work

Sometimes reviewing films is hard work. When you have to weigh the lessons that writers can pick up from the movie and basically divorce that from the movie itself (in some cases), that can make the review even harder. 

That's kind of the case with this steamy thriller about, Arabella Childs, a young woman pulled into a plot by a erotic female novelist, Marylin Blacklock-Charterhouse, who is apparently at the mercy of an abusive husband. Yes, Virginia, that does sound a bit like a lesbian retelling of Body Heat and Double Indemnity. And it is basically a soft-core version of the noir standard. While this flick isn't a product of the 1990s, it would have been right at home on USA Late Night back in the day. 

Okay, now that all that is out of the way, this is a sort of fun little thriller that is not for all viewers. But if you enjoyed movies like the two mentioned above and DePalma's Dressed to Kill, well, this isn't on that level. But, if you like a little cheese and low-budget fun with your murder and seduction, then you might enjoy this one. 

But does it actually have anything to say about being a writer between all the kinky stuff? Actually, yes. And some of it might ring really close to home (pardon the cliché) for some writers who watch it. 

For example, one of the key arguments that leads to the marital discontent is that Marylin hasn't had a real hit in a year. Not only that, she has been writing her own sexual frustrations with her husband into her work. 

We all tend to include stuff from reality in our fiction, but we tend to be a bit more subtle than sharing our significant other's inability to, shall we say, keep us satisfied. 

Particularly, indie and mid-list writers face the lack of income issues that can come up with spouses/significant others who feel they are supporting the writing partners dream without any return. And trust me, that can become an issue. So, like I said, that hits close to home. 

However, the one key moment in Dirty Work that I want to zero in on is this one. While doing an interview to promote her upcoming book, Marylin is told by the interviewer how much he feels like he knows her based on her work that she has read. She is quick to correct him. 

"You know the me from the fantasies I used to have, not the the ones I have now." 

Do you ever feel this way? You've changed and your writing has changed, but your readers still only see the you from the past. It's probably most common for series writers, particularly those who move on from the fan-loved series to something new, or, God forbid, a new genre. 

People grow. And that includes writers. But books don't. (We're not counting movie adaptations here, just the words as they appear in our works.) The opinions and interpretations by critics and reviewers may and will change, but not the works they are critiquing and reviewing. 

Whether The Awakening is viewed as feminist literature or universal literature 100 years from now, or even some new literary understanding we haven't encountered yet, none of that will change the actual words Kate Chopin wrote. The same applies to your work. 

Your readers will always know you by what you've created and published, not by who you are. They will never have a window to the present you, only a recorded history of the you that used to be. And that will always be the way they judge you. 

What does that mean for the writer? In a perfect world, nothing, because as the writer grows the readers should either fall by the wayside or grow with us. But in a smaller, net-connected world, sadly, there will be those who refuse to see beyond the work of your past and expect you to keep bashing out the same themes and styles and genres and stories you did fifteen years ago. Their sense of entitlement will demand it of them. 

Your job doesn't change. Grow. Write. Grow some more. Write some more. Keep revealing the new you with every stroke of the pen (sorry, every click-clatter of the keyboard, though that doesn't sound nearly as fancy -- damn you, technology for ruining our pretty metaphors).

Movie Reviews for Writers: One Man's Poison

Janet Frobisher is a writer with a problem. She's got "Betty Davis Eyes." Okay, that's a song pun, not the actual problem. The problem is that she a crime writer who thinks that writing about crime will enable her to actually commit murder and get away with it. 

Now, I'm not saying that we thriller writers tend to try out hand at real-life murder to prove a point, but I'm willing to bet that most of us have already planned and committed at least a handful of ghastly killings and other crimes in our imaginations (even if they don't eventually make it onto the page.) It can't really be helped. It's just the way our minds work. 

And it's a good thing that we don't actually try it because we'd quickly learn that no matter how well we plan the ideal murder in our books, we'd always leave out that one key thing that gets us caught. Murder is like dialog for writers. We don't try to capture true speech with all it's uhs and ums and stops and start-overs -- we create the illusion of true speech for the page. In the same way, we don't create true murder, we present the illusion of murder. We control all the variables, so of course we'd never get caught. 

Real life seldom works that way. 

But enough about murder. Let's talk about writing. 

One of my favorite bits of dialog in this tightly woven, tense little thriller is this: "You asked a pretty question," says Frobisher to her secretary. "I've given you the ugly answer."

This, my friends, is the essence of most of fiction. Giving ugly answers to pretty questions. 

One of the most consistent movements in the history of fiction storytelling is the push from the pretty and the simple to the more real ugly truth and the more complex. Even with our constant belief in the axiom that "fiction is escapism" -- that escapism is the cloud with the dark lining. 

Sure, there will always be readers who look for light, fluffy fun, where the good guys always beat the bad guys and lovers always end up hand in hand, but in order for fiction to tell even those stories well, those good guys need to lose often enough to make winning seem like something gained and those lovers need to face the kind of troubles that cause them to really fight for and work toward achieving that happy ending. 

And that doesn't even bring in the world's most renowned works, which are typically those focused on suffering -- War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Romeo and Juliet, Ethan Frome, The Awakening, The Turning of the Screw, and the list goes on. 

Readers ask pretty questions. We writers provide the ugly answers. 

Here's another of my favorite lines: "Yes, the night air teems with unexpected guests. Sounds like Shakespeare but isn't."

Frobisher says this to show off how well read and literary she is as a writer, but the truth of the line goes far deeper than that. More often than not, it's "Sounds like Shakespeare because it is." 

So much of our characterization and even bits of dialog comes from the Bard. Something wicked this way comes. Get the to a nunnery. Soft, what light through yonder window breaks. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. 

And not just quotes but also plots. Sons avenging dead fathers. Families falling apart over how legacies are given and properties are divided. Ill-fated lovers from different sides of the tracks. Mistrustful husbands and wives. Fathers who play tricks to make sure the boys who chase their daughters are worthy. True loves who are too dumb to notice they're the yin to each other's yang. 

It's all from Shakespeare. So yeah, sounds like Shakespeare because it is.

Finally, there is this exchange between Frobisher and Dr. Henderson about he (not so) secret connection between a writer and her readers: 

Janet Frobisher: Hello, doctor how are you?

Dr. Henderson: Intrigued, Mrs. Frobisher. Intrigued.

Janet Frobisher: Oh, really. Why?

Dr. Henderson: Well, I come to the station to pick up my serums, and what do I find? My neighbor, who has a telephone in every room, and has walked miles to a phone box in a deserted station.

Janet Frobisher: You've been reading too many thrillers, doctor. 

Actually, my line is out of order.

Dr. Henderson: You can better me to thrillers, mrs. Frobisher. In any other author's detective stories I spot the murderer not later than chapter two. Yours invariably baffle me, until the middle of chapter four.

Janet Frobisher: You have an unfair advantage. You know the way my brain works.

Wow. So much to unpack in that short bit of dialog. 

First, I love how Dr. Henderson models the type of detective instincts common to the sleuths of novels and short stories. It's the context clues, not the police procedures, that solve the crime. It's the instinct of the detective, not the practices of the detective, to which, Frobisher is able to quickly show how unreliable that sort of bookish approach can be in reality outside the "rules" of setting and story. But that's the beauty of the fictional detective story, isn't it? They have to be sort of outside the norm, that and above it as well. That's why they are main protagonists and not background police clerks. 

Second, we get a really good look at the contract between the reader and the writer of mystery stories. How often do you hear readers complain that either (a) they figured out the mystery in the early pages of the book or (b) they feel like the writer cheated and didn't reveal all the facts so they could solve the mystery themselves. Rarely do we get that perfect third option (and even then I mostly saw it in Encyclopedia Brown stories when I was just a kid) in which all the clues are there for us, but like the detective, we have to put them together and find them in their subtlety. 

So, even Dr. Henderson's "compliment" that he has to wait until chapter four to solve the mystery is still a rather backhanded one. But, as I mentioned in the review of Agatha and the Truth of Murder, once readers learn our tells, or the way our "brains work," they have us over the proverbial barrel. 

So, mystery writer beware, and learn how to keep your readers on their toes, all the while being fair with them if you're writing a whodunit.

But most important, when it comes to murder, don't try this at home.

Movie Reviews for Writers: Writers Retreat

Of all the horror or thriller movies based on a writer main character, perhaps the two most common settings are (1) the writer on a personal retreat to the middle of nowhere to overcome writers block and (2) the writers group. Together, these form the bulk of the writer-based movies in this genre. And why? Because both are fantastic places to tell stories of horror and terror.

The writer alone in an unknown place. 

The writer surrounded by people he/she/they don't know who may or may not be just another writer. 

Gripping stuff, this. In either setting, you have a writer off their beaten path, their normal process. And that always makes us vulnerable. Without our favorite chair, our comfortable distance to the coffee pot, our familiar surroundings and patterns, we feel off-kilter, sometimes unsure of our psychic footing (so to speak). That creates the perfect recipe into which to drop a dollop of fear and danger to a compelling movie. 

But it also can create a real-world sort of writer-based terror in some. The idea of sharing our work may fill us with trepidation and self-doubt. The idea of listening to others more than the voices in our heads may irritate us or activate feelings of social anxiety. The mere rearranging of our routines and patterns for work may either disparage us or shut us down entirely. We may feel lost. 

In this film, young author Zandra leads a writers' group charged with a weekend retreat to face the emotional truths of their writing. To amp up the tension, the retreat is being held on an island that is shut off from the mainland most of the day because of the tides that shut down the roads. 

While the movie's focus is on the tension and eventually the borderline Giallo style murders, it's pretty accurate in regards to writer retreats and those who attend them. It also highlights quite a few of the issues that pop up at such retreats. 

As far as the members, we meet them in a fairly common exercise for small groups, with members pairing up and then getting to know their partners and introducing them. It's a by the numbers activity lifted from the "How to Lead a Writers' Group" handbook, as are many of the exercises and group activities and writing assignments shown in the film. 

They include: the older woman writing children's books, the older man writing his memoir of his time in the war, the avant-garde Artiste, the newby who thinks she may have what it takes, the horror writer obsessed with violence. They're all there. 

And with them come their hang ups and the issues that add to the tension. They all tend to dismiss the woman telling tales of turtles (named after her kids) for children. The purveyor of "fine literature considers everything anyone else writes to be utter trash created purely for profits and not art. No one remotely tries to understand or appreciate the chosen genres or styles of the other writers. And the writer of the war story keeps waiting to be recognized for his stellar talent and story just waiting to be told. Throughout it all, the newby offers meaningless "critiques" that are primarily gushes over the ability to be there at all with the others. 

At the heart of it all -- the relationships, the writing exercise, the killings, all of it -- is the idea of getting to the heart of and living (or writing) the truth of your feelings. Your feelings as a writer. The feelings of your characters. Getting all that onto your pages. 

That's the goal, isn't it? Without getting to the truth of who you are as a writer and who your characters are and what they want, nothing in your work rings true, does it? 

So, in spite of being a fairly by the numbers thriller, Writers Retreat actually has a lot to say about writers and the craft -- at least until the night of the slaughter. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Christmas in Connecticut

I'm a sucker for Barbara Stanwyck. Not only is she a compelling dramatic actress in such films as Double Indemnity and The Secret Loves of Martha Ivers and Meet John Doe, but she is also a gifted comedic genius, whether the sharp wit of Lady of Burlesque and Ball of Fire or the almost Lucille Ball-like sense of manic panic as it this one.  

Holiday movies, I'm not usually so much a fan. They tend to either smack of forced melodrama or cutesy romantic intrigue that's about as believable as the romance between Anakin and Padme. 

But I do love this charming little flick about a magazine writer who gets herself in trouble by "faking it" without "making it."

Stanwyck is Elizabeth Lane, a sort of Martha Stewart before there was a Martha Stewart. She writes home décor and cooking articles for a major magazine, and she's a rock star in the world of doilies and fancy dining. The only trouble is she's a total fake. When she is called out on it and has to put on a holiday dinner for a returning war hero, she finds that as a Fifth Avenue dame, she's way out of her element, no where close to the ranch, newborns, and homey world she pretends to inhabit. To save her job, she had to pull off the con of her life.

So, to use our writer slang, she fakes it. 

But making it, well, that's a little more difficult. 

It's a classic sort of screwball comedy, so the laughs are built around her flailing attempts to pretend to be a mother and a homemaker and a cook of the first order, all while balancing a pretend husband and the soldier she finds herself falling for. But underneath all those laughs (and trust me, there are a lot -- Stanwyck gets accolades for her dramatic thrillers but not nearly enough for her comedy chops, if you ask me) is a cautionary tale about writing what you know. 

Have you ever taken on a writing assignment that was clearly out of your depth, the sort of job where you figure you can learn everything you need to know to make it happen by the deadline? The kind you sort of bluff your way through the initial meeting, knowing it will "all be fine"? 

• Accepting a blog writing gig for B2B articles for a corporate client
• Ghostwriting a romance book when you do mainly thrillers
• Editing a textbook in a subject you know little about

Sure, research is always a writer's best friend, and the only way to grow into new areas of "writing what you know" is to learn new things. But there's a difference between pushing yourself and cheating your client or publisher. Let's say you've worked for a company in a similar industry. Well, then, that blog article might not be too much of a stretch with a rudimentary bit of research. Let's say you've only blogged about sports and the client is in international cosmetics. Then, that rudimentary research turns into a doctorate level dive that might mean you turn in work that might (a) misrepresent your client or (b) reveal your lack of knowledge. 

Now, that's a rather extreme example, and that's a far cry from thriller writers trying their hands at romance -- as long as both the publisher knows up front it's that writer's first excursion into romance. And proofreading that textbook might not be an issue, whereas content editing it might. 

The simple truth of it all is this: Unlike Stanwyck's Elizabeth Lane, you and I don't usually have the kind of people on hand to pull ourselves out of the fire if we misrepresent ourselves, and even if we did, it doesn't override the moral obligation to be honest in our business dealings with our writing. The trick is to know where that fine line between "I can research this" and "I will have to fake this" lies. One side is fair play. The other is dirty pool.

Movie Reviews for Writers: Shortcut to Happiness

Remember "The Devil and Daniel Webster"? Do you remember the part where Daniel Webster takes over a publishing house and helps a writer who sold his soul to the devil, played by a particularly minx-ish Jennifer Love Hewitt? No? Me neither. 

Still, this "inspired by" story has a lot to say about both the desires of writers and learning to be satisfied with one's lot in life. And about the longing to be remembered. 

Jabez Stone (Alex Baldwin), jealous of the success of a fellow writer and in the middle of one of the worst days of his (or anyone's) life, offers his eternal soul for happiness and success. Of course, the sultry and ever vigilant Satan (Hewitt) shows up at his door with the answer to all his problems and masterfully twists his wishes in classic Faustian style. 

When she first asks Jabez what he wants from life, he answers from the heart:

Jabez: I want to write great books that last.

Devil: I can't help you with that. That's a matter of talent.

Can you identify with that? I certainly can. I've long said that my goal as a writer is to write stories that are studied by future generations. I too want to write stories that last, stories that matter, stories that outlive me to keep me alive (in a sense). And I have a feeling I'm not alone in that. 

Of course when the Devil (through the business of publishing books) gets a hold of his goal, she turns his definition of success into something more measurable in dollars and sales and lifestyle achieved. She twists "books that last" into "achieving celebrity through writing." 

Devil: You want to be a success.

Jabez: Yes! (excitedly)

Devil: Your want to be a success so you can write great books and people will appreciate your talents,  is that right?

Jabez: Yes. (less excitedly)

Devil: Then you've come to the right person. 

And she lives up to her bargain. Jabez gets a huge book deal, a hefty advance, a new apartment, women wanting him... but he isn't happy with his work. He knows it's crap, but the publisher keeps him so busy with publicity and constantly changes his work to make it more commercial and his ideal dream of success falls away to feed the machine. His work isn't recognized by critics, nor are the films received well at all -- outside of the box office. Money isn't the problem. 

The problem is that (pardon my use of the business cliches) his cheese moved, or his goalpost shifted. 

He's so busy keeping up a writer's persona that he can't write the kind of stuff that he dreamed of having stick around to be his legacy. 

When he confronts the Devil about that, she quickly corrects him, reminding him that, "You're successful, aren't you?" He nods, and gives a less than enthusiastic response, to which she replies, "This is not some fantasy where you sit in a rocking chair and write essays about the human condition."

But that's what he wanted all along. To matter to readers, not to matter to the machine. 

I won't spoil the whys but suffice it to say that later in the film, Daniel Webster (played by the brilliant Anthony Hopkins) defends Jabez's original dream in front of a jury of writers that includes Jacqueline Suzanne, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Mario Puzo, Oscar Wilde, and other famous writers. 

What he says in that defense perhaps matters most of all to us as writers:

But when Mr. Stone came to her, or rather when she came to Mr. Stone, what my client really wanted was readers. He wanted people to read what he wrote. He's a writer oh, that's what writers want. An audience, an audience for his words, for his vision, for his truth, if you will.

Read that again. If it doesn't hit home for you, then maybe you're just feeding the machine too (whichever level of machine you write for). 

Then, to drive the point home, Webster adds: "It's good to have someone around to remind us."

Agreed. 

One other point I want to mention from this cool flick. We all need a Mike in our lives. 

Before his deal with the Devil, Jabez was friends with a group of writers who were all struggling for that first sale to a publishing house. Among that group of friends is a guy named Mike. Unfortunately, that relationship between Mike and Jabez doesn't fare too well in the midst of all the business and success Jabez experiences. 

When accepting an award for his latest novel, Jabez interrupts his acceptance speech to indulge his regrets instead. 

When I was younger he was the first guy I'd show my stuff to. Mike was a tough critic. He had a great bullshit detector. But when he liked something, well, that was a good day.

When he lost Mike, he lost his way. When he lost his soul, he lost the very thing that drove his writing to be something other than "shit." It's a lesson he learned too late -- quite often the success we think we want isn't the success we really want.

Movie Reviews for Writers: Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show

I've been rediscovering Giallo works that I managed to miss somehow, and this is one of those beautiful films that blurs the lines between horror and Giallo. 

Horror movie director Alessio is a talented visual storyteller but not as talented when it comes to writing the story he uses the camera to tell. So his producer hooks him up with master horror writer Ubaldo Terzani, the author of many bestselling scary novels. 

Immediately, Alessio picks up a full run of Ubaldo's work, and finds himself thoroughly engrossed in them. When he first meets the master, his first question is the obvious one:

Alessio: How do you write books with such realistic horror? I mean your stories are creepy. They have a concreteness that you do not find in the pages of any other writer of this genre.

Ubaldo: Maybe because the others are amateur. (Ubaldo laughs)

Alessio: Come on, seriously.

Ubaldo: Look. I know horror because I go deep into it to look. I make pacts with my ghosts. I speak to them daily. It's as if I am my right eye and they are my left eye.

Alessio: That's a vague explanation. 

Ubaldo: Then try to be more precise. What else do you want to know?

Alessio: I don't know. Perhaps there is something that inspires you. For example, perhaps your crude scenes were assisted by observing autopsies.

Ubaldo: Autopsies. No, they are the easy way out that I willingly leave to the mediocre writers like Clive Barker (Ubaldo laughs). There's no need for the help of observing autopsies to know horror. The horror is inside of you. It is deep down inside of you where you have to look to pull it out and then work with fantasy. To achieve excellence, we have to destroy the common belief that in order to write certain stories we have to give them directly. there is nothing more false.

It's clearly the more spiritual, more magical, more "art" side of writing rather than the practical, the day-in-day-out, the "craft" side of writing. I know and love authors from both sides of this. I have writer friends who define what they do as some kind of intrinsic, born-with-it art with a capital A. I have writer friends who believe that it's nothing more than a learned and practiced skill set that comes with diligent work. And I have lots of writer friends who believe in a combination of the two extremes. 

But the question of research is another one entirely, in this case, on display as "autopsies." There are simply things that you can't know as a writer without research. There are things that if you fake them in your writing, you will be called out by readers as a fraud. When it comes to science and history and geographic details (along with many other things), research matters, regardless of whether you practice ART or CRAFT. 

Then there's the discussion on whether we writers follow our own rules and advice or not, but we'll cover that in a moment. 

Back to the story, though, where our dear Ubaldo is practically the devil at the crossroads. He's clearly playing with Alessio. This is illustrated magnificently in a scene in which Alessio insists his character Martina would not be so easily seduced by an old man, after which Ubaldo describes the scene and sets it so vividly with details that even Alessio (suddenly finding himself in the Martina role) all but is seduced by the old master of words himself. It's a beautiful way of capturing how it's not the words and characters themselves but the delivery and portrayal of them by the writer that ultimately makes them real, no matter how imaginary they may be. 

 Ubaldo convinces Alessio to invite his girlfriend to the mansion, and during that time he hears the words we all long to as writers (upon learning that Sara has read all the books in her boyfriend's time with Ubaldo). "It was like a drug," she tells him. "I couldn't stop. I read them all."

The remainder of the film sets up a pretty cool contrast between a "live by the sword, die by the sword" moral and the truth that we writers often say one thing but live another. 

You see, we writers tend not to live by our own rules. It is one thing to tell our trade secrets in interviews, but it's another to actually live by all those things we purport to. 

"I always do this," we may say on a podcast, but the truth is often that we did it once or twice and found it worked well for us, but we quickly forgot about it until the interview question triggered the memory.

To say more at this point would be to spoil this bloody, artsy, beautifully deranged movie. Suffice it to say, it's one thing to be the writer you are in interviews, but another to be the writer you are in reality. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Hush

Hush reminds me a lot of the Audrey Hepburn thriller Wait Until Dark from 1967. It's a super creepy pseudo-horror flick that teaches the bad guys not to assume the upper hand when trying to terrorize someone with a disability. Whereas in Hepburn's flick, she was blind, in Hush, Kate Seigel is deaf and mute. But far from helpless. 

And she's also a writer, hence her inclusion here. 

Maddie, played with great skill by Seigel, has moved from the city to the middle of nowhere (as far as we know from the context within the film, only one neighbor) to focus on her writing after city life was becoming non-conducive to her process. It's while there that she is attacked by a serial killer who has already targeted her neighbor. 

Simple plot, great plotting, and some awesome character stuff while Maddie and her attacker take their roles as cat and mouse. 

Like most movies about writers, this one begins with Maddie experiencing writer's block. Hopefully, her new setting in the woods will help her overcome it. 

The trouble with that idea that ties a writer's ability to write to a location or single process is that none of it changes the writer's inside (what my Papa used to call) gumption. There's a saying that, "wherever you go, there you are." Basically, it says that you're still the same you, regardless of where you are. The same problems you are facing and finding insurmountable will follow you. 

And that is exactly what happens to Maddie. Not even her new location can get her past her story hurdle. She has a story almost done that she loves, but she's stumped on the ending. There are just too many options. She's not just stymied by the choices, she's up against the proverbial wall and just can't move on. Her backspace key is really getting a workout as she grows more and more frustrated with any of her choices. She's facing a sort of analysis paralysis in terms of how to end her book. 

It then that we the audience enter the land of metaphor (while sadly, Maddie is stuck in her reality). We get to experience how her fight for her life echoes her plight at figuring an ending for her novel. We get to put the various pieces of the puzzle together while she struggles to survive. 

It's a fascinating dichotomy for a thriller about a writer, and it's one of the choices that makes this home invasion story so compelling and amazing.  

"I have a voice in my head," she tells her neighbor early in the movie. "My mom calls it writer brain."

We all do, don't we? We have that part of our psyche that really groks stories, that really runs a 24/7 network of our greatest hits and most annoying letdowns as writers. It's a constant stream of story bits and bobs that either tease us mercilessly or eventually get figured out and captured on paper. 

When writer brain works, it's super helpful. 

When writer brain doesn't work, it's pretty damn irritating. 

In an inspired bit of storytelling by the director, we are invited into Maddie's writer brain to see how she plays out possibilities in her head (reminds me a bit of Scare Me, reviewed her earlier, in that sense). As she looks through her glass door to see the killer smiling at her, she tells herself there are too many endings, the same thing she said earlier when discussing her book. 

She tries every option from bargaining to hiding to escape, but none of it works. At one point she even writes on the sliding glass door that she never saw the masked killer's face, so he could safely leave without her identifying him. His response is perfect for the stumped author -- he removes his mask and smiles at her as if to say, "Not an option." 

It's one of the creepiest "I want you to know that I'm going to kill you" scenes in modern cinema. 

Then we see her follow each possible ending through to its logical conclusion until she is certain she has only one real choice if she wants to survive -- and of course it's the one she likes the least, as it means hiding or getting outside help isn't an option. 

Ironically, or perfectly fitting for the movie's plot, it is precisely her experience with the attacker that gives her what she needs to really focus on the ending of her ordeal (and we assume, apply that same focus to her fiction).

Movie Reviews for Writers: The Darkness

Because you've been so good this Halloween season, here's an extra movie review for writers for your candy bag. Enjoy!

Have you figured out yet that I'm a sucker for indie thrillers and indie horror? Well, this is another that I'm so glad I discovered. It's a low-budget, but well directed and acted, moody movie with a sort of invisible shout-out to the work of Hammer's House of Horror.

Lisa and David have booked a working vacation in Ireland so he can work on a business plan and she can begin work on her next book. He is easily distracted by the constant ringing of his cell phone calling him away from her, and she is plagued by the fear that she is an imposter as a writer. 

Lisa: I don't want to be a one-book wonder.

David: Babe,  you're book was great. You sold 200,000 copies. That's no joke for a first time writer. Just listen to your publicist. Keep writing. Something will come. 

Lisa: Yeah, but rom con wasn't exactly what I had in mind, and I donw know, I feel like I have this urge to write something and it is burning, but I have no idea where to start. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I'm not making any sense, am I?

David: Sometimes you just need to be practical. Write for the right market. Write for yourself. Can't you do both?

Lisa: I just need some inspiration. that house is beautiful. That house is inspiration. I just need to put on my big girl pants and get out my typewriter and start typing. It'll be legendary. Because I'm legendary.

Does any of this discussion sound familiar? There's so much to unpack in it. 

1. Who doesn't suffer from the fear they'll never recapture the lightning in a bottle of a previous work?

2. The work is in the writing. So keep writing. 

3. Ever feel typecast as a writer of a certain genre and feel you can't break out? I do. I feel like my entire writing life (wouldn't call it a career) has been to move from one genre to another for a few stories at a time, at least until my recent foray into new pulp stories, where I feel I've been hanging out for longer than normal. 

4. Put on your big girl pants and write. Screw inspiration. It'll come when you show it you mean business with or without. 

5. Write for the market or write for yourself. There's no real wrong answer here, as long as you enjoy what you're writing. When you don't, that's a sign to change gears, even if just temporarily. And yes, you can do both? (This is not to be wrapped up in "chasing the markets" though, because that's trend-chasing, and you'll almost always be behind it.)

The one I really want to zero in on though is this one: I have an urge to write something and it's burning, but I don't know where to start. 

This can plague us all. It's usually a sure-fire sign that you're onto something awesome that will change the way you write. The trouble is that until you've done it, you're not that writer yet. You're a work in progress, and that "in progress" can be the kind of thing that either drives you on or locks you down. 

Luckily, for Lisa, that "burning urge" is something awesome, as she discovers a journal written by a woman who used to live on the land. It tells the story of Niav, an orphan who was married and happy, at least until... (okay, no spoilers). 

There are lots of movies that use the story within a story mechanic, but few that use a story about a writer within a story about a writer, and that makes this movie so much fun. Niav wanted to write her own journey to happiness, thus she started the journal, and Lisa finds her story so compelling she decides to make it the basis for ner next novel -- her own twist on the rom-com rut she's feels pigeonholed into. 

As Lisa begins to read and then write Niav's story, she learns a few things about the ways stories work in terms of building relationships and even community. 

The first lesson is that stories create bonds between people. Or in her case, between people and ghosts. But the truth is still the truth -- stories create bonds. 

I've seen it over and over again, from a love of Pride and Prejudice to a love of Edgar Rice Burroughs to a love of Zora Neale Hurston. The stories are the glue that gets folks talking and sharing and holds and creates relationships. 

Those bonds last. Those bonds defy and cross everything from racial to socio-economic to political divisions. Those bonds, that love of particular stories and authors, they tie people together in all the ways that even ideals and religions can't. 

And never discount this -- your stories can and will do the same thing. 

The second lesson is that stories are reminders, in this case even for ghosts. 

In Lisa's case, the best way to protect herself was to remind Niav of the story she told via the journal, to allow her to be herself again and not just vengeance in spirit form.

In my life, I learned this first hand with one of my sons. He has rapid shift bipolar, and the one constant is the story he has in his head of who he wants to be. So when all else failed, when the most obvious response was another argument or confrontation, I learned that by retelling that story and appealing to his desire to that person was the way to build common ground and remind him of the kind of hero he wanted to be in his story. 

The beauty of this lesson is that it doesn't just apply to readers but to the creators of stories too. Each time I re-read (or listen to the audiobook version of) one of my stories, I remember a lot of things that work-a-day stress and annoyances try to make me forget. I remember why I love to write. I remember how much my characters have meant to me as I told their stories. And I remember who I am through re-experiencing the stories.