Currently in Progress -- Movie Reviews for Writers!

 Movie Reviews for Writers: 75 Movies About Writers and What You Can Learn from Them​

Movies matter. As long as movies are about people—even people like Marvin the Manic Depressive Robot or a monster like the one created by Victor Frankenstein—they will matter. Movies, like books and radio dramas and tales around the fireplace or campfire, introduce to people, some like us, some vastly different, some good, some bad, and some in those wonderful shades between the two (my favorite people, hands down).

     —From the Introduction

Movies  include:

1. A Fantastic Fear of Everything
2. House
3. Paris When It Sizzles
4. Stories We Tell
5. An American Ghost Story
6. Kill Your Darlings
7. Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key
8. Tatami
9. The Haunting of M.R. James
10. The Adventures of Anais Nin
11. Playhouse
12. They Live Inside Us
13. Authors Anonymous
14. Peripheral
15. The Nesting
16. Dead Poets Society
17. Shadowlands
18. Howling IV
19. Finding Forrester
20. Valerie on the Stairs
21. The Owl and the Pussycat
22. Scare Me
23. Wodehouse in Exile
24. The Shining
25. The Eclipse
26. Secret Window
27. The Haunted Hotel
28. Cold Ones
29. The Bat
30. Tenebrae
31. Grace
32. The Girl in the Book
33. Nightbooks
34. Shortcut to Happiness
35. Agatha and the Truth of Murder
36. Hush
37. The Darkness
38. Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show
39. In the Mouth of Madness
40. Throw Momma from the Train
41. S‏hirley
42. The Black Press—Soldiers Without Swords
43. Flannery
44. Conjuring Spirit
45. I Spit on Your Grave
46. 1408
47. Christmas in Connecticut
48. Amuck
49. Alegoria
50. You Are My Vampire
51. The House Across the Lake
52. Half Light
53. The Medusa Touch
54. Velvet
55. Skin Deep
56. Horrors of the Black Museum
57. Salem’s Lot
58. Dirty Work
59. She Makes Comics
60. Another Man’s Poison
61. Writer’s Retreat
62. Ghost Land
63. Kiss of the Damned
64. Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark
65. Fantastic Britain
66. Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane
67. House of Long Shadows
68. The Norliss Tapes
69. Snowed Under
70. If You Believe
71. Killer Book Club
72. Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir
73. The House of Marsh Road
74. The World According to Garp
75. Trumbo

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: 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 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 Review for Writers: The Great Gatsby (2013)

It's a long-accepted literary theory that the great American novel, The Great Gatsby, is not written (in fact) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but actually written by Nick Carroway (being channeled by F. Scott Fitzgerald). The 2013 movie version of that novel really leans into that idea, though it is largely ignored in the earlier version (which doesn't really suffer from that thanks to amazing performances by both Mia Farrow and Robert Redford).

As the movie begins, we see Nick talking with a counselor/psychologist about his experiences and being recommended to write it all down in order to finally make sense of these events that have clearly affected him on an existential level. He's trying to work through his feelings about his cousin and her husband, both "careless people" hiding away in the money from responsibility and justice. He's trying to work through his feelings for Jordan, who (at least in this film version) he never really clicked with. But most of all, he's trying to work through his feelings for and about Jay Gatsby. 

Nick: I don't want to talk about this,Doctor. I can't talk about THIS.   

Doctor: Then write about it.

Nick: Write?

Doctor: Yes, write.

Nick: Why would I do that?

Doctor: After all, you said that writing brought you solace, once upon a time.

Nick: Yeah, well. It didn't bring anyone else much solace... I wasn't any good.

The Doctor offers Nick a pen; but Nick does not accept.

Doctor: No one need ever read it. You can always burn it.

Nick: What would I write about?

Doctor: Anything. Whatever you can't quite talk about; a memory; a thought; a place... Write it down.

There's a lot to unpack in this apocryphal exchange that was added to the movie to make the central conceit work more naturally. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Eddie and the Cruisers

I know what you're thinking. Eddie and the Cruisers isn't about writers at all. It's about a band, a group of musicians. True. But we covered Bob Dylan earlier, so we clearly have a precedent for musical creatives here. (Of course, I do realize that Dylan was also a poet, and a Nobel-winning writer.) Stick with me here, anyway. I promise this music movie has a lot to say to us writers of prose too. 

Let's get the cast together first. 

• Eddie Wilson, guitar, lead vox
• Frank Ridgeway, keys
• Sal Amato, bass
• Wendell Newton, sax
• Joann Carlino, backing vox
• Kenny Hopkins, drums

Now, a brief recap of the plot for anyone unfortunate enough not to have seen this awesome flick. Eddie Wilson is a garage band idol with lots of raw energy and talent and charisma, but he wants to be more -- he wants to be a legend. He wants to leave a mark. Only, when he couldn't, he took his own life. Maybe. Now it's years later and a music mag wants to do a story on the band's unfinished and unreleased final album. Only that ends up turning into a search for the missing tapes through the Cruisers' history and remaining band members who are still alive. 

Eddie brought the show and sizzle, but the magic? Well, the magic came from the lyrics. Even the record company realizes that. While discussing the idea of doing an article on the band years after Eddie disappeared, one of the publishing guys says early in the film: "Guy on piano was Frank Ridgeway. He wrote all their lyrics. Called him the Wordman."

I've always liked that. The Wordman. After all, as a writer, as a storyteller, it's what we do. We are all "The Wordman." (Ignoring the masculine reference this time for the sake of the movie script.) It's a moniker Frank earns right off the bat when the band asks him what he thinks about a song as they rehearse in the bar.

Movie Reviews for Writers: Dead End

Let's just deal with two things first before we even look as what this movie has to say about writers and the writing life. 

(1) This dude is an atrocious writer, as evidenced by the slow pan across his laptop screen: "He pricks her slightly so that a thin trickle of blood starts rolling down her neck and says, "I'm gonna rape and kill you right here..." Not exactly killer prose (so sorry for the pun, but I'm leaving it).

And (2) This flick takesa few minor trips into skinemax territory without getting two 'porny' (to coin a phrase). 

However, all that said, the flick is a pretty watchable little mystery thriller, even if the premise isn't all that original. William Snow plays Todd Russell, a police detective who retired after being unable to solve the most important murder investigation of his career. He took his knowledge and became a true crime writer and quite a popular and successful one. Then one day, it seems like the killer from years ago has returned and is re-enacting the crimes from his unsolved case. Obviously, as the cliche demands, Russell becomes the prime suspect. 

Now, this tight little mystery twists and turns more than Caribbean dancing, and even if you figure out the final twist, you won't be certain of it until the movie confirms it. 

But, you're here to see what it has to say about writing and the writing life. 

Early in the film, while meeting with his research assistant Ben Sykes, played by Matthew Dyktynski, Russell is asked about the coffee in his fridge (yeah, I guess he was iced coffee before it became cool):

Ben: Doesn't that stuff keep you up all night?

Todd: Yeah, writing. 

Ben: I wish I had that sort of discipline. 

Todd: You want to be a writer?

Ben: Yeah? I've got this idea I've been kicking around. 

Todd: Well, if you wanna talk about it or need any help.

Ben: Thanks. I really appreciate it. Maybe I'll just wait until I get it a little more defined. 

Todd: Just let me know.

That scene takes maybe 40 seconds of screen time between the conversation and sorting through the papers and other bits of action between the dialog, but there's a good deal we can unpack from it. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: A Complete Unknown

There is Bob Dylan, and there is the legend or the mythology of Bob Dylan. Timothee Chalamet perfectly captures the mythology of Dylan in this awesome flick. Yes, A Complete Unknown is a biopic, but it's not really even trying to be historically accurate. Instead, and this is intentional since Dylan himself was involved in the making of the movie, this is a biography of the fictional version of Bob Dylan, the artiste, the troubadour who refused to be boxed in by the very industry he longed to become a part of. 

And to be fair, is that not the very essence of what it means to be a writer, an artist, a creator?

That said, since Dylan is far more a writer (poet, if you insist on precision) than a musician (even garnering the Nobel Prize in Literature for his poetry), it's fitting we cover what this drama has to say about our own writing. 

So, what can we learn about being a writer from this mythologizing of Saint Bob?

One caveat first -- because of the nature of Bob Dylan and the way he and his fans like to present his story, it is highly possible that some of this could be seen as a bit pretentious. But please suffer through it. Because it's not about the pretentiousness itself. It's about the truth behind the pretentiousness. 

"Kind of an Asshole"

Early in the film, Dylan and Joan Baez are hanging out after a night together, and they begin to discuss music (of course). That conversation quickly moves from when they learned to play guitar to the notion of songwriting, as Baez rummages through some of Dylan's notes scattered about his apartment. 

JOAN: I write too. But I’m not sure there’s a way to learn that.

BOB: Too hard.

JOAN: Excuse me.

BOB: You try too hard. To write.

JOAN: ...Really.

BOB: If you’re askin’.

JOAN: I wasn’t.

BOB: Sunsets and seagulls. Your songs are like an oil painting at the dentist’s office.

JOAN: You’re kind of an asshole, Bob.

I am regularly asked by fellow writers if I'd be willing to take a look at their stories for one of two reasons -- (1) to give them my overall opinion of their writing or (2) an edit of the work. I always, always, always follow that up with two questions of my own.

1. Do you really want my honest opinion or edit, because I'm striving to see you be your best as a writer?
2. What's your budget?

Disregarding the second question for the sake of this review, the first is worth looking at. Many folks only want you to validate that their view of themselves and their abilities is echoed by your view too. Even Joan Baez felt that twinge of stung pride by the honest critique by a master of the art form. (Granted, it's an unsolicited opinion, so there's that.) But supposing she had asked, his response and opinion would have been the same. And sometimes that means that friends who also write might be offended if you don't embrace their brilliance. 

"Fulfilling a Myth"

Remember that first sentence I wrote way up there? Well, it's not only true for Dylan. It's true for you too. I mean, have you read your own bio for convention copy and back cover author info? Dylan expresses this via a series of letters exchanged with another mythological performer, the man in black, Johnny Cash. 

Dear Johnny, thanks for that letter. Let me start by not beginning. Let me start not by startin'. By continuing. This whole thing has gotten hard. I am now famous. Like you. Famous by the rules of public famiousity. It snuck up on me. And pulverized me. It is hard for me to walk down the streets I did before, cause now I don’t know who is watching. Who is waiting. Wanting. I don’t mind giving an autograph, but my mind tells me it is not honest. I am fulfilling a myth. A lie. 

Remember this: You can talk all you want about the myth, but the true you will be the one that readers can learn about only by reading your work. Just like fully understanding Bob Dylan, you must take in the sum total of his decades of writing and not just pigeonhole him into any single era, you too will be seen truly over your full body of work. 

But don't forget that your readers also have the ability and sometimes intention to mythologize you. They can, based on your words, turn you from saint to devil and back again many times. For example, speaking of Dylan and how he is a major draw for the folk festivals, Harold Leventhal states, "He’s our Elvis" -- not that Dylan ever wanted to be anyone's Elvis, just his own Bob Dylan. 

Likewise, the comparisons will come for you, and while embracing them for marketing purposes can be helpful, they can also become a box in which to trap you as a creator. Become the "indie George R.R. Martin" and see how much love you get when you want to stretch your crime-writing muscles. Become known for your cozy mysteries and count on one hand the fans that follow you to your new vampire romance series.

"Where the Songs Come From"

If you've ever watched or listened to interviews with Dylan, you'll learn quickly that he and I are very different in regard to talking (or writing) about where the ideas and the words come from. I have a whole blog about that process. Dylan shrugged off such questions with vague or nonsensical responses. 

He enjoyed the act of creating but not the discussion about that act. The truth was the act itself to him. 

Not only that, he saved some of his harshest comments for those who liked to ask him about that process under the guise of jealousy or copying, as he tells Sylvie (so named in the movie although in reality her name was Suze):

..Everyone asks where the songs come from, Sylvie. But if you watch their faces, they’re not asking where the songs come from. They’re asking why the songs didn’t come to them.

Ironically, he had little place for aping another's style, even though he himself had begun as a sort of homage to Woody Guthrie. 

"Good for Somebody"

Art outs itself. Even though companies spend fortunes on marketing, art often manages to find the audience it needs. And that's a good lesson for us. It may not be a huge audience. It may not be a profitable audience that lets you live only to write, but it is an audience nonetheless. 

You may have heard the idea of writing the story only you can tell. Or writing the stories you want to see out in the world. This is the flip side of that same idea. 

Dylan agrees, as he tells the crowd before beginning a new song (an audience that sadly wants to hear another of the old songs): "Here’s a new one. Hope you think it’s good. It’s gotta be good for somebody."

And he's right. Write that story. It's gotta be good for somebody. 

"They Change Keys"

Perhaps the biggest irony between the written work of Bob Dylan and the written or spoken words of Bob Dylan is this -- he changed the world, not just the world of music, but the world of well, the world, and yet he consistently either denied or downplayed any role he might have had in those changes. Nowhere is this seen better in the film than when he attends a party and overhears folks talking about him and his music. 

PARTY GUEST 1: Read Herbert Marcuse. No song can change the world. It’s too fucked up.

PARTY GUEST 2: (looks at Bob) That’d be news to him.

PARTY GUEST 3: Hey! Bob, can songs really change things?!

BOB: They change keys.

Now, he knew his songs changed a lot more than mere keys. He knew they were changing the world. But in spite of his own acceptance of his pretension when it came to songwriting and musical poetry, he refused to accept any pretension when it came to be a driving, dominant, cultural force. 

Yet it's impossible to look back on his work and not see how much impact his poetry has had on the world. Whether it's his protest songs of the '60s, his religious upheaval in the '70s, his seeming abandonment of both in his more rock and pop '80s, or his focus on more traditional sounds in the '90s and beyond, his music has been a driving force in all of it. 

So, yeah, sure, songs changed keys, at least on the music side, but the words he wrote, they changed the world. 

"Track Some Mud on the Carpet"

My biggest takeaway from A Complete Unknown, even with all the stuff I wrote above this, is that writers will always be wanted for what they have written, not what they want to write. 

What do I mean? 

Write a successful series, and the next book your publisher wants is More of the Same Vol. 2. Write a great romance novel and the audience who loves you wants another one that gives them all the same warm fuzzies. It matters not that you feel the urge to write a hard military Science Fiction thriller or a Literary Fantasy. 

All artists learn the lesson. It's easy to get put in a box and labeled. 

While performing at the Newport Folk Festival with Joan Baez, the audience requests "Blowing in the Wind" and other popular songs they've heard a million times before. Bob wants to play something new. 

BOB (CONT’D): No, no, no. Don’t do that. They all have that on records at home.

JOAN: (to crowd) You want to hear “Blowin’ in the Wind”, right? That’s why they came here, Bob.

In a similar vein, while being talked down to by Pete Seeger (who wants him to continue in the folk hero box they've put him in), he argues that as an artist, he can't be limited to what other people want from him. 

...More in this world to sing about than justice, Pete. And there’s more than one way to play a song. (then to Albert) they just want me singing the same songs, Albert. For the rest of my fucking life.

It's a constant thorn in his side throughout his career. His folk comrades wanted to box him into protest songs with "pure" instruments. His religious comrades wanted to box him in with Bible messages only. And so on. 

Sometimes his "biggest fans" opposed him with vehemence, as when Alan Lomax derides Dylan (to Pete Seegerz) for wanting to bring electric music to the Folk Festival.

ALAN LOMAX: No, Pete. We can’t. Fuck the Butterfingers. And fuck Dylan if he thinks he’s gonna play electric on our stage. And don’t bring up ticket sales, Harold. I don’t give a shit. Rock and roll is a cash-powered alien invasion crushing all authentic human possibility.

Meanwhile, what he wanted to do was write what was inside him. It was Johnny Cash who was able to put this into words for him. 

JOHNNY CASH (V.O. via letter): I’ll see you in Newport come Spring. Till then, track mud on somebody’s carpet.

JOHNNY CASH (after the electric show) Make some noise, B-D. Track some mud on the carpet.

I think that's maybe the most important lesson we writers can learn from this film -- track some mud on the carpet of the expectations that markets, publishers, and fans have of you. 

But we're not done yet. There's still one last message this amazing film has for us as writers.

"You Brought a Shovel"

While trying to talk Dylan out of performing with an electric rock band, Pete Seeger tells him a story about folk music, about how Pete and his cronies were trying to achieve a balance between pop music and folk music and how they kept trying to fill up the folk side of the scale with teaspoons of sand. Then he says the following:

PETE: Then you came along, Bobby.. and you brought a shovel. We just had teaspoons. But you brought a shovel. And now, thanks to you, we’re almost there. You’re the closing act, Bobby, and if you could just use that shovel the right way--

BOB: The right way... 

But Dylan isn't deterred. He goes out and rocks an electric set that changes music forever. 

Afterward, he gives this message to his old friend Pete: "The only reason I have a shovel, Pete, is because I picked it up. It was just lying there and I picked it up."

You're a writer. If there's something you want to write, do it. The shovel is just lying there. Pick it up.

Movie Reviews for Writers: Mike Hammer's Mickey Spillane

 

If you are a fan of pulp fiction or hard-boiled detectives in particular, Mickey Spillane isn't a name you're unfamiliar with. This documentary, written by Mickey's oft-time writing partner Max Allen Collins, can tell you all the reasons why that's true. 

"Mike Hammer was not the first fictional private eye," says Otto Penzler. "While Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were successful and well-known, they never approached the kind of success in terms of readership numbers or magnitude of recognition that Mickey had. If it weren't for Mickey Spillane creating the basic mold, the other writers would have had a hard time inventing it. 

"You were influenced by Mickey Spillane whether you've read him or not," says author Parnall Hall, "because every other private eye writer is influenced by Mickey Spillane."

As true as that is, I prefer the way author Miriam Ann Moore phrases the same idea: "Nobody ever hit a noun against a verb like Mickey Spillane." 

So, what can such a renowned writer teach us?

Write your own kind of moral code

Remember that you don't answer to anyone but yourself. You are not beholden to your church or parents' religion, or even the community standards in which you live. You do you, as the cliche goes. 

But, be warned, that kind of freedom can get you in trouble with that church, those parents, or that community.

Says Penzler, 

"In the mid-1950s an author named Frederick Wortham wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent which primarily attacked comic books as supposedly a cause of juvenile delinquency. The only author he attacked aside from comic book writers was Mickey." 

And it wasn't just Wortham. Spillane was catching hell from lots of different critics, as the narrator expounds over clips from his movies. 

There was a storm of controversy over Spillane's strong sexual content and violent action scenes. Along with comic books and rock and roll, Spillane was blamed by commentators as a prime cause of juvenile delinquency. Spillane was blasted as a prime mover in America's moral decline.

 Loren Estleman, author of The Amos Walker Mysteries, explains futher.

We were a very Puritan Nation right up through the 1950s, and it was only at that point that the old standards and barriers began to fall, and I think it was through people like Mickey Spillane getting out there and effectively butting his head against the wall that made those walls collapse. It wasn't violence or sex for the sake of violence and sex. It was there to propel the characters and to propel the story along.

Mickey himself makes it clear that he was never one to shy away from sex or violence. "Sex and violence are punctuation marks in the story," he says. And not just those two topics either. He also didn't shy away from addressing politics in his work, according to Penzler: "He was not afraid to write about politics, and he was not afraid to write about politics from a point of view that was not necessarily the most popular in the say, Eastern establishment of New York publishing."

All of that way of thinking (and of writing) made its way into Spillane's work because it came from his background. He wasn't an ivory tower author, but a regular Joe who wrote. As he says:

It's kind of like a blue-collar existentialist where you're talking about people trying to think about what's right and wrong, but on the everyday level of the "Who's on my ass today?" or "Who's going to, you know, kill me?" or "What what kind of decision can I make uh to keep my myself alive and still try to do the right thing?" 

Look for opportunities

As a blue-collar writer, Mickey was always on the lookout for paying work. Never one to rest on his laurels of Mike Hammer's success, he also turned to short, two-page detective yarns in the backs of comic books. 

There was some postal regulation that in order for them to get mailing permits for the subscriptions on the comic books they had to have a certain amount amount of text material. Now you got 25 bucks a shot for two pages of these things. Now this usually would take about 10 minutes to write, 20 minutes to write, but at that time 25 bucks was a lot of money, and you could write four a day you're getting $100 a day when a hardworking man out there is making 35 a week.

(Personally, I'd love to track some of these.)

 

Something will define your work

Spillane knew his work well enough to know and accept the fact that there would be certain trademarks or habits would mark it as his own. He didn't try to fight those kinds of identifiers or re-invent himself to keep fans and critics surprised. He accepted both his style and any limitations and wrote the way he knew Mickey Spillane could write. 

One of those marks, as the narrator recounts over a scene from I, the Jury, was his endings, which began as early as I, the Jury. 

"The swift violence of Mike Hammer's retribution was matched only by Mickey Spillane's abrupt punch to the solar plexus endings." 

It's something Mickey was proud of. 

Baby, when you're writing a story, think of it like a joke with a great punchline. Get the great ending, then write up to it. 

The ending was a make-or-break moment for him, says Collins. "One thing Mickey was very clear on in his work and even enunciated was that the first chapter sells the book the last chapter sells the next book."

Spillane cared so much about the importance of his story endings that he once put $1000 on the line in a bet with his editor. 

I said a perfect book is written with the climax on the last word of the last page, so if you took the last word away you wouldn't know what the book was about. When I turned in Vengeance, I turned it in without the last word on the last page he just asked, 'What was that word? What was the word?' 'Give me a thousand bucks. He gave me a thousand bucks. I gave him the word."

Screw the critics

According to Penzler, Mickey was able to speak directly to readers so critics despised him. They not only thought of him as low-brow and common, but also vulgar in his writing. It was a sentiment Mickey didn't allow to get him down. In fact, he often turned in back in his critics faces. Says he:

I went to a tea party, if you can imagine me at a tea party, you know, but anyway there they had this funny little guy who was a very self-important fellow. He came to me, and he said what terrible commentary in the reading habit of the American public that you have seven, the seven top best sellers in America today. Whatt I could think of to say but was, well, you're lucky I didn't write three more."

He knew that critics didn't call the shots, not really. It's the readers. "Critics don't decide anything," he says. "Publishers don't decide anything. No, no, the public is the one who decides everything."

He was equally hard on the writers in that equation. "Writers don't have talent. Writers have mechanical aptitude."

Everything must be done with the reader in mind. 

Don't get full of yourself

But that idea of being tough on the writer kept him humble, kept him true to his blue-collar way of approaching his life and his work. Sure, he was a best-seller. He was a movie star even. But he never embraced the kind of highfaluting way of letting that think himself any kind of star. In fact, he didn't even like to refer to himself as an author.

I am not an author. I am a writer. A writer is on a day-today job all the time. He's writing. This is a job for him. He's making money to keep the smoke coming out the chimney. I don't want to go out and dig ditches every day of the week.

I think we could use a lot more Mickey Spillane's in this business. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: The Black Press -- Soldiers Without Swords

 

Writing and reading have always been important, and not just for entertainment. Words have long been a powerful tool for achieving social and cultural goals, and the history of the black press is just one story that highlights that legacy.

But, as crucial as that history is, this wonderful documentary isn't just a dry presentation of information but also offers something to say to contemporary writers.  

The Importance of Public Words

The early black press took away the invisibility of African-American citizens, both slaves in the South and freemen in the North. Says Vernon Jarrett: 

"We didn't exist in the other papers. We were neither born, we didn't get married, we didn't die, we didn't fight in any wars, we never participated in anything of a scientific achievement. We were truly invisible unless we committed a crime. And in the BLACK PRESS, the negro press, we did get married. They showed us our babies when born. They showed us graduating. They showed our PhDs."

In the same way, your words, no matter how small or large your readership, destroy your invisibility. It shows that you have opinions, thoughts, and ideas that matter. 

And those ideas are targeted, not just the typical who, what, where, when associated with the notion of an unbiased press we often hear about today. According to Phyl Garland: 

"The black press was never intended to be objective because it didn't see the -- the white press being objective. It often took a position. It had an attitude. This was a press of advocacy. There was news, but the news had an admitted and a deliberate slant."

Jane Rhodes echoes that idea: 

"Their whole idea behind Freedom's Journal was to have a voice, an independent voice, an autonomous voice for African Americans. The opening editorial on the front page of Freedom's Journal says, "We mean to plead our own cause ..."

Or, put in other words, "No longer shall others speak for us" (Vernon Jarrett). 

Not only was it important to hear their own voices and see their own faces in the news, it was equally important to train a new generation of writers of color to continue that representation into the next generation. Frederick Douglas probably said it best in his speech on December 3, 1847:

"In the grand struggle for liberty and equality now waging, it is (Unintell.), right, and essential that there should arrive in our ranks authors and editors as well as orators, for it is in these capacities that the most permanent good can be rendered to our cause."

All those new writers, editors, and orators created an interconnected sense of national community that had been limited to disconnected local communities prior. 

Christopher Reed: I would rank the 19th-century African American press as one of the major forces in producing one of the major miracles of that century, pulling African Americans together after slavery into cohesive communities. Whether you're talking about Kansas or Mississippi, ah, New York, it doesn't make any difference -- Washington, these newspapers informed people, elevated morale, built a sense of racial consciousness. You can't, ah, overstate the importance of newspapers.

The Importance of Reading

The rise of the black press highlighted not only the importance of representation in writing but also the crucialness of reading. With the arrival of the black press, reading became a new sort of national pastime for black citizens.

Narrator: As slaves, African Americans were forbidden to read, but after the Civil War, reading became one of the sweetest fruits of freedom. For many, black newspapers were an introduction the power and the magic of the written word.

It surprises me how often people take the gift and miracle of reading so lightly, more as a chore than a privilege. That goes for writers too. I can't tell you how many writers I've talked with who tell them they're too busy writing and don't have time to read. To mean, that's like saying you're too busy driving to fill up the tank with gas. 

I know that as a reader I'm biased -- I get that -- but we have such a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and yes, entertainment available to us that so many simply disregard. 

So, clearly, even today, the importance of the act of reading hasn't changed. 

The Guts to Keep Writing

Perhaps the biggest takeaway we can get from this excellent documentary is that community gives us the courage to keep writing. A living, vibrant group of other creators as the balm the author's soul needs to keep going. 

Just like the Douglases influenced and encouraged the Ida B. Wellses and the Robert Abbotts. 

Christopher Reed: America had to change and the vehicle to express this would be the newspaper.

And, today, while the issues may be different, America still needs to hear new voices and change and grow with each new generation of writers. Maybe, just maybe, something you write, may have a bearing on that and influence someone in the next generation. 

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: Shirley

I do believe I have a new movie to add to my absolute favorite movies about writers. While Shirley may be a highly fictionalized telling of Shirley Jackson's life during the time she was writing her second novel, Hangsaman. This movie is a nigh-perfect blending of life and the sort of creep factor that Jackson wove into her stories, and the voiceover as she reads from her novel in progress while she and her "friend" Rosie go about their lives is nothing if not haunting. 

Don't be fooled when you see this one listed among thrillers or even horror in the categories on streaming services. It is thrilling and horrific, yes, but not in any kind of way that category implies. Instead, it's the active and passive shots the characters take at each other, the way they live with both known and suspected evils, the intertwining of the central mystery of Hangsaman and the lives of Shirley and Rosie that brings the thrill and horror. It's horrific and thrilling in the same way Monsters Ball was. It's the kind of movie that makes a viewer think, "God, as people, we pretty much suck." 

That said, this one isn't just sprinkled with writer stuff. It's the backbone, the meat, and the nerves of this flick. This movie only works because Shirley Jackson is a horror (among other genres) writer. 

My favorite bit comes very early in the film. Shirley and her husband, Stanley, are throwing a party, and one of the partiers asks Shirley what her next book is about. She responds: "A little novella I’m calling None of Your God Damn Business. How ‘bout yourself?" Shirley is exhausted with tourists wanting a peek into the writer's life that is somehow believed to be on public display simply because she exists and has been published extensively. 

Sometimes as a small indy writer, I think I would welcome that kind of attention as a validation of my chosen endeavor, but I also realize that too much of even that good thing could get annoying as hell really quickly. 

A few moments before that exchange, though, she had been in the middle of describing her inspiration for perhaps her most well-known and well-studied short story, "The Lottery."

Jackson: So I picked up a few things. And I’m trudging back up the god-damn hill. It was fucking hot out. I’m cursing my back, I’m cursing my feet, I’m cursing all of god-damn humanity -- when it hit me. The whole thing. I sat down at my desk. Two hours later there it is. The most reviled story the New Yorker ever printed! And all I could think was, god-damn I forgot to put the ice-cream up. I’m gonna have to face that Satanic hill again. 

Partier: I read it as an anti-Semitic parable... in the tradition of Isaac Babel.

Two things here I loved and that rang true for me. One, as writers we have little control over where inspiration can hit us. Sadly, it's seldom when we're sitting at the computer with time to write. I can't speak for you, but for me, it's usually in the car driving to or from work or in the middle of picking up groceries or something mundane like that. It may be a snippet of song lyrics, or it could be the way that the woman picking out oranges shifts from one foot to the other. It's rarely some king of thunderbolt like the fabled myths non-writers think accompany story ideas. Second, once the story is out and published, we lose control over what it means or doesn't mean, or maybe was supposed to mean. It's totally up to the reader to put their own thoughts and experiences on it. Call me a deconstructionist, but I firmly believe that. Once that proverbial toothpaste is out of the tube, the goop doesn't get put back inside. Its meaning and understanding belong to the people who read it and think about it, no matter how much they may (in our minds) miss the point. 

While Rosie takes an immediate dislike to the caustic Jackson, the two gradually become a sort of confidante to each other, never quite friends, but equals, the heads to the other's tails. When one strengthens, the other wanes, at least until... Well, that would be a huge spoiler. Nevertheless, Rosie becomes the author's spy, infiltrating the campus where Stanley and Rosie's husband works to get information about the missing girl Jackson is writing about. 

The two do their due diligence and research. It's almost as if they're trying to solve a cold-case murder. The only thing they're missing is a murder board and miles of string. 

So it is that Stanley, Jackson's regular reader and editor, tells her that she doesn't yet know her subject well enough, she snaps and lets him have it. 

Stanley: It’s the genre, darling that’s stymieing you. It’s not your arena. And frankly, it’s beneath you.

Jackson: You can keep your theories to yourself.

Stanley: You didn’t know her.

Jackson: Don’t tell me I don’t know this girl.

Stanley: I might have walked by her a dozen times on campus, in the commissary, the commons. Various halls. That’s the sheer probability of it. But that’s not a face I ever remember seeing. Who is she to you?

Jackson: There are dozens and dozens of girls just like her littering every college across the country. Lonely girls who can’t make the world notice them. Don’t tell me I don’t know her. Don’t you dare.

Stanley: Oh, so you think it might be that good.

Stanley, who is a professor and a critic more than a creator, sees the story from the outside. Shirley, not only as the writer but also as perhaps formerly one of those girls herself sees the story from a different, truer angle. Inside. Through. It absorbed into her quite possibly. There is no comfortable distance that allows her the safety of objective criticism at that moment. She knows the missing girl, not just the facts of the case. 

In a sports-themed movie, there is often the big training montage. It's a cliche, of course, but it's mandatory viewing to keep the fans happy. There's something similar here, but instead of running up the steps or weight training, viewers are treated to quick cuts of the author typing while reading the voiceover for what she has written, only to rip the page from the typewriter, crumble it and toss it in the floor to start over. She's determined to get the voice, the words, the tone, the girl's character right, no matter how many times she needs to trash the work to go back to square one. 

Ultimately the work pays off. When she finishes, she finally relinquishes her hold on the manuscript and allows Stanley to read it. 

Stanley: Your book is brilliant, darling. Fucking gorgeous. I don’t know how you did it. I have some notes of course.

Jackson: Of course.

Stanley: This is going to be the one. Don’t lose sight of that.

Jackson: It hurts. This one. It hurts more than the others.

Have you ever written something like that? Something that felt like you were struggling to get it out, not because of time constraints, but because of something intrinsic within you, something almost personal between the writing process and you? If you haven't, I hope you do one day. If you have, you know that feeling she is referencing. It's a sort of spiritual childbirth after a long, contracted labor that ended in an emergency C-section as the only option to get the baby out. The sheer act of putting that much intensity on paper takes something out of the writer. It's the kind of thing that can only be explained in metaphors and symbols. But it's real. 

The last bit is something this movie plays up to a hyperbolic level -- it's the myth of the eccentric writer. It's almost as if the screenwriter took every cliche about writers that non-writers believe. You never know what they'll say. You can't take 'em out in public. They are all drunken and unsociable loners. And so on. Ad naseum. Spew. Spew. Spew. 

I cry BS. Just getting to know a few writers will correct you of this mindset quickly. Sure, we can still be eccentric, but more in a collecting first editions or reading RPG manuals kind of way. And the folks I know are some of the best souls on the planet. We laugh together, talk together, have one another's backs. 

But yeah, we do drink together too. Maybe that part of the myth is true. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Conjuring Spirit

I love Asian horror. I just don't get to cover much of it here because it usually doesn't have much of anything to do with writers and writing. But today, we're both lucky, because Conjuring Spirit is a creepily beautiful (or beautifully creepy, take your pick) Vietnamese ghost story about a popular mystery novelist who leaves her husband after his affair and takes her son with her to an apartment complex to start over. 

After walking in on her husband in flagrante delicto, Lan decides she has had enough and she and her young son, Bi, move out. Cue the haunted apartment and the ghosts that only Bi can see at first. (Because, of course only the kid can see the spirits.)

All the while, Lan is under deadline (almost behind deadline) for her next book. 

The Guilt of Frustration

So, in the midst of having to learn to be a single parent, deal with a haunted kid who may or may not be seeing ghosts, and fend off the romantic advances of a neighbor, she also had to make time to write her book. Throughout it all, Bi constantly asks her to play with him and she promises later just about each time. 

You can hear the frustration (both with herself and him) in her voice and see the frustration in her face each time. Ever been there? You've finally managed to carve out some time to write and BAM!, here comes a call from your mother, one of your kids breaks a glass, you name it. And you start to feel guilty for your irritation that your family is cutting into your work time. (Because, your mother has clearly told you before that writing isn't a real job.)

The Power (and the Trap) of a Series

Early in the film, Lan meets with her publisher, who lays down the law about the pending deadline. During this conversation, Lan offers a few tidbits that are common to us as writers. 

Lan's mysteries series is based on the adventures of Detective Kieu, a female private eye. It's a best-selling series, so fans and the publisher keep clamoring for more. Only, Lan is growing a little tired of Kieu. 

When asked for yet another Kieu book, Lan responds, "Another story of Detective Kieu?" She's a writer who is full of ideas and wants to explore them, but she's trapped by her own success and by the expectations of readers. 

For all the benefits of writing a series in which each new volume markets all the others, there is the downside of sacrificing all your time to one character or set of characters. 

Hitting a Trouble Spot

During her conversation with her publisher, Lan admits that she is stuck with the newest book. She feels as though Kieu has worn herself thin as a character and she just doesn't know what she will do next. Without that crucial question answered the author can't move on to develop either the plot or the character. 

What does the issue stem from? It's coming from Lan's personal life (Can you say authorial intrusion, anyone?). But she can't help it. With her personal life in turmoil, much of that is bleeding over into the life of her best-selling detective. 

Because of Lan's situation, she just can't keep treating Detective Kieu like she has. With her life hitting a serious emotional depth suddenly, she feels like that must also be applied to her characters. 

Just as she faces new challenges, so much Kieu, or so she believes. 

Just as her view of the world has been shattered, so much the detective's worldview. 

It's what they both need to move forward. 

Detective Lan

Now, this is a minor and more fun thing, but sometimes we learn things in order to better write our characters. It could be something simple like visiting a cave to gauge the temperature and the feel of the rocks in the dark for accuracy in description. Or, in the case of both Lan and myself, it might be learning lockpicking to better incorporate it into your work -- writing work, I mean, so don't call the cops. 

When Lan and her boyfriend are breaking into a suspected killer's home, the guy is surprised to find she is able to pick the lock. She responds with a smirk and basically tells him she wouldn't be much of a mystery writer if she couldn't.

 

I concur, Lan. I concur.

Movie Reviews for Writers: I Spit on Your Grave (or Day of the Woman)

 

I have to be honest with you. I didn't even remember that this one featured a writer until I saw it pop up on a list of horror movies about writers. And even then it didn't refresh my memory until I re-watched the flick a few days ago. 

That said, I have to admit that I enjoyed the excuse to watch this disturbing (and yes, exploitative -- after all, it's a female empowerment flick with a lustful booty shot on the cover) flick again. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. Heck, it's not mine, but it's a master class in when to skirt that line between just enough and too much in order to enhance the plot at the risk of becoming gratuitous. And trust me, it does become gratuitous, but never at the expense of the story. It's just that dark and grimy and sleazy a story -- which is of course what makes it simultaneously compelling and repulsive. 

The plot: Jennifer Hills leaves the city to work on her novel in a cabin in the country. While there, she catches the eyes of a group of hillbilly thugs who rape her and leave her for dead. In classic slasher fashion, she gets revenge. As a plot, it's about as basic as it gets. 

For writers, there's still something here for us within that trope of the revenge slasher. 

The Need to Get Away from Distractions

We all tend to have a place that for us is "The Place To Write Best." It may be our office that we've decorated with our favorite posters, artwork, toys, knick-knacks, and/or curios. It may be the local coffee shop, our kitchen table, or a laptop stand set up on our screened-in porch. For others of us we need to get away to really relax and write to our fullest potential, like Jennifer does here. 

Matthew: Oh, are you a writer?

Jennifer: Mm-hmm.

Matthew: And you're gonna write a book here?

Jennifer: My first novel. I've written many short stories.

I tend to have this malady as well. I write best when I can fully pull away and spend a few days at my late Meme's house. With no Wi-Fi or phone or TV, I can devote time to writing without distractions. 

I could write more about this, but I've already covered it in several reviews so I won't beat that dead horse. 

Let's move on, shall we?

Characters Become Real to Us

As writers, we tend to know our characters deeply, perhaps more deeply than the real-life people around us. Of course, this is only possible because we've created them, but it's true nonetheless. Sometimes, they even become almost real to us, or at least real in our minds. 

When talking with Matthew, the delivery boy from the local grocer, Jennifer shares:

Matthew: Do you live here alone?

Jennifer: All alone with Mary Selby.

Matthew: Mary? Mary... is she in there?

Jennifer: Mary's right here. She's a fictional name. She's the Ieading character in a story I'm going to write here.

To Jenny, Mary wasn't just a character. She was a sort of roommate. 

For me, characters are more tenants, renting out space in my mind. They live there at least for the duration of the story I'm working on, but often longer. Such is the case with Rick Ruby and his love interest Evelyn. They have a permanent room in the Chez Taylor, and I think about them often, even when I'm not working on stories for the Rick Ruby books. 

Then other characters come and go with the stories and don't stay for long, but only stick around as needed and then quietly run off during the night. But they are no less real than the others. They exist and they take up space in my life. 

Never Heard of You

No doubt you get this one a lot, particularly when you mention (whether pressed for it or not) you are a writer. It often comes out as the less rude, "Have you written anything I might have heard of?" instead of the "I never heard of you." But the intention is the same. Your worth as a writer is only as good as your breadth of sales. You are judged not on your stories and your words but on your ability to market your books or your ability to land a big contract with a Big 5 publishing house. 

While Matthew and Jenny are talking at the beginning of the movie, they have this exchange:

Matthew: You must be famous. What's your last name?

Jennifer: Hills. It's okay if you've never heard of me. All my stories were published in women's magazines. 

Matthew: I don't read 'em.

It sounds like Jennifer has had this conversation before and she knows how to nip it in the bud. 

It can be daunting though to have your worth as a storyteller equated to sales figures and how many bookstores you're featured in the windows of -- or even worse, based on how many movies have been made from your books (particularly when meeting non-readers). 

Stories Echo Our Reality

This is one we just can seem to get away from -- like it or not, bits and pieces of our lives and the people around us creep into our work. While working at the cabin, Jenny has a voiceover from part of her novel in progress. 

"Chapter 8 -- page one. Finally, after weeks of self-doubt and much deliberation, she embarked on a temporary Ieave of absence from everything... that... that... formed the fabric of her life -- the big city... her job, her friends --"

Ignoring the fact that most of the writing that actually happens in movies about writers tends to be lackluster and cliche-riddled, it can't be denied that even though Jenny is writing about her protagonist Mary, she's actually writing about herself. Not only Mary is experiencing self-doubt and deliberation. Not only is Mary taking a temporary leave of absence from everything that formed the fabric of her life. Jennifer is doing those things too. In fact, it's likely that if Jennifer wasn't doing them, Mary wouldn't be doing them either. 

Sometimes these bits of reality sneak in via tiny cracks -- a friend's weird turn of the lip when feeling shy or a tell when someone is nervous. Other times they crash right through the door wholesale, as big as life, as a fully formed character, much like Mary does with Jenny. Sometimes they even become a sort of wish-fulfillment, and that's when a character is in danger of becoming the oft-vilified Mary Sue or Marty Stu. 

Wow. I'm kind of surprised there was this much in this little exploitation slasher. That's a lot more content than I expected from such a by-the-numbers revenge horror movie. 

Reviews for Writers: 1408

Surprise! It's another movie based on a Stephen King story with (gasp!) a writer as the main character. I know. Something we've never seen before, right?!

All kidding aside, this is my second favorite King movie about a writer (behind The Shining). It's also a pretty solid movie that doesn't fall apart in the third act like a lot of films based on King's work. Mike Enslin is a writer with a pretty compelling novel behind him, but after some hinted-at family trauma/drama with his dad, he puts that world behind him and begins to write travel guides/debunking books for haunted hotels. After his daughter Katie's tragic death, he can't handle life and he disappears on the road, leaving his wife without a word. 

Enter The Dolphin, a haunted hotel that may truly be haunted. (If only haunted by the presence of Samuel Jackson's overacting, but I digress.) After receiving a postcard with a photo of The Dolphin and a note that says "Don't stay in 1408," Mike's goal is set. Come hell or high water, he's going to bebunk room 1408. 

But, on the way there, he has a stop for a reading and book signing, where he is met by a store employee who would rather be anywhere else but at work, and this happens:

Mike: How's it going?

Employee: Can I help you?

Mike: Yeah, I'm here for the big event.

Employee: All right.

Mike: Cool. I'm Mike Enslin.

Employee: Sorry?

Mike: Book signing.

Employee: Oh, right. Oh, that's you, yeah. I see the resemblance, yeah. That's a good picture.

Employee: Thanks, man.

Employee: All right, hold on. Um... attention, book lovers.  Tonight we have noted occult writer Michael Enslin at the Author's Corner tonight. He's the writer of the best-selling ghost survival guides, um... with such titles as "10 Haunted Hotels," "10 Haunted Graveyards," "10 Haunted Lighthouses." That's tonight, 7:00 pm.

Clearly, of the three screenwriters (Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander, and Larry Karaszewski) one of them remembers what it's like to be an author doing a signing, particularly in an out-of-the-way location. The tell-tale signs are all there: disinterested store worker, not being recognized, being treated as an afterthought, the same questions asked over and over again about your work, etc. 

But the part that hits home for me here is the clearly marketing-driven titles of Mike's work: 10 Haunted Graveyards, 10 Haunted Lighthouses, 10 Haunted Hotels. They might as well say "You won't believe this place is haunted! Click here for the 10 creepiest haunts" and have an unrelated photo for the clickbait ad. It's this kind of marketing-think that (1) sells books because it understands why sheep need shepherds and (2) drives me up the wall because it dislocated the selling from the story and makes the writer barely more than a supplier of stock, no more than a sweatshop providing off-brand clothing. 

After the reading, during the signing, Mike asks often, "What name?" and then signs like an automaton, further reducing the creative role to that of robot (A.I. anyway?) -- at least until one nervous female fan, Anna, puts a copy of his hardcover novel from his previous writing life on the table for him to sign. 

Mike is astonished to see anyone even cares about that old thing from another life.

Mike: What rock did you find that under?

Anna: Um, eBay.

Mike: eBay, huh? How much did it go for?

Anna: Well, there weren't many bidders.

Mike: I would think not. Wow.

Anna: But it's, um... an amazing book.

Mike: Oh.

Anna: Um, so... unique and inspirational and honest.

Mike: Thanks. What's your name?

Anna: Um, Anna.

Mike: Okay, Anna.

Anna: Are you gonna write another one like this one?

Mike: Nah, it's a different guy.

I don't know about you, but I often feel that way. I feel like my writing life is a series of phases. 

The literary phase right after college.

The super hero phase during Cyber Age Adventure/iHero Entertainment magazine.

The comic book years.

The New Pulp Years.

Honestly, I only feel like now, when I'm blurring the lines more and more between all those previous "lives" that I'm finally coming into my own as a writer. But there are times when I get emails. "When are you going to write another..." And, like Mike, I often want to respond, "Nah, it's a different guy." 

The woman continues to ask about the old book. She's a detective, looking for clues to back up the theory she is seeking to prove. 

Anna: Um... can I ask you a question?

Mike: Sure.

Anna: Um, the relationship in the book with the father and the son... it's probably too personal, but, um, it's so authentic and...

Mike: Mm-hm.

Anna: ...well-constructed, and... is it true?

There's no denying that she's found the truth, but only to a sort of cursory degree. I get asked often at conventions how much of my writing comes from real life, and I always answer, "All of it, just not how you think." 

What I mean by that is that my characters have traits I've seen in people I know or encountered on a bus or at the grocery store or in traffic. But I haven't picked up a person I know, whole kit and kaboodle, and dropped them into my work. No, I've taken this bit, that bit, this motivation, this description, etc., and mixed them all up in a blender. The same goes for my plots. 

So, while there may be something of my relationship with my mother in a certain work, there's also something of other people's relationships with their mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles. It's never a 1-to-1 correlation. 

Eventually though, Mike arrives at the Dolphin and tries to get the key to room 1408. At that point, Mr. Olin, the hotel manager played by Samuel Jackson, appears and takes him to his office. No spoilers, but there is a wonderful bit where Olin offers Mike a cigar and Mike says, "I don't smoke." Olin motioned to a single cigarette sitting on his ear. 

Mike says: "It's part habit, part superstition. It's, you know, a writer thing."

I love this bit because I know so many writers who have our habits and superstitions regarding our writing. Certain music. Certain places. Certain arrangements of the knick-knacks on our desk or the resources near us at the table. Particularly the most OCD of us. You should watch me straighten the papers and line up the pens I keep handy (and my phone too).

At this point, the ghost story really kicks in, and in the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll skip to the end, when the horror is over (Or is it?) and Mike is putting his experience to paper for his final ghost guidebook. 

Lily: I never saw him writing so fast.

Mike: It is easy, I already wrote this book before.

Isn't it the truth? I don't know about you, but before I even start to write a scene (sometimes a full story), I've already written it in my head. It's done. It's just a matter of somehow getting it out of my head through my fingers and into my laptop. 

But it's not alone up there in my head. It lives with all the others that haven't been allowed to come out and hit the real world yet. Someday...

Movie Reviews for Writers: Amuck!

So... What does it take to bring me back to the movie reviews for writers? Of course, another sleazy Giallo thriller. This time it's Silvio Amadio's is-it-a-Giallo-or-isn't-it mystery Amuck! 

Why do so many Giallos feature writers? It almost makes one wonder which has more stories about writers caught up in horrific events -- Stephen King or Giallo? (But that's a question for another day). 

In this fun romp through the murderous halls of a writer's island mansion (see, it's a fantasy, I tell ya), Barbara Bouchet plays Greta Franklin, a secretary/typist hired by a publisher to help novelist Richard Stuart finish his current novel. She's there, however, to investigate the disappearance of her friend Sally Reese, who was the previous secretary/typist. Throw in some sexy parties and no-attachments-needed relationships, along with a murder and a body hidden in a swamp, and it's a fairly typical setup for a thriller. Without the tropes of black gloves and the razor blade POV camera, it's not, however, a typical setup for a Giallo. 

All that aside, you're here for what it has to say about the life of a writer. 

Well, this movie is pure wish fulfillment. It's the kind of thing people who aren't writers like to imagine the life of a famous novelist is like. 

Publishers who foot the bill to give writers assistants aren't common, and to be honest I don't think I've ever heard of that. Maybe it was common in the early 1970s, but I tend to doubt that as well (it is a conceit of the romantic comedy Paris When It Sizzles also, so maybe there is some ancient truth to the idea). Still, it would be nice, huh?

Transcribing a novel into a dictaphone (or the modern equivalent, a speech-to-text file) is something I have tried. However, for me, it's a bit of a challenge. I think I'm one of those writers who thinks better with my fingers than with my mouth. I think that for me literally, the act of typing as the ideas form in my brain helps them form. I do so much going back and correcting in an audio file that I wonder if it would be more trouble than it was worth to try to make sense of my backtracking. 

Plus, I find that I edit a lot as I type. Any typist a publisher might send me would most likely quit because of the frustration I caused him/her/them.

The novelist in question is writing his first thriller. People's reaction to that is the most authentic part of this film. 

They're aghast. Why would you want to do that? You'll kill your career (sure, but pay no attention to covering up a murder). 

It's something I hear from friends who tend to write in a single genre and then want to try their hand at another. "Why would you do that?" fans ask. "As long as you don't stop writing ____________ (fill in the blank with the genre of choice), I guess a one-off is okay."

It makes me glad I never stuck to one genre. But then, publishers don't send assistants to writers like that. And I sure wouldn't mind an assistant like Barbara Bouchet. Just saying.