Writerly Wednesday: How a Scene Can Turn on a Word - Comedy or Tragedy?

It goes without saying, but Woody Allen is a master story-teller. Sure some of his movies can move a little slow, but there’s no denying the complexity of emotion in each one. While I have a few favorite movies of his, there is one that spoke loudly enough to make me start thinking. One that actually had two storylines: one comedic, and one dramatic:

In Melinda and Melinda, the story opens with a small group of writers at writers. Their conversation revolves around tragedy vs. comedy: Are our lives naturally comedic, or dramatic? As with any eclectic group of writers, you’re going to have two arguments to that question: 

Comedy writer: “The essence of life isn’t funny, it’s tragic…there’s nothing intrinsically funny about the terrible facts of human existence.”

Tragedy writer: “If the underlying reality of our being is tragic, my plays would make more than yours at the box office because my stories would resonate more profoundly with the human sow.”

Comedy writer:  “It’s exactly because tragedy hits on the truly painful essence of life that people run to my comedies for escape. Tragedy confronts. Comedy escapes.”

So now the argument is: is there a deeper reality in comedy than tragedy? Thus begins the proposal of a simple story: a distraught woman knocks on a door and disrupts a dinner party. And from there we’re taken on two different journeys, both starring the same protagonist (Radha Mitchell, though originally Allen wanted Winona Ryder).

It’d take too long to take you through both of the stories, but here’s a quick breakdown:

Tragedy: Melinda is a psychologically troubled woman who had it all at one point in time: a doctor-husband, two children, and a wonderful home in suburbia. But she becomes entangled with a photographer, falls in love with him, and all she had is now shattered. She can no longer see her children and that pushed her into a mental institution. By the time she interrupts the dinner party, hosted by one her college friends whose husband is trying to woo a play producer into granting him an important role, she’s come out of the institution and is still trying to get her life together, but unfortunately isn’t able to do so.

Comedy: Melinda is a woman who fell in love with another man who led her on and caused her break up her marriage. She’s also an art historian living across the hall of a couple hosting a dinner party (Amanda Peet is a movie director trying to woo a financial backer, and Will Ferrell is her out of work actor-husband). She knocks on their door after taking 28 sleeping pills. Of course Amanda Peet’s character doesn’t want her dinner party wrecked so she insists everyone continue eating before the food gets cold. Then Melinda states she needs to throw up, and the response by Will Ferrell’s character is “No, no, no. Not on the carpet. That’s new carpet.” Yes, very comedic, and eventually she gains the attention of the out-of-work-actor-husband, spends a little time with him, and his reactions to her dating another man brings the comedy to the story.

Woody Allen’s pretty brilliant, huh?

Now this got me thinking: What if we took a similar set up, wrote it out, and left it in a place where a single word could turn the scene into the beginning of a tragedy, or a comedy?

So I’d like for you to decide not only the ‘turning word’ in this opening scene, but the following sentences to show exactly how this particular scene is either tragedy or comedy:

---

The sounds of life and laughter coming from the apartment caused her to hesitate. But the silent silky darkness of the hallway pushed her to knock on the door regardless. So what if they were having a good time in there? She needed help and there were no other signs of life in the building.

A dark haired woman answered the door. “Laurel?”

“I-I’m sorry to interrupt, but I didn’t know what else to do.” She pushed her way through the door, past her neighbor, Emily. The sounds coming from the dining room magnified in her head.

“What’s wrong?” Emily asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She guided her into the kitchen.

“I haven’t been feeling well lately,” Laurel mumbled.

She grabbed the…..

---

Contest Info:

• Your mission: To not only complete sentence by deciding what she grabbed in the kitchen, but to give us a peek into how you’d carve out this scene to serve as either a tragedy or a comedy.
• Judging: Angela Ackerman, co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus (available in ebbok & print soon!), and one-half of The Bookshelf Muse, where you can find any and every type of thesaurus needed for emotional impact, character traits, weather descriptions, settings, symbols and color, textures and shapes.
• Rules/Limitations:
• 250 words is the max. If that comes in the middle of a sentence don’t worry – finish the passage.
• 25 words is the minimum. We want to see where you plan on taking this scene.
• Comments will close at 8pm EST on Tuesday, April 3rd, and the winner will be announced bright and early the following morning!
• Prizes: I’ve got five prizes up for grabs this time around!
• 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald Tobias (I just finished it and it’s a really good guide to making a universal plot all your own)
  
• The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master by Martha Alderson
  
• The Art of War for Writers: Fiction Writing Strategies, Tactics, and Exercises by James Scott Bell
  
• Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time by Jordan Rosenfeld
  
• Across the Universe on DVD (leftover from last week’s contest)

Show your craft. Show your creativity. Show how you can turn this scene into tragedy or comedy.

Good Luck and Happy Writing!!!

Melinda

Writerly Wednesday: Lesson Learned from ‘Across the Universe’…and a Playlist Plotting Contest

Welcome to the first of two contests that I’m holding this month. Both contests are based off the lessons that can be extracted from two particular movies.

Today’s movie: Across the Universe

Plot per IMBD: “The music of the Beatles and the Vietnam War form the backdrop for the romance between an upper-class American girl and a poor Liverpudlian artist.”

First we’ll start with a quick introduction: Hi, my name is Melinda Collins and I am a perfectionist with OCD tendencies who is a die-hard Beatles fanatic. There, I said it! Not like it’s a secret or anything, but I do believe this is the first time I’m letting my geek flag fly on this blog. *smile* I could write ten pages and go on for days on the genius of this particular film and how it snuck in references to original Fab Four and characters from their songs that only true fans might know…but alas I will only limit myself to this one particular bullet point that relates to the writer:

Playlist Plotting

First I’ll show you how this was completed for this particular film, then we’ll talk about the contest this particular lesson entails (Note: not every song pushed the plot forward. Some songs were filler-fun-type moments that movies are allowed to do sometimes):  

There are 6 characters the plot follows throughout the movie. I’m going to list them below and color-code their storylines (similar to Margie Lawson’s EDITS system that I’m currently in class learning about) so you can see how they’re intertwined with one another. I’m also listing the particular songs their names were pulled from (and a play on these characters and their actions within these songs is part of the super-cool fun of the movie):

Jude (from “Hey Jude”) *In the clips, notice how much he looks like a younger Paul McCartney
Lucy (from “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”)
Max (from “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”)
Sadie (from “Sexy Sadie”)
Jojo (from “Get Back”) 
Prudence (from “Dear Prudence)
 *Note: The song titles are links to the song/clip from the movie. Enjoy!

• “Girl” – Jude opens the movie with a shot towards the end of the story in which he believes something has happened to the woman he’s fallen in love with…then flashback to the beginning of his journey
• “Hold Me Tight” – Jude’s girlfriend in Liverpool and Lucy (in the US) sing this particular song to their men who are about to leave them both. Jude to the US with the Merchant Navy, Lucy’s boyfriend, Daniel, into the Army
• “All My Loving” – Jude’s serenade to his girlfriend on his last night, telling her that he’ll write her every day and stay true to her (with a clip of Lucy writing a letter to Daniel)
• “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” – Enter Prudence: a cheerleader singing about a football player she can’t have as he’s dating the head cheerleader. We then see her walk off the field and hitchhike it out of Ohio
• “Help From My Friends” – Jude’s true purpose comes to light as he jumps ship in New Jersey and hitchhikes to Princeton University in search of his father, an American G.I., whom he’s never met, and who never knew about him. Shortly after finding him, he runs into Max, the trouble-maker on the Princeton Campus. The two of them hit it off. They hang out with Max’s buds, drinking and playing pool (Geek Alert: the scene of the boys running and goofing off in the courtyard is parallel to the Beatles doing the same in ‘A Hard Days’ Night’)
• “It Won’t Be Long” – Lucy gets a letter in the mail from her boyfriend – he’s coming home in a week!
• “I’ve Just Seen a Face” – Jude meets Lucy (Max’s sister) when he comes home with Max for Thanksgiving. He’s instantly taken with her: “She’s the girl for me…I’m falling, oh yes I’m falling, and she keeps calling me back again.” He then goes to NYC with Max who has decided to drop out of Princeton and move to NYC.
• “Let It Be” – Flash of the riots in Detroit, where Jojo, a guitarist, is from, and Daniel’s mother is visited by two US soldiers: Daniels’s dead, he was killed in Vietnam before he could get home. The song follows along his funeral and that of a young boy in Detroit who died in the riots.
• “Come Together” – Jojo leaves Detroit and journeys to NYC where he meets Sadie, the landlord of Jude & Max, and an aspiring singer, and auditions to join to her band. Jude becomes a freelance artist and Max becomes a taxi driver (Geek alert: When Max meets Sadie, she says, “You look clean cut but then again you could’ve just hammered your grandmother in the head” <—for those of you unfamiliar, the song “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” talks about him doing just that!).
• “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” – Lucy ventures to NYC to visit Max before goes off to college. Her first night there is spent watching Sadie sing this song with her band and walking the streets of NYC talking with Jude.
• “If I Fell” – Lucy spends more time with Jude – they’re out at the river one day and he draws a portrait of her on the concrete wall of an abandoned building. This is where she begins to fall in love with him.
• “I Want You/She’s So Heavy” – Max received a letter in the mail drafting him into the Army for the Vietnam War. He reports to his meeting with Uncle Sam (“I Want You”) and he’s officially drafted (“She’s So Heavy”) after a beautiful visual of him and other draftees carrying Lady Liberty across a field similar to the backdrop of Vietnam (AKA: defending the freedoms of our citizens can be a heavy weight to carry on your shoulders).
• “Dear Prudence” – Prudence has a crush on Jojo, but once again she’s crushing on a man she can’t have as he’s now with Sadie. The group sing to her to cheer her up, then they take her to the streets of NYC to join a walking protest of the war. After this, she disappears from the story for a bit.
• “I Am the Walrus” – Sadie signs with a record label and the roommates attend a book function for a drug guru, Doctor Robert (Bono), drink punch laced with LSD (yes, they just had to include that reference), and end up miles from home (riding on a bus similar to the one from Magical Mystery Tour), stranded outside the compound of a psychonautic, Dr. Frank Geary.
• “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” – The group is reunited with Prudence who has joined the circus, led by Mr. Kite (Eddie Izzard), as a circus performer.
• “Because” – A fun underwater-type scene that segues into Max leaving for Vietnam.
• “Something” – Jude reflects on his love for Lucy after seeing her being flirted with by an activist, Paco, (because the war has hit close to home for Lucy, she’s joined an anti-war activist group, ‘Students for a Democratic Republic’ (SDR), and spends a lot a time working at their headquarters). This puts a strain on their relationship as he believes Paco to be seducing Lucy.
• “Oh! Darling” – Against her better judgment, Sadie agrees with her new manager and drops her band, thus the break-up of her and Jojo in the middle of a performance one night.
• “Strawberry Fields Forever” – Jude’s feelings towards the time Lucy’s spending with SDR affects his artwork. He paints a beautiful picture of a strawberry (the one on the movie poster) and the parallels between the strawberries and the war are brought to light as Max joins in on the song from the other side of the world (awesome visual association that’s in the video clip: strawberries, red, grenades/bombs, blood)
• “Revolution” – Jude storms into the DSR headquarters and throws the hypocrisy of their actions into their faces when Lucy’s there one night – these leads to their break-up and the next song
• “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” – Jojo sings on stage and Sadie feels the loss of the band she left behind. Jude breaks down when he comes home to find that Lucy has packed her things and left him.
• “Across the Universe/Helter Skelter” – Police begin arresting protesters at an anti-war demonstration at Columbia University. Jude tries to help Lucy but he ends up being beaten by the police and arrested himself. It comes to light that he’s been in the US illegally. His father comes to see him in jail (Lucy called him) and tries to convince immigration that Jude’s his son, but since he has no proof by having left Jude’s mother while she was pregnant, Jude is then deported back Liverpool.
• “Happiness is a Warm Gun” – Max is wounded in the war. He’s now psychologically scarred and becomes dependent on morphine (Salma Hayek sings the background vocals and plays the nurse in this scene): “I need a fix ‘cause I’m going down…”
•  “Blackbird” – Lucy leaves the SDR after walking in on Paco making bombs (“I thought it was the other side who dropped bombs.”), one of which explodes, kills Paco, and destroys the SDR offices.
• “A Day in the Life” – No lyrics in this one, but it’s there in the background as Jude picks up the newspaper in Liverpool and the headline reads: “American Anti-War Radicals Kills in Homemade Bomb Blast.” All he can picture is Lucy when she was arrested at Columbia University and then falls into a small depression believing she is dead.
• “Hey Jude” – Jude learns from Max that Lucy is still alive and he’s encouraged to come to the US and get his girl.
• “Don’t Let Me Down” – Jojo and Sadie reconcile their differences and get together for a rooftop concert (same as the one the Beatles did in the documentary, Let it Be). It is here that Max arranges for Lucy to arrive so she and Jude can be reunited, but because the concert didn’t have a permit, the cops shut it down (Jude hides from them so he can use the microphone for his own message) and she can’t get into the building by the time she hears Jude’s voice singing:
• “All You Need is Love” – The police allow the band to go back to the rooftop and sing/play the song with Jude (Prudence is with them on the keyboard). Lucy appears on the rooftop of the building next to theirs and she and Jude gaze at one another as the song ends and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is played to begin the credit roll.

Okay, now I know that’s a lot, but do you see how the songs – and the characters within some of them – inspired this original masterpiece? Playlist Plotting reminds me of Jami Gold’s post last week where it was discussed in the comments how we writers can take characters, books, plots, etc. and use them as inspiration for an original plot and/or unique character of our own.

This movie did just that on an amplified level…and we can all learn from that!

---

Now for the contest:

• Your mission: Create a plot using Playlist Plotting. OR you can take one you already have and create the perfect playlist to amplify your story.
•  Judging: This contest will be judged by the wonderfully talented and awesome, Lisa Gail Green from Paranormal Point of View
• Be creative because this is exactly what she’s looking for – have fun with this and use the music to inspire the feelings of your characters:
• Kudos and extra credit to you if you’re able to use a single artist/band’s catalogue
• Rules/Limitations: Across the Universe used 29 songs in its Playlist Plotting…BUT we’re going to limit this with
• 10 songs, 10 plot points, 10 opportunities for you to make your story sing *smile*
• Put your Playlist Plotting creativity in the comments
• Commenting closes at 8pm EST on Tuesday, March 20th
• The winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 21st
• Prizes: There will be two winners:
• 1st place: A copy of 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald Tobias (I just finished it and it’s a really good guide to making a universal plot all your own) AND a copy of The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master by Martha Alderson
• 2nd place: A copy of Across the Universe on DVD

Remember, be creative! And if you really want to be challenged, try using a single artist/band’s song catalogue when creating your Plotting Playlist. Good luck!


Happy Plotting!!!
Melinda

Writerly Wednesday: When ‘Real Life’ Interferes With the ‘Writing Life’

Before we dive into today’s post, I just want to remind everyone that next week on the blog I’ll be having a contest based on a super-fun writing lesson I learned from Across the Universe. I have a fabulous fellow author who will be joining us and judging entries for two awesome prizes!

---

Needless to say, putting together another awesomely-fun Writing Lessons from the Movies post was just so not in the cards this past weekend. And so that brought me to this wonderful topic that I wanted to talk about with all of you: What happens when ‘real life’ interferes with the ‘writing life.’

As writers, we have all worked incredibly hard to balance our personal lives, professional ‘real world’ lives, and writing lives to the point where each can coincide together in harmony with one another. For some of us that means sticking to a strict schedule complete with one or two hour blocks of family time, writing time, cooking/dinner time, and so on and so forth. And each of those blocks of time gets squeezed into the few hours we have after we get home from a grueling 8-hour day at the office.

But then suddenly a money wrench gets thrown into the mix – and every now and then it’s a pleasant monkey wrench – and we end up wanting to scream our faces off like this:

So what’s a writer to do in those situations?!? Here’s my 2-word answer:

BREATH. RE-BOOT.

Example: I have an 89-year-old great-grandmother’s who’s been in a nursing home for over a year now and hospice has just been called. Needless to say, we’ve been told she’s has about 3 months as her body is just utterly exhausted. So on Friday night, the hubs and I went straight to see her after work. I’m talking no butt-in-the-chair-for-5-minutes-then-hit-the-road kind of thing. After we visited with her we had dinner with my grandparents which entailed some wonderful conversation (most between me and my grandmother about my writing journey – I sooo enjoy her support), which in turn meant not getting home until about 9:30. Follow this up with waking up on Saturday with a major headache and a wedding I just had to get to (when your best friend from high school gets married, you go, no excuses!). Followed by a visit to the grocery store after cancelling a get-together with your bestie (with glistening eyes because you miss her so much) because you just can’t get rid of that nagging headache. By the time the headache went away, it was 11pm and I was tired-silly to where I could do nothing for the rest of my sleepless night. Then on Sunday I had gobs and gobs of homework for a Deep Editing class I’m taking with the wonderful Margie Lawson, followed by submission to an editing partner, editing said partner’s homework and sending that back, then revising my homework based on her critique, then finally posting the homework on the forum. All the while washing the dishes and doing the laundry. WHEW!!!!

See what I mean?

BREATH. RE-BOOT!

How do you do that?!?

1. Realize that friends and family should always come first. I learned this lesson at my current day job because I have the best boss in the entire world who understands and constantly reminds me that my family is above all else. My friends follow right behind them because well, they are my family as well. These are the people who are going to push you, drive you, comfort you, laugh with you, cry with you, and all-around be there no matter what! Because of that, they should always come first. And there are those occasional times where you must sacrifice some time with them in order to hone your craft or meet a deadline, but that’s why they’re your family and nearest and dearest: they understand your dreams, hopes and ambitions and understand they will need to be sacrificed every now and then. <—Notice I said ‘every now and then’ – not all the time!
2. Recognize that while you think you can do it all, in all actuality…you can’t (at least not at once). While I admit that being referred to as Wonder Woman at work sounds kinda nice, I in no way, shape or form let that go to my head. Why? Because Wonder Woman was a fictitious character. If you’re able to get everything done in one night that you want then I bow to you and kiss the ground you walk on. Having more that you want to do and have to complete simply means that you are never going to have a boring moment in your life – and that’s enough for me. Sitting down, prioritizing, and managing your time will help with this endeavor. It will assist you in realizing that while you can’t do it all at once, you can definitely fit into your busy life, one small chunk at a time.
3. Literally BREATH and RE-BOOT. On Sunday night I literally laid in the bed, took a deep breath, then mentally re-booted my mind by saying to myself, “Tomorrow you will get back on track. Tomorrow you can pick back up where you left off at total world domination. Tomorrow is the first day of a brand new week and just because you didn’t get to do everything you wanted to do this weekend doesn’t mean it won’t still be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.”  If you’re being 110% honest with yourself then you will actually feel as though your brain is re-booting and prepping for the new day ahead of you.

So there you have it: What to do when ‘real life’ gets in the way of the ‘writing life.’

---

Ever had one of those days/nights/weekends where the ‘real’ stuff gets in the way of your fantasy/imaginary life? What have you done to calm yourself after freaking-out and realizing it just isn’t gonna happen for you this time around? Have you ever tried the ‘BREATH. RE-BOOT’ method?

Writerly Wednesday: Writing Lessons Learned from The Princess Bride (Film Version)

Welcome to another entry into Writing Lessons from the Movies!  Over the course of the next month, there will be 2 – count ‘em, TWO – challenges and contests! *prances around room like a little girl* 

• The first will begin two weeks from today, March 14th, and will directly follow the incredibly fun writing lesson I learned from Across the Universe (winner will be announced on March 21st).
• The next challenge and contest will be held two weeks after that on March 28th and will follow along yet another fun writing lesson I learned from Melinda and Melinda – which is a fabulous title, if you ask me (winner will be announced on April 4th).

For the two contests listed above, a secret ‘judge’ – aka: a fellow writer – will be judging the contest entries and deciding the first and second place winners (yes, there will be two prizes for each one!). So mark your calendars and be sure to join me back here on Muse, Rant, Rave for some creativity and writerly challenges! *smiles*

Now…onto today’s writing lessons from The Princess Bride, which came at a special request from a blog follower and friend, Jenn.  To get you started, check out this amazing fan-made trailer.

Plot per IMBD: “A classic fairy tale, with swordplay, giants, an evil prince, a beautiful princess, and yes, some kissing (as read by a kindly grandfather).”

• A New Take on a Master Plot: I stopped into Barnes & Noble during my lunch the other day and I discovered a book entitled 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them. *cue my a-ha! moment*
• The Princess Bride is a master plot! Girl meets boy, girl falls in love with boy, girl is made to believe she has lost boy (through death or some other tragic twist), so girl moves onto another boy BUT then original love/boy returns from the so-called dead to claim his one true love. Sound familiar??
• Brothers, Pearl Harbor, my untitled-and-currently-in-research-phase-WIP…heck, even The Notebook follows along a similar plotline: Ally falls for Noah, is made to believe that after she goes to school that Noah is gone from her life for good so she moves onto another man, but then Noah enters her life again and forces her to make the decision between her current and original love.
• Here’s the thing with plots: They are all in some way, shape or form a twist of a master plot, one that is time-tested to linger in the heart of a reader for years to come. They’ve just been made original through world-building, characters, subplots, and ultimately how the stories turn out. I just finished reading Everneath by Brodi Ashton. With this particular story, Ms. Aston has taken the mythology of Persephone and made it unique by intertwining it with wonderfully seamless, modern story-telling and incredible world building. See? A master plot at work right there! So don’t be afraid to tell a story with a famous plot…just make it twistedly-unique with your own added spice, flare and voice, and it’ll be sure to stick in the hearts of your readers.

• Character Motivations: This movie is the prime example of why every character in your story – especially those who are intricate parts of the plotline – should have their own motivation. The story does not work without their individual and/or group motivations!
• Westly: Initially it was to seek his fortune so he and Buttercup can marry, but upon his return it is to rescue her from three outlaws then to keep her safe and away from Prince Humperdinck. Why? Because she’s his one true love and that’s what kept the Dread Pirate Roberts from killing him after his ship was attacked.
• Prince Humperdink: Humperdinck wants to go to war with Guilder, but alas, Florin will not openly begin the war itself…in other words, his subjects will not fight without due cause. In order to get what he wants, he arranges his marriage to Buttercup (a commoner who according to the laws of the land he could not marry, so he lied about her origins), a woman who he obviously doesn’t truly care for (as we learn later in the story), then arranges for her to be kidnapped and murdered so he can pin both on the country he so desperately wants to rumble with. Why? Because he needs an army to fight that battle for him and believes they won’t do so unless their new princess is murdered on her wedding night.
• Inigo Montoya: Ah, the Spanish fencer and member of the outlaw group who kidnaps Buttercup. His motivation throughout the entire movie is clearly stated shortly after we’re introduced to him. During his swordfight with Westly, he reveals that throughout his entire life since his father’s death, he’s been seeking the six-fingered man who murdered his father. He even has the perfect parting lines for the murderer. Why? Because his father was unjustly murdered by Count Rugen when he refused to sell him the sword he specifically forged and sweated over for the Count due to the fact that the Count went back on his promised price.

• “This is true love – you think this happens every day?”: Thank you, Westly, I couldn’t have said it better myself! *claps* Because true love doesn’t happen every day, and because it often occurs in a slow-type manner, you should be gentle with it throughout your story:
• Characters shouldn’t jump blindly into all-out-can’t-live-without-you-love. UNLESS it’s the plot of the entire story, the one in which the entire story and subplots revolve around (ex: Romeo and Juliet). Regardless if you write historical, contemporary, paranormal, fantasy or horror, your two characters aren’t just going to magically fall in love within an hour of meeting one another. Sure there’ll be extreme butterflies, reddened cheeks and bodily reactions to the sight of one another, but that’s not can’t-live-without-one-another-love. Buttercup and Westly did not fall in love on sight. In fact, Westly was a farmhand in which she bossed around, to which he merely replied, “As you wish.” It wasn’t until some time and internalization later that she realized he loved her, and that she loved him. Take the reader along your characters’ journeys of falling in love with one another. Make them fall in love with the hero and heroine just as they are falling for one another.
• Once your reader has fallen in love with your characters, you can tug on their heart strings a bit along with one of the heroes of the story – which is always fun.
• Because true love doesn’t happen everyday, it shouldn’t bleed from the page. I’m sure you’ve read a sappy love story where it seemed that particular plot point was drilled into your head to the point of nausea. My personal experience example is The Vampire Diaries, Book One. The TV show is amazing, but in the book there was way too much “Oh, Elena,” “Oh, Stefan.” Writing about love on every single page will do nothing more than bore your reader to tears. There should be a second plot somewhere in your story that breaks up the gushy love-stuff. Best example: The Black Dagger Brotherhood series from J.R. Ward. Her series is paranormal romance – which means she writes about the romance and love between two main characters. But guess what? Incredible subplots enter the fold and break up the love scenes so that they don’t overwhelm the reader.

• The Difference Between Mostly Dead and All Dead: If you’re a fellow writer/author, do me a favor: think of one of your MSS that you’ve previously put on the shelf and have forgotten about because it just wasn’t working, or maybe because the plot was tired. Got the MS in mind? Good. Now I want you to pay attention to the following advice from Miracle Max:

Did you catch that? “Mostly dead is slightly alive.” Did your heart just jump a little? I know mine did, especially because it hit me straight between the eyes. Just because you put a MS on the shelf due to a tired plot or maybe one that wasn’t working doesn’t mean the MS’s all dead! There’s good stuff in there that’s keeping that MS slightly alive: three-dimensional characters, a believable world you poured your heart and soul into at one point in time, amazing dialogue, magnificent action scenes, etc. The point is this: you’ve come a long way since you left that slightly alive MS thinking it was all dead, so why not re-visit that world and pump full life into it by changing and/or twisting a few things around to make it work? C’mon, take a chance and spend a little time stewing on it. I guarantee you’ll be freshly excited about the story once it’s been brought back to life like Westly was.

---

What about you? Do you live on the planet earth? If so, then I know you’ve had to have seen The Princess Bride (if not then I do apologize for calling you an alien). Have you taken a time-tested master plot and twisted it in a unique fashion for a story? Do you flesh out your characters until each of their motivations becomes clear? What about love? Do you write your romances with a little bit of action and dark plot twists? Or do you write action and dark plot twists with a little bit of romance? Have you ever taken a MS from the shelf, brushed the cobwebs off, and brought it from slightly alive to thriving with a pounding heart beat?

Do you have a movie you’d like to see analyzed in this series?

Writerly Wednesday: Writing Lessons Learned from The Good Girl

Last week we visited Forrest Gump and analyzed just a few of the writing lessons the movie offered.  This week we’re going to venture into a movie that wasn’t exactly considered a blockbuster, but it won over the critics nonetheless: The Good Girl. While it wasn’t a popular movie, it was most definitely noticed at Sundance and proved to the critics that Jennifer Aniston could definitely push past her role of Rachel on Friends. It also showed us how the popular book, The Catcher in the Rye, still effects the lives of its readers.

Plot per IMBD: “The plot revolves around a young married woman whose mundane life takes a turn for the worse when she strikes up a passionate and illicit affair with an oddball discount-store stock boy who thinks he’s Holden Caulfield.”

• First Lines/Opening Monologues: As far as opening lines/monologues in movies go, I believe this one is in the top 5. The Good Girl opens with a monologue by the MC, Justine Last, where she states: “As a girl you see the world like a giant candy store, filled with sweet candy and such. But one day you look around and see a prison, and you’re on death row. You wanna run, or scream, or cry. But somethin’s lockin’ you up. Are the other folks cows chewin’ cud ‘til the hour comes and their heads roll, or are they just keepin’ quiet like you…planning their escape?”
• An opening line or monologue seeks to drop the reader directly into the midst of the action. But action doesn’t necessarily mean physical action; it can mean the emotional action the MC is going through. Think about it: a first line seeks to grasp the reader, to take ultimately ahold of them with something universal that they’ve more than likely felt at one point or another in their life and not let go – or it can also be something that just grasps their curiosity because they haven’t experienced it before (i.e: running from the cops or a murderer). Justine’s opener does just that: 
• She feels trapped and unhappy with her life.
  
• As a little girl she looked at the world with bright eyes and couldn’t wait to come of age and enjoy all that life had to offer.
  
• She wants to run away, begin anew.
  
• She often wonders if anyone else feels the same way.

Maybe instead of searching for that perfect first line, we should seek to settle with the most honest, truthful first line that practically sums up our MC’s frame of mind as we begin their journey? It’s definitely an option and has been done before, it’s just that whenever we’ve read it in the past we’ve thought of it as only the perfect first line instead of the truth at the core of the entire plot. Now there’s an idea: don’t search for perfect, search for the truth because that’s what’ll lead you to the perfect first line. Alleviates the pressure a bit, doesn’t it?

• A Likeable Main Character (Regardless of Her Flaws): Justine Last is a miserable, sad and selfish girl. But you don’t actually realize all of these flaws until after you’ve become invested in her story. Here’s a mini-breakdown of her arc:
• At the beginning of the film you get to see a day in her life: from the boring 8-hr day at The Retail Rodeo, to coming home and not being able to park in her own driveway, to watching TV with her husband, Phil, and his friend, Bubba (while they’re getting high in her living room) and listening to their stupid-crazy marijuana-talk. Once you’ve watched what a day is like for her, you begin to empathize a bit – her life truly is miserable.
  
• In walks – er, sits – Holden, a cashier who’s real name is Tom but refers to that as his ‘slave name’ (note: while it’s not exactly said, he truly does believe he’s Holden Caulfield).  He’s just as bored and dissatisfied with his life as Justine is (and keeps to himself because, in his words, he’s a writer). Bingo! We have a connection and a glimpse of the ‘other side’ that Justine’s been looking for. So she plays with fire a bit and flirts with Holden. But Holden wants more than she’s willing to give at the moment for fear or hurting someone.
• But then again, all these questions begin to fester inside her: “Has a special fate been calling you and you’re not listenin’?”, “Is there a secret message right in front of you and you’re not readin’ it?”, “Is this your last, best chance?”, and “Are you gonna take it? Or are you going to the grave with unlived lives in your veins?” <—Special Note: This is exactly how inner conflict should work. In order to get inside the mind of the MC and ‘get’ why they made their decisions, a push/pull of emotions on big decisions should be reflected.

• The day Justine’s co-worker and friend, Gwen, gets sick at work, she receives a letter from Holden: he states she’s the only person who’s ever ‘gotten’ him and that he’s quitting his job because of her – BUT if she wants to be with him too, body and soul, then she should meet him at 5pm outside the Chuckie Cheese (*giggle*). Justine drives her friend to the hospital, drops her off at the ER entrance and tells her she’s going to park and will be right in…but instead she runs off to the Chuckie Cheese (takes the leap) and drives Holden to a local motel where they begin an affair.
  
• Because her friend is in the hospital for a few days, Justine uses that as an excuse to come home late from work for the next few days. While her husband believes she’s at the hospital visiting a sick friend (whom she hasn’t seen since dropping her off to begin with), she’s off having an affair. Pretty selfish, huh? But we were invested from the get-go so why stop now?
  
• Everything crumbles when she sees Bubba’s truck outside the motel one night, so she runs to the hospital to make as if she was there the entire time. But when she arrives she discovers that Gwen died. She then has a wake up call and decides to go to church one night. Here is when she begins to make strides towards changing her circumstances. But then Bubba blackmails Justine, holds it over her that he’ll tell her husband unless she sleeps with him, so now she’s really eyeballs deep in alligators.
  
• During this entire time her husband has been making gestures to make their home life a little better: fixing the TV she’s complained about, seeing a Dr. to find out why they can’t get pregnant, etc.
  
• Justine learns she’s pregnant (another turning point). From there she begins to try and figure a way to leave Holden and their entire affair behind her after coming to the enlightened conclusion that “Holden is at best a child, and at worst a demon.”
  
• Eventually it all comes down to a crossroads after Holden robs The Retail Rodeo and tempts her with the opportunity to leave Texas and begin a new life, just the two of them (the movie’s tagline: “It’s her last best chance…is she going to take it?). Justine packs her bags and truly makes as if she’s going to leave her boring life behind.
  
• But with a bit of reflection, she makes the decision you hoped she would: she turns Holden into the police and walks away (dubbed by her boss ‘The Good Girl’ for doing so).
  
• She suffers the consequences of her affair though: Her husband finds the credit card bill and confronts her. She owns up to her mistake and eventually receives forgiveness from him.

Yes, this is a bit long for a ‘mini-breakdown,’ but you get the gist of what I’m talking about when I say that the main character should be likeable regardless of their flaws! She made a mistake because she was dissatisfied with her life. True she should’ve handled it differently, but that’s what makes her human just like you and me. The journey she took made her realize what she had wasn’t so bad. Isn’t that the same one we all take at one point or another? And she was likeable the entire time – even while she was being selfish by not visiting and using her dying friend and so wrapped up in this affair that she was unable to see the great things her husband had begun to do around the house until it was too late. Yes, believe it or not, she was likeable the entire time. <—The magic of writing!

• Raise the Stakes: Now that you’ve had a breakdown of Justine’s story, I can easily point out that throughout her story, the stakes were raised higher and higher:
• She’s dissatisfied with her life…and life should be enjoyable. Does she continue down that path or seek to make herself happy regardless of how? <—A universal question
  
• Now that she’s played with fire, she may get caught. Her husband’s best friend has blackmailed her: he knows her secret and will tell her husband unless she does something in return. Now it thickens and she’s closer to possibly losing everything, regardless of how boring it was to begin with.
  
• With the decision to wipe her hands clean of the affair, the stakes rise even more when Holden cries, gets a little rowdy when she hints at wanting to end things, and he even threatens to hurt himself. Now it’s suddenly not just her life she’s got to think about (In her words: “I realized Holden was at best a child, and at worst, a demon.”).
  
• After the discovery that she’s pregnant, the stakes are raised even more: there’s a new person whose life will be affected by her decisions. Will she run away with Holden and be a fugitive, but yet have what she’s always wanted by getting out of that town? Or will be stay and raise her child with her husband who’s really a good man at heart (he just likes to get high, what?)? Truth be told, and you find this out at the end, if she’d only shared her unhappiness with her husband she would’ve learned that he too can feel as she did in the beginning: Phil: “I need to get stoned. I just gotta escape. Do you ever feel like that? Like you gotta escape?”

Notice a pattern here of how to raise the stakes? If it ain’t one thing, it’s another! Think of situation or dilemma to begin your MC with. Now think of something tempting, something that would force them to make a huge/life-changing choice (ruining their life or the life of others – it doesn’t always have to be ‘life threatening’, especially if that doesn’t fit the genre/story), then rain hell on them, continue to ask yourself: “What’s the worse thing that could happen now?” Or you can ask my favorite: What could I do that would make my character scream, “If it ain’t one thing, it’s another!!!”

• Introduction of Secondary Characters: The secondary characters in this movie just float in, as if they were always a natural part of the story and not inserted because the movie needed more characters/interaction. No big introductions, no real time spent on each one, they just float in and around the story and soon become the ones you know by name and can always count on to make you laugh a little when they appear.
• Corny: A religious security guard who you first see as playing with the automatic door of the store during Justine’s opening monologue. He’s the one bugs Justine to come to church. His appearance is extremely natural in the film.  Movie funny: When Justine tells him that she prefers her nights to herself vs. going to church, he replies (paraphrase): “Well maybe you’ll have night after night of eternal hell-fire all to yourself.” *snicker*
  
• Cheryl: A young, cynical girl working at the store who begins in the movie as the intercom announcer of the store’s great deals. But you quickly learn that she enjoys sneaking in sly innuendos into the sales announcements. Her appearance is also extremely natural – every store has some kind of announcement going on in order to drive their sales, right? Here’s one of Cheryl’s (again, paraphrasing): “Liquid drain cleaner, 2 12oz cans for $5. Liquid drain cleaner has turning power and it will turn right through your pipes. Ladies, you need female formula. Shove something clean and new up your filthy pipes. That’s liquid drain cleaner on aisle 3. Have a good day and thank you for shopping Retail Rodeo.” *laughs out loud ‘cause nobody notices*
  
• Gwen: A woman older than Justine who works behind the cosmetics counter with her. A very natural introduction because she’s working her butt off while Justine just sits there, bored with her job and her life, watching her co-worker do both their jobs.
  
• Phil: A natural and intricate character to the story who didn’t need an introduction because you could figure out who he was when Justine got home that first night (and got fussed at for getting blue paint on their new couch).
  
• Bubba: Phil’s best friend who also didn’t need an introduction. He sits next to Phil, night after night, and definitely appears to be a natural part of the story.

There are more characters I could bring in but the point is that each character you introduce should  happen in the most natural way possible. Ever read a story where every character who comes into play is fully described from their height and build to their hair and eye color? Didn’t it feel jarring? Exactly! Introducing a character that way is unnatural. Your MC doesn’t walk into some they know and describe them in that moment, do they? Nope, that’s normally reserved for those mysterious men who appear out of nowhere so the MC is noticing all of that to ensure the vision is burned into their memory. So why would we write that in unless it’s one of those moments? Let the characters’ actions and dialogue be their introductions – the one that’s the most natural to the story.

---

What about you? Have you seen The Good Girl? Have you ever felt like Justine? If so, have you used that in your writing in order to relate to the reader? Are there other writing lessons you can extract from this particular film? Do you have a movie you’d like to see analyzed during this series?

Writerly Wednesday: Writing Lessons Learned from Forrest Gump

Thanks to the super-convincing awesomesauce words of S.P. Sipal, I’ve decided to do a series of posts based on the writing lessons we can learn from movies (I do believe I may have found my niche *throws confetti*). 

Last week we visited John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club. This week we’re going to visit an even bigger blockbuster of a movie: Forrest Gump.

Plot per IMDB: “Forrest, Forrest Gump, is a simple man with a low IQ but good intentions. He is running through childhood with his best and only friend, Jenny. His ‘mama’ teaches him the ways of life and leaves him to choose his destiny. Forrest joins the army for service in Vietnam, finding new friends called Dan and Bubba, he wins medals, creates a famous shrimp fishing fleet, inspires people to jog, starts a ping-pong craze, creates the smiley, writes bumper stickers and songs, donates to people and meets the president several times. However this is all irrelevant to Forrest who can only think of his childhood sweetheart, Jenny, who has messed up her life. Although in the end all he wants to prove is that anyone can love anyone.”

• Symbolism – a strong story element: Remember the white feather that just floats along in the beginning of the movie…then reappears at the end? That particular light-as-air feather packs a BIG meaning, especially when Forrest says at the end of the movie, "I don't know if Mama's right or if its Lieutenant Dan, I don't know if we each have a destiny or if we're all floating around accidental, like on a breeze." The best part is that this is one of those symbols that represents a wide variety of meanings to different people.  Here are two interpretations from the cast of the movie as an example:
  • Tom Hanks’s Interpretation: “Our destiny is only defined by how we deal with the chance elements to our life and that’s kind of the embodiment of the feather as it comes in. Here is this thing that can land anywhere and that it lands at your feet; it has theological implications that are really huge.”
  • Sally Field’s Interpretation: “It blows in the wind and just touches down here or there. Was it planned or was it just perchance?”

I suggest taking a look at the Symbolism Thesaurus over at The Bookshelf Muse for more ideas of how you use this element throughout your own plotting. Like I said, regardless of why you use it and what it means to you,  it’s a powerful element that’s open to interpretation by the reader…and it’s something the reader will forever remember in the back of their mind (I always think of Forrest whenever I see a feather).

• Develop you minor characters:  In this particular movie we not only follow Forrest, but we also follow several other characters: Jenny and Lt. Dan.

• Jenny: When we first meet Jenny (Robin Wright Penn) she’s a little girl and the only kid who offers a place for Forrest to sit next to on the bus to school. Throughout their friendship she never judged Forrest. Sure, she may have asked him within the first few minutes of their meeting, “Are you stupid or something?”, but after that she leaned on him in her times of need: when her father abused her, when she needed a place to rest and deflate, when she knew the end of her life was in sight. Her journey is a memorable one in the fact that she begins her journey into adulthood with emotional issues due to her abusive childhood and like many others, she deals with those in the only way she knows how: by numbing herself with alcohol and drugs. Eventually she cleans herself up (thanks to Forrest for taking her in) and becomes responsible when she has a child and that within itself is where I believe her character arc truly resonates and shines. Yes, every story is mainly following a single character, but there are other characters that the reader (or viewer) yearns to learn about, to care about, to root for. Jenny is one such character and her existence in itself was a symbol to Forrest.
  • More on symbols: Throughout the story Jenny is a symbol for Forrest. To him she represents all that is wonderful and good. He listens to her when she tells him to run (which saves his life in Vietnam and starts a jogging craze across the country), she unintentionally pulls him through the rough times, and she’s the one that started him on the path to greatness – his rock or foundation, so to speak. Without her being in his life he would’ve never ran like the wind and pushed past his disability…thus allowing him to run like hell from bullies…thus getting him into college to play football…thus causing him to graduate college where he then enrolled into the Army…thus saving his life once again by telling him to run if he ever got in trouble while in Vietnam…and so on and so forth.  What would’ve happened if Jenny’s character hadn’t been followed and developed alongside Forrest?
  
  

• Lt. Dan Taylor: Lt. Dan (Gary Sinese) is another character we just wanted to root for, but we didn’t necessarily do so until after he’d been knocked down to his lowest level: when he lost both legs in the war and pulled Forrest out of his bed one night and practically cried in his arms over feeling like a cripple (this is something that he and Forrest, unbeknownst to Lt. Dan, had in common since Forrest had to overcome that particular obstacle at a young age) and stating that he’d been cheated out of his life’s destiny by Forrest. Throughout the course of the movie we watched as Lt. Dan entered Forrest’s life after a TV interview where shortly after, he defended Forrest to two women who called him stupid. In effect this opened Forrest’s eyes a bit to the fact that he and Dan had another thing in coming: Forrest didn’t like being called stupid just like Dan didn’t like being called cripple. Lt. Dan’s character takes a turn after he joins Forrest on his shrimpin’ boat, lovingly called Jenny, and finds a newfound outlook on life after challenging God during a horrific storm – this is where he finally thanks Forrest for saving his life. In the end, Lt. Dan appears with new titanium alloy limbs, a fiance, and a smile on his face. Where would this movie have been without that particular development of Lt. Dan? I can’t even imagine it, can you?
 
• The art of show don’t tell: This particular movie is a prime example of ‘show don’t tell.’ Here are a few examples:
• When Forrest can’t get into school due to his low I.Q. or 75, his mother takes things into her own hands to ensure her son receives equal treatment by *ahem* meeting the needs of the man in charge (so to speak).
• We weren’t told that she had sex with the man and Forrest never thought twice about it. Instead what the story showed is Forrest hearing disturbing-type noises that night, followed by the man leaving his home stating (I’m paraphrasing here), “You’re mama sure does care about your education, boy.” Even without the noises, the viewer can figure out what happened between them with just that statement. To quote some of the best advice I’ve received from Lisa Gail Green: “Trust the reader!”
• Before Forrest goes to Vietnam, he visits Jenny.
• While Forrest states that Jenny finally got her dream to finally be on stage, singing with her guitar, what is shown is that she’s actually a performer in a strip club. We didn’t have to be told because we could deduce it from the fact that the men in the crowd were screaming for her to move her guitar aside and show them some action.
• Sidenote: While we know what’s really going on and we’re seeing how her life has declined, that’s one of those moments where it’s really great to see the world through Forrest’s eyes.
• Historical writers will like this one: When the men who are looking for the ‘fuse box or somethun’ near Forrest’s hotel room – the one where President Nixon moved him.
• Since we’ve all had our history lesson we really didn’t need to be told exactly what was happening. Putting two and two together for the viewer showed us Forrest was the one who busted the five men breaking and entering into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex.
• Jenny’s death – the one where she states she has some kind of virus, one the Dr.’s can’t figure out.
• Given the timing and what we know about Jenny’s history it’s pretty easy to figure out that she more than likely had contracted the AIDS virus. While it’s not exactly identified, the viewer knows it in their heart of hearts.

• Kill off a few characters – even the ones the viewer has fallen in love with: Bubba, Mrs. Gump, Jenny…. all three characters had a huge impact on Forest’s life – and each one had an even bigger impact with their deaths. While it hurts your heart to do something like this it’s sometimes necessary in order to move your character to where they need to be. No ifs, ands or buts about it.  If that’s what has to happen in order to get that character arc developing, then do it! 
• Take an example from this movie and be sure to have that character continue to live on in the heart and mind of the MC:
• Forrest used what he learned from Bubba to start a shrimpin’ business (in turn he gave Bubba’s mama her share).
  
• He continually quotes his mother (“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”) and reads to his son like she read to him.
  
• He buried Jenny under ‘their’ tree, bulldozed her father’s old house down, and visits with her at her grave (in my mind he does this every day).

• Choose the theme(s) of your novel carefully and plant them seamlessly throughout your story: While the author of the novel, Winston Groom, has stated that Forest’s story is about dignity, I like to think it’s also about respect, tolerance, unconditional love, and perseverance.  All four are universal themes that we all aspire to be/have in our lives: We aspire to earn and keep the respect of others around us, we yearn to learn tolerance of others and their choices (even if we don’t like them), we learn through our children, friends and family what unconditional love is (and through our stories we strive to teach others), and each and every day we persevere. 
• Most themes aren’t particularly obvious as you’re watching a movie or reading a book until the very end when you sit and reflect on the life story you just witnessed. Strive for that with your writing. Strive for planting theme(s) seamlessly throughout the story that will bring the reader back time after time, that’ll get the reading groups talking, that’ll transcend sex, gender and race, and that’ll speak to every generation.

I could go on for about another thousand words with the writing lessons we can take away from this particular movie, but instead I’ll leave you with some trivia before opening it up for comments. Be sure to come back on Friday for this week’s round-up of writing posts. Next Wednesday we’ll visit writing lessons from The Good Girl.

• John Travolta was originally sought after to play the role of Forrest. He of course turned it down and has said that it was a huge mistake. The next person they wanted for the role was Bill Murray. But the one actor who nabbed this part was Tom Hanks who signed onto the film within an hour and a half of reading the script.
• Kurt Russell, though not credited, provided the voice of Elvis Presley in the scene where Forrest showed his moves.
• Mykelti Williamson (Bubba) wore an attachment during filming in order to give himself the ‘big gums’ look.
• Dick Cavett played the 70’s version of himself in the movie (with the help of make-up, of course).
• A sequel to the book has been published, Gump & Co., and for a while Hollywood debated on developing it but opted out shortly after the world changed with 9-11.
• According to the research I’ve done, the author, Groom Winston, was never thanked during acceptance speeches for being the mastermind behind the character and his story.
• Forrest Gump won a total of 29 awards – 6 of which are Oscars

---

Your turn: What other writing lessons can you pull from Forrest Gump?  Have you been using these lessons all along and never thought about how they were in some way, shape, or form incorporated into this particular film? Is there a particular movie you’d like for me to post about? <—I’m definitely up for the challenge!

Writerly Wednesday: Writing Lessons Learned from The Breakfast Club

You know those posts where fellow authors have taken NYT Bestsellers, extracted writing lessons from them, and shared those lessons with the rest of us (like this one from Julie Musil a few weeks ago and S.P. Sipal’s website, Harry Potter for Writers, where she does this on a weekly basis)?


Well, this is one such post – inspired by a moment of reflection where I went back and re-read some of my favorite posts like this. But today I’m going to take this nugget of an idea of writing lessons from NYT Bestsellers and share some of my writing lessons from the one area of entertainment (besides reading) where I absolutely love to re-visit the story over and over again and dissect each scene, plot, character and soundtrack: movies. My first choice is my all-time favorite movie, The Breakfast Club (which also features my absolute favorite song of all-time, Don’t You Forget About Me by Simple Minds).
 

Next week I’m going to visit another fave of mine, Forest Gump. Who knows, this may end up being a weekly thing here on the blog! *wink*

Lessons from The Breakfast Club 

John Hughes

• Hone your craft to become one of the best in your genre: John Hughes is the master when it comes to teenage angst, but that’s not where he began. Hughes spent many a year perfecting his craft of writing by penning stories for National Lampoon Magazine, which after his first one, allowed him to begin working for the publication. The first story he penned was inspired by his real life and the family vacations he took as a child, which in turn inspired the ‘round-the-world-famous movie (and one of his first credited screenplays), National Lampoon’s Vacation. After writing this he wrote a few more stories that succeeded in sharpening his craft and insight into the world of teen life, which wasn’t truly shown until his directorial debut, Sixteen Candles. Then it’s all history from there – although he also tried his hand at other genres so that he wasn’t typecasted as the writer/maker of teen comedies (one of which we all famously know as Home Alone). Imagine how Hughes must’ve felt sitting in the office of National Lampoon Magazine, itching to just write and get his stories out there, to do more with his talents than writing short stories for the magazine. Now, when people think of the movies of the 80’s, they think of John Hughes and the stories he gave us (and many still work to duplicate that success). Though he never penned a book (and most certainly could have), he found his niche, sharpened his craft and allowed himself to grow from there – a lesson that every writer should learn.

• Sometimes the simplest plot isn’t exactly simple: The plot for The Breakfast Club, according to IMDB, is: “Five high school students, all different stereotypes, meet in detention, where they pout their hearts out to each other, and discover how they have a lot more in common than they thought.” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But guess what, with further exploration and after clever writing on Hughes’ part, this plot is actually explosive! I sometimes think instead of stating that these students were from different stereotypes it should’ve actually said that each one is from a different side of the tracks (try about 5 directions) – hell, even different planets! But with the way the movie unfolds – first with their arrival and cracks on one another (more so coming from John Bender than any other character) to succumbing to their natural teenage curiosity of what would happen if we broke a rule or two to sitting around and finally opening up to one another (induced by enjoying some green together) to coming together at the end and declaring themselves The Breakfast Club and giving a big finger to one of the antagonists of the film (Richard Vernon) – the plot is actually found within the task that they have to do while in detention: write a 1000-word essay on who they think they are. The resolution: we are who we are but it’s never going to matter to everyone else because they’re going to see us however they wanna see us, but to us, we are exactly how we see each other: a brain, an athlete, a basketcase, a princess and a criminal. How’s that for a plot?

• Create memorable and relatable characters with great inner conflict: Each of us was one of these characters in high school, and each of us succumbed to the greatest antagonist in teenage-high-school-life: Pressure (from peers and/or family). The kicker to me is that what each of them brought for lunch that day describes, exactly, their personalities.

Anthony Michael Hall

• Brian Johnson (the brain): Brian gets detention for having a flare gun in his locker…that goes off by accident (cue laughing). The inner conflict that Brian suffers from is that he has super strict parents who continually want him to win academically. When he has trouble succeeding in a project for shop class (the only class he has ever failed), he considers suicide (thus having the flare gun). His character flaw is that he continually tries to fit in and adapt to new people and situations and tries to be the peacemaker amongst the group. In the end it is Brian who writes the essay for Mr. Vernon – addressed from everyone in the group (at the urging of the ‘princess,’ Claire).
• What he brought for lunch: PB & J with the crusts cut off, a thermos of soup, a juice box (apple), and a small snack bag with can be assumes as veggies.

Emilio Estevez

• Andrew Clark (the athlete): Andrew receives detention because he taped a teammate’s ‘buns’ together in the locker room. Due to the pressure of his father (who was a star athlete in his own time) to always be number one, he does this to try and earn the man’s respect, but confesses to feeling incredibly guilty for having done so to Larry Lester (he says he can’t even imagine the humiliation the kid must’ve felt at telling his own father what happened). 
• What he brought for lunch: 3 sandwiches, a large bag of potato chips, a bag of doughnuts, 1/2 gallon of milk, an apple and a banana.

Ally Sheedy

• Allison Reynolds (the basketcase): Allison is the one who did absolutely nothing to get detention. But as it turns out, she actually suffers from the pressure to have attention because her parents don’t give her any at home. She sort of cries out for help with her very first line ‘HA!’ but no one really takes her seriously until they slow down enough for her to open up to them – and they all laugh together at her when she admits to not having anything else better to do than to come to school for eight hours on a Saturday (promptly followed by one of the best montages I’ve ever seen). She and Andrew actually bond a little towards the end and find themselves lip-locked at the end after Claire gives her a makeover. And come on, you have to admit that the mini scene of her finishing up a wintery landscape drawing by shaking her head to add ‘snow’ is actually pretty hysterical.
• What she brought for lunch: A sandwich with mayo (in which she promptly throws the meat over her shoulder), a small bag of captain crunch that she adds to her sandwich after laying a thick layer of salt to the mayo. Everyone watches as she puts this meal together. 

Molly Ringwald

• Claire Standish (the princess):  Claire is the rich girl with a ‘perfect’ life who receives detention for skipping school to go shopping. She, of course, becomes the #1 target of Bender’s insults.  She begins her journey as a shallow person who thinks she’s better than any and every one else there – so yea, she needed to be taken down a notch or two, which is exactly what Bender managed to do in the end (the two of them end up making out a bit).  Claire’s pressure is mainly from her friends and she’s not afraid to admit that it’s one of the things she hates the most (and she’s got parent issues going on since her parents were recently divorced). Even though she might still be conceited, I personally believe that her eyes opened the widest at the end (she got beat up pretty bad).
• What she brought for lunch: a sushi platter (to which John replies: “You won’t accept a guy’s tongue in your mouth and you’re gonna eat that?”).

Judd Nelson

• John Bender (the criminal): Ah, the resident bad boy. Bender gets detention for setting off a false fire alarm and he begins his journey by throwing some hard-core insults at everyone, though mainly at Claire. Bender’s inner angst is that he is the product of an abusive, alcoholic father who actually burned him with a cigar for spilling paint in the garage once and gave him a carton of cigarettes for Christmas (as opposed to the diamond earrings Claire’s father gave her). But when you strip away his cocky, dickhead attitude, you find he’s actually a soft guy underneath that hard exterior who is a product from not only his father but from those around him who have judged him a bit too harshly (Andrew basically tells him at the beginning of the movie that he could disappear from the school and no one would care). 
• What he brought for lunch: absolutely nothing

• Create a tagline by skimming the surface of the story:  “They were five total strangers, with nothing in common, meeting for the first time. A brain, a jock, a rebel and a recluse. Before the day was over, they broke the rules, bared their souls, and touched each other in a way they never dreamed possible.” This tagline barely skates on the surface of the plot but it gives you just enough insight to pull you in and make you wonder how those eight hours would really play out (This movie trailer follows the gist of the tagline, I suggest giving a watch if you’ve never seen this movie).

• Write an ending the story deserves: The end of the movie is pitch perfect and came to a close in the only way it possibly could’ve: with the essay Brian was charged with writing for the group followed by Bender walking home across the football field and freeze-framing on him pumping his fist in the air (after he receives one of Claire’s diamond earrings and puts it in his ear – d’aww) – among other things.

---

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong…but we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain…and an athlete…and a basketcase…a princess…and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.

---

What about you – have you seen The Breakfast Club? What writing lessons can you pull from this iconic film and incorporate into your own writing? Are there are any other movies (that didn’t sprout from books) that have taught you lessons about the writing craft?