Are movies, TV, and music legitimate sources of inspiration for authors?

Recently I was asked a question I don't hear too often:  Where do you get your ideas?

Weirdly,  I really don't get asked that often.  I mean, you're face to face with an author, wouldn't that be right up there with, "What's your book about?"

Alas, it seems like once you've answered the first question, many folks don't care to ask a second one.

In being asked, "Where do you get your ideas?"  I had to be honest.  I get many of them from other media:  TV, movies, and music.

That sounds like  a sell out, perhaps. Or does it?  As authors, we draw inspiration from the world
around us.  Why not from other media?  If it's okay to get inspired by news headlines, why not by a TV show?

For generations, books have inspired TV shows, Movies, and songs.  One of my favorites is "Wuthering Heights," which has spawned several movies, both TV and big screen, as well as a brilliant song done by both Kate Bush and Pat Benatar.  The argument about whether the book is better than the movie (generally it is) ignites every time J. K. Rowlings attaches the name "Harry Potter" to a film, or some crime drama series lends its characters to a TV show.

Now, TV has inspired books.  Look at the series, "Castle."  Good TV series.  The books...well...less so.  Which was weird for me to admit.

Is it pandering to the non-reading public to liken our work to some popular TV show.  (I've often compared the pacing and structure of my novel "Lies in Chance" to the TV show "Dallas.") Are we selling out the idea of true art in print if we try to write what we see and hear in someone else's art?

Recently I watched a documentary on the artist James Whistler.  He drew a tremendous amount of inspiration from Japanese art.  In a time where TV, radio, and movies did not exist, he looked to Japan for ideas for his own work.  Does that make his paintings somehow less beautiful, less worth our time? No, because the work, ultimately, was his.

We are told, from little on, if we want to be writers, we must "WRITE WHAT WE KNOW."  If we waited to write something fun from what we know, many books would never get finished, many stories would never be told, many voices would never be heard.  Instead, I say, start from the base of what you know. Then, look around you, reach out into the lives that surround you. Listen. Watch.  And if what you're listening to and watching is inspiring you to create something to share with others, then who cares where it comes from?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating copying anything or publishing something akin to fan fiction, literally taking someone else's idea and bending those characters to your will.  Let Hollywood do that.  Heaven knows it happens often enough. What I am saying is that if you feel something when listening to a song on the radio (does anyone listen to "radio" anymore?) or watching a movie, if some facial expression, line of dialogue, or cinematic setting unlocks a door for you, then build on it,  It's okay.

Whatever you are writing, it's far more important to feel something and believe in it than it is to have drawn the idea from some high end intellectual place.  Real life doesn't work that way.  And if we are supposed to write what we know, shouldn't we write the way our real lives work?

A Review You Can Use: Can You Ever Forgive me?

Every once in a while a movie comes along that doesn't just entertain, it makes you think about the future.  Such is "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"

This is not a film that's going to appeal to everyone, to be sure.  Melissa McCarthy plays against type as Lee Israel, noted celebrity biographer whose work falls out of step with literary style in the early 90's.  With the help of her ne'er do well friend, Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant), she sells forged letters from past literary greats to collectors to pay her bills.

The movie is based on a true story, written by the author Lee Israel herself.  At moments the movie is hilarious and at moments it's very funny.  Anyone who has had to struggle with bills will understand the need to do whatever it takes to make money.  Anyone with a creative mind will feel a connection with Lee as she fights the urge to just give up writing for good while at the same time finding an outlet, no matter how criminal, for that creativity.

Ultimately, by Hollywood standards, this movie was not a great success, even with its Oscar nominations.  But that's not why I found it interesting and not why I think it's a movie worth checking out.

We as writers and authors do what we do to make our mark and be remembered.  Our books, our stories are concrete evidence that we were here, we did something.

But in an age of computers and deleted files and emails, and digital downloads, will that be enough?

The magic about the era of Dorothy Parks, Noel Coward, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the like is their paper trail. They didn't just write books. They didn't just create music and poetry. They lived on paper.  They wrote actual letters.  They signed things.  They kept their early manuscripts because they couldn't just hit the DELETE button.

And these things, these letters, these early manuscripts, these physical books with signatures in them...these are the things people keep. They hold on to the physical items with an author's name on it.  They pass bits of paper, envelops, napkins with scribbled notes on them from generation to generation, framed, under glass, a forever reminder that this author once was...

Our generation has automated. We've made it easier to publish, to distribute, to get our stories in front of people, and that's just fine. It's great, in fact, for those of us who are storytellers.  We're telling stories. No worries.

But what is our legacy?  There will be few, if any written letters saved and framed in a collector's shop.  (I doubt my thank you notes from my high school graduation count.)  Without these physical tokens of our personal lives, will people look back and say, "Ah, the wit of Sarah Bradley..."

I'm not sure they will.

And that makes me a little sad.

But that said, the movie is a solid bit of entertainment, especially if you are a writer.  I give it three and a half stars.

NEW YEAR NEW NOVEL!

Hello friends!

If you haven't been directly connected to my life lately, that's my fault! I've been finishing up my fourth and final Nora Hill novel.

FINALLY I'm able to announce the release of my 9th novel and my 14th book overall,  FREED ON THE FOX!   "Freed" completes the four book NORA HILL MYSTERIES, and I'm quite excited about how this one turned out. I've never completed a book series before.  (Oh, does this mean there might be a NEW Rock Harbor Chronicles novel on the way???? MAYBE....) So this fourth Nora book, for me, was a new experience all the way around.  I finally understand what "Breaking Bad" writer, Vince Gilligan, felt when he wrote the final season of that brilliant series.  (Not that I'm comparing my inspirational cozy mysteries to that gritty crime drama!  LOL)  I now understand what it is to say good-bye to characters I've been with for several years.  I also know what it's like to lock myself in a room and cry and write and cry and write until it's done.

Hopefully this means I'll be able to blog here a bit more often, discussing the writing life.

I will say this, the weekend of May 4th is going to be busy. I'll have my big unveiling of "Freed on the Fox" at the Waukesha Farmer's Market.  I know that seems like an odd place to launch a book, but the city of Waukesha, the Downtown Business District, has been good to me, and to all local and e-pubbed authors.  They are my home when it comes to book sales every year.  I love those folks!  Also, I'll be doing a personal appearance that weekend as well.

Wait, an author that does personal appearances?  Oh yeah!  School groups, church groups, women's groups, (in May I'll be doing a talk on motherhood for a nursing home group), book clubs.  Get a handful of people together, pick a topic, and I'll come over and entertain!  (I'll also sign and sell books!)  You can reach me via email at momauthor@aol.com OR on facebook at SJB books.

Meanwhile, enjoy the final installment of Nora Hill!

From a writer's perspective: What qualifies as a Christmas movie?

Well, my friends, it's that time of year again: the time when people sit around a table and bicker and argue all while stuffing their faces full of food and cookies.

I'm not talking about Christmas dinner with the extended family.

Nope, I'm talking about the eternal debate that rages every year about this time as to what is and what is NOT a Christmas Movie.

I'm not talking about the Hallmark channel here.  That's a Christmas movie industry unto itself and if you're into it, that's great.  I'm not going to lie, I've been sucked into that vortex of holiday sweetness myself.

No, what I'm addressing here are the HOLIDAY MOVIES, the movies that have actual starts and plots that are something other than "a female small business owner/career type is too busy/too poor to love. Along comes the handsome handyman/ne'er-do-well/fellow business owner who helps the woman save her business/learn to take a break OR saves her child/dog/mother/horse from certain death and then everyone sings many Christmas carols while someone decorates a perfectly lit tree."

This is a debate that stirs up a lot of shouting at my house, and I hope it does in yours, too.  At least it's a break from politics and religion and the new piercing your nephew just got.  

So, when your holiday celebration gets a little sticky, bring up this topic.

First of all, what does a movie have to have to qualify as a Christmas movie?

Well, it has to be set at Christmas time.

It has to involve Christmas décor of some kind.

It has to involve the buying and/or exchanging of gifts.

Someone, somewhere, has to wear red and/or green or both.

These are the tiniest, tiniest, bare minimum of requirements.  And because the list is so simple, the following movies fit in:

Die Hard 1 and 2

Iron Man 2

Home for the Holidays.

Diner

 Now, before you go rearranging your DVD/blu ray collection, hear me out: as a PROFESSIONAL MOVIE CRITIC  (I've made some money from selling my movie review books so yes, it counts) I do NOT consider Iron Man 2 or Home for the Holidays Christmas movies.  Iron Man 2 literally has a Christmas tree in Tony Stark's house and that's it.  Home for the Holidays is a Thanksgiving movie, with a nominal mention of Christmas, but it is NOT a Christmas movie. So no, these movies do NOT need to go on your Christmas shelf.

The Die Hard movies fit because there's holiday décor, holiday parties, holiday travel, gifts, music, and, in the case of Die Hard 2, SNOW. So let's just put all that to rest.  Put Die Hard 1 and 2 on your Christmas shelf.  

Diner fits because, again, the timeline is set around Christmas and there are decorations all over the set.  That said, the focus of the movie, time wise is on a New Year's Eve wedding.  So I file Diner in my Christmas movies, but if you don't, don't sweat it.  That one can go either way.

There are movies that are NO DOUBT HARDCORE Christmas movies and they are REQUIRED VIEWING every year:

Elf, Miracle on 34th St., White Christmas,  A Christmas Story, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, Love Actually, Christmas with the Kranks, all the Home Alone movies  (but why are you watching any of them other than 1 and 2?)  all the Santa Clause flicks with Tim Allen and any incarnation of A Christmas Carol. All of these films are Christmas centric, with various Christmas themes and experiences related good or bad.  The funniest, cheeriest is Elf, the darkest is definitely the George C. Scott version of "A Christmas Carol."  (The ghost of Christmas Future FREAKS ME OUT!)  

(Also, a movie that is a Christmas film but is NOT on my list for the freak out factor: Polar Express. The animation in that movie is creepy.  Just...creepy.)

There are those of you who are going to debate "Love Actually" on that list. Peaches and Skippy yell at me every time I turn it on, which is roughly 57 times between Thanksgiving and New Years.  My children both maintain, loudly, that not only is Love, Actually NOT a Christmas movie, it's a very terrible movie! My friend Joellen spent a big part of yesterday telling me the same thing...that it's not an appropriate Christmas movie.  I disagree. (Not with the appropriateness of the movie, the unedited version is NOT for kids.)  Love, Actually is not only a Christmas movie it is, quite possibly, the BEST Christmas movie EVER MADE.  I don't generally enjoy the multi-story-mega-cast holiday films (Valentine's Day...New Year's Eve...) but this one has so many AWWWWWWWWWW moments, it's totally worth it.  It's sweet, it's funny, and there's Christmas in every single shot.  Love at the holidays is weird and stressful, and every age group and every stage of a relationship is captured in this most Christmasy of Christmas movies.

Now, here's where I get into serious trouble.  

The following movies are considered to be Christmas movies, BUT THEY ARE NOT.

It's a Wonderful Life

Holiday Inn

Nightmare Before Christmas

Let's start with the easy one:  "Nightmare Before Christmas" is a Halloween movie.  Period.  You can watch it at Christmas if you wish, I'm not going to tell you how to live  (unless you are my friend Joellen in which case you need to be schooled on WHY "Citizen Kane" is a great film.) but don't fool yourself. It's not a Christmas movie.

Holiday Inn doesn't make the cut because yes, while there is Christmas in it, so are all the other holidays.  It's a holiday movie that's perfectly fine for the 4th of July, Valentine's Day, and Thanksgiving. Don't believe me?  Watch it sometime.  It's silly with holidays.

And now we turn to my annual rant about that most horrible of movies, that thing everyone has been brainwashed into loving for reasons I cannot comprehend, that total and complete DOWNER of a film, "It's A Wonderful Life."

This is my father's favorite film, which is weird because he doesn't generally love movies and also he's a really intelligent guy.

The first part of my rant is that this is not a Christmas movie.  That annoying kid banging Jingle bells on the piano and the singing at the end aside, this movie has nothing to do with Christmas. It's the story about a guy who thinks his life blows chunks because he never got to live his dream of leaving his hometown.  Like...ever.  Then he tries to kill himself and some dude in long underwear informs him that if he was never born, everyone close to him will live lives that really do blow chunks so he'd better get out of his pity party, buck up, and live (and maybe take a vacation for even day.  Geez, I mean, self centered much?  Really, the town can't do without you for a week?)  But my point is, this is not a Christmas movie and just because they sing a Christmas carol at the end and some super homely kid squawks about angels and bells, that doesn't make it a Christmas movie.

Now we get to the meat of this blog.  The real reason I decided to write a blog about Christmas movies is because I'm tired of people telling me how inappropriate "Love Actually" is and yet how wonderful and wholesome "It's a Wonderful Life" is.

Love Actually vs. It's a Wonderful Life

I will concede the nudity point.  There is no nudity in It's a Wonderful Life and there is in Love, Actually.

But let's get down to it, shall we?

Nudity aside, (and the edited for television version has no nudity at all) Love Actually is a movie about hope.  The young man hopes he can find love in the US.  A young woman hopes the prime minister knows she loves him. A young boy hopes if he learns to play the drums the girl he loves will notice him.  A widower hopes to find love again. A divorced man hopes the learn to speak the language of a new love.  And a married woman hopes her husband realizes that having an affair is stupid before he actually has one. A young art dealer watches his best friend marry the woman he loves, and hopes that maybe some day he'll find someone just as good.  A couple lonely actors hope to find a mental and emotional connection with each other. And aging rock star hopes for one more shot at glory.  An office worker hopes the office hot guy will notice her, in spite of her family responsibilities.

All hope, all good stuff. And guess what?  All happy endings!  And there are carols and bells and decorated trees and holiday parties and gifts and beautiful, beautiful moments.  Take out the nudity in one of the story lines and it's perfectly harmless family fun.

Now let's look at "It's a Wonderful Life."

A man grows up in a tiny town, hoping to leave it some day.  (Good start.) When he's a kid, his brother falls through the ice and he saves his brother, but loses hearing on ear.  (His brother apparently has no permanent damage even though he was in the water way longer.)  Flash forward, he's an older boy, working a job in a pharmacy. The pharmacist gets a letter saying his son has been killed in the war.  The pharmacist then loads up a bunch of pills with poison and sends our young hero with the bad ear off to deliver the death pills to a sick family. The boy refuses and gets pounded on by his employer for his efforts.  (ummmmmm attempted murder and assault of a minor anyone?)

Flash forward. Our hero is an adult ready to go to college since he had to work to put his brother through first. (Why?)  He attends a dance where some ne'er do wells force him and a young lady into the pool.  (Harrassament, assault) He and said young lady walk home in odd clothing (because walking home in wet clothes is forbidden?) and he steps on the belt of her oversized robe, and the

robe falls off. She's forced to hide in the bushes (public nudity) and he refuses to give her back her robe (sexual harassment, possibly assault.)

He is told his father died.  He's forced to stay home and run the family business because his brother got married and got a job from his father in law and went back on his promise to runt he business while our hero was in college.  (Family death, squabbles.)

Flash forward again.  He's married.  About to go on his honeymoon when the town banks founder and he has to give up his honeymoon money to keep the bank open.

Flash forward again. His dimwitted uncle loses a vast amount of money (recovered by the evil banker guy who didn't tell anyone he found the money, so...stealing...and abuse of the elderly) and this is where the story gets dark.  Our hero wishes he'd never been born and jumps off a bridge to kill himself.

GOOD FAMILY FUN!

He doesn't die, but the weird guy in long johns (so many things wrong with that) shows him life if he hadn't been born.  And we see bar fights and alcoholism and abuse of the homeless and stalking and abuse of teachers, child abuse, a sick child (whom they named ZUZU which is abuse in and of itself.) and racism.

GOOD FAMILY FUN!

The movie resolves with the worst, laziest thing ever:  (IT WAS ALL A DREAM) and everyone piles money on a table and sings a Christmas Carol while those of us watching this hot mess are left shell shocked and wishing we'd chosen "Jingle All the Way" or something, anything else.

Agree with me, don't agree with me, whatever.  But keep "It's a Wonderful Life" out of the hands of the children. It will scar them for life!  Meanwhile, there's always the Hallmark Channel!

Writer's Block is Real and there is Only One Cure.

Good morning!

Anyone who sets out to write a story longer than fifty words is going to run into an ailment authors and writers know all too well: Writer's Block.

Whether you stare at the screen and nothing comes to mind, or you just can't seem to sit down to actually write, it doesn't matter.  The inability to move forward with your story is simply a case of writer's block.

I am currently suffering from an odd strain of the illness myself:  It's not that I don't know what to write, and it's not that I can't find the time. Quite simply, I don't want to write because I don't want to do to my characters what I have to do to move the plot along.  It's a rare strain of writer's block, but still, there it is.  I am blocked. I am physically not moving forward with my writing.

So what is the cure?

Some will say to change your location.  If you write at home, go to a coffee shop, a 24 hour diner, someplace where the people and noise are different. Also...coffee.

Some will say get physical. Go for a walk, a swim, a run (if that's your thing, I don't personally run. I will be the first person eaten in a zombie apocalypse.)

Some will say take a break from writing and come back when the spirit moves you. I did that. I was gone from writing for more than ten years.  I do not recommend taking that long of a break.

One writer friend of mine suggested writing at a different time of day. I tend to be more productive late at night. However, the older I get the harder that is.  So, my writer friend said, try writing early in the morning...like at 4 AM.

Ummm, yeah. Thanks, but...no.  As my many, many, many aerobics instructors will tell you, Sarah is NOT at her best at 4 AM.  (or 4 PM, come to think of it. I'm really a night owl who functions okay between 7 AM and noon, just enough to hold down a job as long as my work hours don't go too far past noon. Which is a problem for my boss, who expects me to work until at least 3PM.)

So what's the cure?

Well, there really isn't a cure. Sorry.

Any one of those suggestions above can, and have, worked for me in the past.  Again, I do not recommend taking ten years off. That's not the way to get things done.

Now that I've gotten a couple novels under my belt, I realize that there's really only one way to get past writer's block.


It's actually sort of a simple thing, but it's the solution we forget as writers. We ignore what is staring straight in our over-caffeinated (or wine-soaked, depending on the time of day you write) faces.

We must write.

We must write ourselves out of the block.

Even if it's crap, and believe me, I've thrown away more pages than I care to count in the name of writer's block, we need to continue the act of writing.

If we aren't, we are rusting.  The brain's creative faucet slows to a stop, and we become just one more person who "would write a novel if I just had the time."

Maybe shake up your characters. Make them take a trip, put them on a bus with strangers.  Give them a disease.  Burn down a building.  Kill someone (but only in your story, killing in real life is wrong).  Hey, it works for soap operas and prime time dramas.  Why can't it work for you?

So yeah, I'm stuck on my fourth Nora Hill novel. I'm stuck mostly because I don't want to end it.  But I'm also stuck because I'm not sitting down and doing it.  And even if I write nonsense that I would never use in a book, I save it to my files because you just never know when what you thought was stupid winds up being the thing that makes your book.   But a story won't get told, a scene won't be seen, a character will not speak until you write it down.

Even if just to delete it all tomorrow.

 

Once upon a time: How important is that first line?

Good afternoon!

Monday, September 17, 2018 at Martha Merrell's Books and Toys in Historic Downtown Waukesha, WI., at 6:30, Chapter One will be conducting its first ever in person meeting for writers of all levels.

The topic?

How important is that first line?

My goal with this group is to wake the author in anyone who ever thought they had a story to tell.  We'll start at the beginning...which would be the first line.

The first line of any story is vital.  Gone are the days when, as my mother, who served as a school librarian for many years, you had to give a book 30 pages to really get into it.  Readers don't have that kind of patience anymore (if we ever did!) and writers shouldn't make their readers wait 30 pages for something interesting.

The first line is the first impression an author makes.

As authors, you may not have control over the cover. You may not have control over the blurb on the back cover.  You may not even have control over the pen name.  (Some publishers have been known to assign pen names.)  What you do have control over, however, is that first line.  That line is all yours.

There are many opening lines we all know:

Once Upon a Time

It was a Dark and Stormy Night.

The Night was Humid  (My personal favorite)  

Unfortunately,  while those are fun...and funny...unless you are writing an actual fairy tale or writing your story atop a dog house, you can't use them.

There's actually an award called the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest that hands out awards to the WORST opening line of the year.  Check out the website, the 2018 winner is AWESOME in it's badness.

A number of things can contribute to a bad opening line:  It's too long; it generates zero excitement; it's lazy ("It was a dark and stormy night") or it simply makes no sense.

As a writer, you know that your writing is an extension of you.  Writing is every bit as personal as any other form of arm.  If the writing isn't personal, believe me, the reader will know it.  And if you, the author doesn't feel it, neither will the reader.  That's not to say that we must "write what we know."  (A topic I'll deal with at a later time.)  Writing isn't about our own absolute life experiences. If that were true, there would be no science fiction, very little romance, no historical fiction, and oh yeah, probably no fiction at all.  Writing is about telling a story that you know.  It's about creating characters and a world that you see as clearly as you see your own hand in front of your face.  Writing is...it should be...you.

As with anything in writing, what works and what doesn't is subjective to many things, including the ever-changing whims of society.  A good line 10 years ago is no good now.  

How can you know for sure if your first line works?

There is no hard and fast rule.  You will know it when you know it.  If you're not sure, talk to a trusted friend, a critique partner, a teacher, run it by them.  Try to avoid going up to strangers on the street, however. Believe me, you don't get great feedback that way.  LOL

So let's put this into a social construct we all understand:

Think of a book as an introduction of yourself to a stranger. The cover is your name tag.  The body of the book is the conversation you have with that stranger so they can get to know you.  Which means the opening line of that book is your handshake.  You want a strong, firm handshake. You do NOT want some soft, creepy, dead fish handshake.

We will talk more about this on Monday for those of you who are in the SE Wisconsin area and can make it to Martha Merrell's Books and Toys at 6:30. For those of you who cannot, if you have questions, please contact me through our face book page.  You can also hit me, Sarah the Author, up at my face book page. 

Meanwhile, spend some time online looking for bad first lines, see if you can improve on them, or get a real feel for what's no good, and what works. 

OUR FIRST IN PERSON MEETING IS COMING UP!

Hello Friends!

While Chapter One, the blog, is a worldwide place of information, education, and support for all writers at all stages of their careers, we are also a physical group that has a home and we are going to be starting meetings in Waukesha, WI in September!

This is a very exciting step for Chapter One, and for me, Sarah the Author.  I've never lead a group before!  But I feel that all of the experience and knowledge I've gained in the last decade of writing and publishing is something I now need to share.  I didn't just KNOW what I know. I gathered everything I know about writing and publishing from other authors and other groups. It's time to pay it forward.

If you are in the SE Wisconsin area, I hope you will think about checking us out. All of the information you'll need is below.  We are so grateful to Norm and the gang at Martha Merrell's Books and Toys for giving Chapter One a physical home!