Um, yeah ... it's research. Really.
I love the movie, "Stranger Than Fiction." It's a difficult film to describe, but I'll give it a go. It's about an IRS auditor who begins to hear a woman narrate his life. What he doesn't understand (not yet anyway) is that the woman is a novelist working on her come-back novel and he is her main character. The problem is that she mentions he's going to die.
I made my boyfriend watch this movie last night. The selling point was Will Ferrell, of course, who plays the beleaguered Harold Crick. And every time I watch the movie, I fall in love with it all over again. I can't imagine any writer NOT watching this film. Not only from the unique perspective of fiction colliding with reality and somehow mixing until it makes perfect sense, but also watching the neurotic attempts of the writer, Karen Eiffel, figure out how to kill Harold Crick. If you watch this movie, as a writer, you will say, "Oh, yeah. Been there." As a reader, you'll say, "Holy shit. Writers are nuts."
Being a romance writer, I'm also fond of the romantic element that unfolds as Harold starts to really live his life. Here are a couple of my favorite scenes:
Another movie that I adore, and that I think writers should watch (more than once!), is "Adaptation." Again, it's a difficult movie to describe. A screen writer struggling with turning a nonfiction book into a screenplay begins to write himself into the script. One of my all-time favorite scenes (and really, a personal a-ha moment for me) is posted below. "Adaptation" is another complexly written, yet easily understandable film, and it also gives insight to writers and their neuroses. Guess we're all kinda nuts. Maybe we have to be.
I made my boyfriend watch this movie last night. The selling point was Will Ferrell, of course, who plays the beleaguered Harold Crick. And every time I watch the movie, I fall in love with it all over again. I can't imagine any writer NOT watching this film. Not only from the unique perspective of fiction colliding with reality and somehow mixing until it makes perfect sense, but also watching the neurotic attempts of the writer, Karen Eiffel, figure out how to kill Harold Crick. If you watch this movie, as a writer, you will say, "Oh, yeah. Been there." As a reader, you'll say, "Holy shit. Writers are nuts."
Being a romance writer, I'm also fond of the romantic element that unfolds as Harold starts to really live his life. Here are a couple of my favorite scenes:
Another movie that I adore, and that I think writers should watch (more than once!), is "Adaptation." Again, it's a difficult movie to describe. A screen writer struggling with turning a nonfiction book into a screenplay begins to write himself into the script. One of my all-time favorite scenes (and really, a personal a-ha moment for me) is posted below. "Adaptation" is another complexly written, yet easily understandable film, and it also gives insight to writers and their neuroses. Guess we're all kinda nuts. Maybe we have to be.
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