galadrielwatson

November 26, 2014

Why I Loved Brave…and Why I Didn’t

On the cusp of Neil Gaiman releasing a new fairy tale, The Sleeper and the Spindle, and his fascinating exploration behind these stories in The Telegraph, I finally watched the Disney movie Brave. While not a classic, it has the promise of one: it was good for some laughs, some edge-of-your seat moments, some bonding with my daughter beside me. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Except…

But first, here are some of the things I feel Brave did right: (Warning: mild spoilers ahead.)

1) It’s all about the relationships. In this case, not boy/girl (I kept waiting for a love interest that never arrived), but mother/daughter. The clashes, the betrayals, the reconciliations.

2) It’s about being misunderstood—and then understood.

3) It’s about the race against the clock, about the stakes being upped until disaster is imminent and the characters are pushed to their limits.

It also reminded me that stories don’t have to be complicated. At the same time as I’m rereading Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl—which thrives on complications—I was able to remind myself that the basics can create a great story too.

What Brave got wrong, though was this: the main character, a princess named Merida, didn’t change over the course of the movie. Sure, she regretted her rash actions. But in the end she got everything she wanted. She wanted to be free to be herself: she got it. She wanted not to get married: she got it. She wanted not to have to train to be a proper princess: she got it. No compromise involved.

The only character who changed was the mother. As if she had been an evil queen instead of a loving, tradition-bound parent, she saw the error of her ways. She came over to her daughter’s side, 100 per cent.

So while it was a fun 90 minutes, it wasn’t the lesson I’d have my daughter learn, or a lesson, as a writer, that I’d take to the bank. Merida needed to grow. She needed to at least glimpse the reasoning behind her mother’s point of view and come away stronger—or humbled—because of it. Like any character in any story, she shouldn’t have had an unqualified win (and I’m not just saying this because I sympathize with mothers).

Next on my to-see list: Frozen.

What do you think of Disney tales? Where do they range for you on the scale of “well told” to “seriously lacking”?

Read previous posts.

About the Author

Posted by Galadriel

Hi, I’m Galadriel: blogger, author, reader and resident of a quaint small town in the breathtaking West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. You can also find me on Twitter and Facebook.

November 22, 2014

comments 2

Dodging the Dreaded Writer’s Block

Writer’s block—writers bemoan it, write articles about it, test theories about how to get over it.

I honestly can’t remember ever having it.

In my life, time block is more of an issue. Too many ideas, not enough time. Swirling thoughts that come at odd moments, which I hope to capture on paper before they dissipate. The itch to write, write, write when I can’t.

If there’s ever a moment of “huh, what goes next?” it’s because I haven’t prepared enough.

I’m a preparer. I admit it. I am not a stream-of-consciousness writer. I believe in multi-thousand-word character sketches, from which my plots grow.

My bible is the book Breathing Life Into Your Characters by Rachel Ballon. For each character, I re-skim the book. For each stage of a character’s life, I re-skim the book. Once I thoroughly know who all my characters are—their goals, their fears, their challenges, how they meld or collide with each other—how could I possibly get stuck?

If there’s ever a moment’s pause, I don’t push my way through. I get up, go for a walk, have a bath, prep dinner, read someone else’s novel, sleep. Give my subconscious time to wrestle it out. And in these moments of silence, the ah-ha invariably comes.

Do you get writer’s block? How do you avoid it?

Read previous posts.

About the Author

Posted by Galadriel

November 19, 2014

comment 0

Why 40+ Rocks for a Writer

Thank you Joanna Walsh. In The Guardian, she asks, “Why must the ‘best new writers’ always be under 40?”

A great question and well answered, as fiction is in no way exclusively a young person’s game.

In fact, to me a writer resembles wine: age should only make us better. Consider the depth and breadth we have to draw upon:

We (may) have:

been many people: a child, a teenager, a new parent, a husband/wife, a divorcé(e), an empty nester, the caretaker of aging parents, the bottom of the totem pole at work and perhaps the top.
experienced many relationships: friends, family, children, loves that explode and loves that fizzle and loves that hold steady over time.
lived in and travelled to many places, from the big cities of the world to tiny rural communities, and tasted the vast differences in the ways people live.
held many jobs and developed many skills and dedicated ourselves to myriad hobbies.
lived through world events that, to a younger crowd, are simply history.
had years’ more time to read books and undergone many reading preference phases.
had years’ more time to write, if time and inclination have allowed.

That’s not to say the experiences of under-40s can’t be as rich. Depending on the life lived, they may be more so. Mathematically speaking, however, chances are we’ve got the upper hand.

So what if we didn’t make Top 40 Under 40 or Top 30 Under 30? We have made it, elsewise, in so many ways. As for creating list-worthy fiction, we’re ready when we’re ready.

I love how Walsh sums up her argument:

I’m excited when I read a new voice I love, whether it speaks through bee-stung lips, or false teeth, or anything in-between.

Is it best to be published early? Do you feel writing is a young person’s game?

Read previous posts.