If T.S. Elliot were a blogger, I suppose he'd start by writing "This is how this blog will start, this is how this blog will start, this is how this blog will start, with a whimper and not a bang."
Now, I don't want to presume to know the mind of T.S. Elliot, but I also don't want to presume my blog will begin with any kind of 'bang' -- for that you need some combination of celebrity, crazy, and paparazzi.
I got a call from a producer friend of mine today who is out in L.A. with Relativity, receiving various and sundry pitches for a movie concept I wrote the first draft for, called "The Legend of Santa Claus". The premise was simple: Santa Claus is a kind of hero without a hero's journey, so lets create something that draws on the various mythologies and lore of Christmas and construct an adventure neither blasphemous or ridiculous. And, heaven forbid, let's try to get some good old fashioned Christmas Spirit in there as well.
What my friend and I failed to realize is that Hollywood has become less about the story and more about the spectacle. So much in fact, that part of the pitch session included two seasoned screenwriters talking about a Nazi-styled blimp that is carrying a weapon of mass destruction that Santa and his elves must stop. Now, if you could promise me some kind of dirigible-based chase scene at the end, they might of had me. But seriously, I suppose Santa would be leaping from his flying sled to the blimp, climbing down ropes and jumping into the cockpit (I assume it's called a cockpit), wielding, I don't know, a candy cane or something, and knocking SS dressed soldiers out the windows to their deaths. Yep, this is how Hollywood constructs a story about Santa Claus.
It is also why I have shifted my attention from screenwriting to novel writing. Frankly, I'm getting tired of the spectacle and I want to spend more time in the story. Not that big, climatic kinds of scenes are bad, I just don't want them to be front and center and the rest just kind of shoe-horned in as an after thought.
So, I'll be blogging about my adventures writing, trying to get published, and how to work a dirigible into my next story.
On Story and Spectacle:
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Haven't seen it, but it doesn't surprise me. I watched several kids movies over the weekend with the family, things like "How to Train Your Dragon", and I was struck by how good the story actually was. It got me thinking about Dreamworks Animation and Pixar, and the fact that some of the best stories are coming out of those studios. It's kind of like looking at the best selling books, and really the best seem to flow out of the Young Adult Middle Reader genre (Hunger Games, Harry Potter). Makes me wonder if there isn't some kind of magic found when making stories appealing to kids AND adults. Also, why do the best books begin with "H"?
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