Saturday, May 15, 2010

Is It Wrong?

This probably won't be a long post. I'm getting some quiet time and want to use it wisely. If you haven't guessed by now, I'm a champion at finding goofy things to take up time instead of the things I should be doing.

So what's wrong?

I found myself watching Forrest Gump for about the hundreth time. There are moments when I'd like to wring Jen-ny's neck, but that's me. But I was talking about wrong...

SPOILER ALERT

I'm watching the ending and I'm smiling along with Forrest when he finds out he's a daddy. Then, when they get married and Lt. Dan shows up, I'm laughing that he's got magic legs. But every darned time, I bawl like a baby when he's sitting at Jenny's grave and talking to her. Then there's the very end when he sends little Forrest to school for the first time. Yeah, I cry.

Now I'm wonderingif it's normal to shake my head, laugh, and interact with the movie like I'm PART of the movie. I mean, I know the filmmaker wants the audience to react. Sometimes I think I get way more into the movies than some do.

But then again, isn't that the point to writing? Well one of them, anyway. To get the reader to feel what the characters feel and to experience the story as if they were there, too.

I haven't gotten more than one review of my work, and I hope that's how the readers feel when they read my stuff. I'd love to know, so I know how to work on my work to make it more powerful and enjoyable for the reader.

Are there any stories that really made you think? Laugh? Cry? I'd love to know.

So I'll go back to my TV show and my putzing around. I have a story to marinate a bit logner anyway.

Toodles for now.

2 comments:

Marianne Arkins said...

I think it's absolutely right that you get so deeply involved that you interact. Good movies, good TV, good books... they DO that.

I just watched "Blind Side" and had the same thing happen: laughing, crying, etc. The sign of a really great flick.

And the best "review" I ever got on a story was from a person who said they cried every time they read "Don't Fence Me In." It meant the characters meant enough to them to touch them.

Wendi Zwaduk and Megan Slayer said...

Never saw The Blind Side (not that it should surprise you much), but this happened again when I watched those stupid (I say it cause they all make me cry) ASPCA commercial with Willie Nelson singing "Always on My Mind". DH blamed it on hormones--might be--but I agree. It's a matter of being touched. I'm gonna keep striving for it and hope the readers see my books the way I do, like reading about friends.