Romantic Comedy vs. Drama...Finding the Balance by Jannine Gallant

It occurred to me our two movies this month represent these categories. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is drama. Crazy people in an insane asylum. Screams drama, right? He's Just Not That Into You is billed as romantic comedy--a group of young adults filled with angst over their romantic problems. Their situations are silly and over the top and funny. But there's a darker side to their problems, as you'll find in most romantic comedies. The balance is necessary, or the film turns into an...um...Jim Carrey movie. LOL As for our Cuckoo's Nest, well, have you ever seen Jack Nicholson not be funny? He lightens a serious situation with some really comic lines.

So, basically we need to mix our drama and our comedy in the right proportions to come up with a winning combination. Whether it's in a movie...or a book. I never really thought about it before, but subconsciously I've been doing this all along in my writing.

Asking For Trouble is romantic comedy. I've mixed an inept uncle (the hero) with his precocious baby nephew, and thrown in a heroine who saves his butt on more than one occasion. The resulting situations are funny. (At least I hope they are.) But underneath runs a thread of heartache for both characters because they feel their life goals are simply too different to find common ground, despite the love they share. A little tragedy mixed with the babysitting mishaps. Without the drama, my book would have turned into a Three Stooges episode.

I also write romantic suspense. Some of it can be pretty dark. In A Deadly Love, a serial killer is cutting the hearts out of women--literally. But there's a giant dog who constantly digs holes in the neighbor's yard and a grandmother who wears tie-dye and has some great one-liners. They make the reader smile. (I hope.) Again, a little balance to keep the reader entertained while they bite their knuckles, wondering who the killer will strike down next.

So, do you like your romantic comedy with an underside of drama...and vice versa? Or is mixing genres not your thing?

Visit me at my website to find out more about me and my mishmashed works! 

Calling A Writer a Cuckoo Can Be A Compliment by Betsy Ashton

Have you ever been called a cuckoo? Or nuts? Or a little off? How did you react? Did you thank the person? Did you get angry? Did you not understand what was happening?

If you've been called these names and thanked the person, odds are you are a writer. Many of us are more than a little bent. We listen to the voices in our heads. We carry on conversations with imaginary friends. Some of us walk around outdoors gesturing madly while we work out a thorny plot twist.

Family learns to tolerate our behavior. They find in us comic relief from the seriousness of daily life.

I work out plot twists in the middle of the night. As I lie in bed, in and out of sleep, plots take shape. Dialogue flows. Characters form. I thank my spiritual muse for these nights of enlightenment.

When this happens, do I get up and race down to the laptop? Turn on the bedside light, write a note and wake up my husband? No. If the plot twist, dialogue and characters are good, I'll work with them in the morning. Some mornings, after a night when the spirit muse is in full voice, I do race to the laptop and let my fingers fly over the keyboard. A good day sees 3000 words pour out, some of which will actually make it into the finished manuscript. Others will be crafted, massaged, rewritten and even deleted over time. At least the draft captures the moment.

Good days find me at the keyboard for many hours. Words flow. Words don't. When the voices in my head are quiet or are arguing among themselves, I take a break and work on some marketing activities. When the voices quit arguing, I look back at what brought on the argument. Often it leads to a new plot line. Sometimes it leads to a whole new concept for a manuscript. Sometimes they paralyze my fingers, rendering everything I type rubbish.

Call me cuckoo. Call me nuts. Please call me a writer.

And then there are days like today when the gummy bears are in charge and nothing makes sense.

Cuckoo for Crazy Characters by Donna Michaels

It’s true. For some reason, whether it’s a book, TV show or movies, I’m always drawn to the crazy character. Doesn’t matter if they’re crazy insane, or crazy funny, I’m hooked. Not sure what that says about me. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I want to know...

Take the movie Armageddon for example. I’m a huge Bruce Willis fan, but it wasn’t his character that stuck with me. Nope. It was Steve Buscemi’s portrayal of the brilliant Rockhound with space dementia that struck a chord. Last week, I saw Transformers 4. Loved the special effects and Mark Walberg, but it was Stanley Tucci all the way in that movie! He was crazy obsessive, but had a conscience, and I loved him!

On TV, my favorite character was Haywire on Prison Break; Crowley on Supernatural…okay, love Dean, too. But my all time favorite TV cuckoo is Andrew Scott’s portrayal of Moriarty on the BBC’s Sherlock. Isn’t he great?

Andrew Scott as Jim Moriarty on BBC's Sherlock

The character is brilliant and completely insane. Cuckoo. A psychopath, and so wonderfully written and portrayed. I can’t wait until next year to catch another episode. Moriarty is extremely unpredictable, and I love to watch just to see what he says or does next. Actually, same could be said for Sherlock. Benedict is brilliant, too.

Come to think of it, my fondness for crazy characters even spills into my childhood. My favorite Muppet was, and still is, Animal. I think I must subconsciously have an affinity to some because I’ve always had my own I Love Lucy moments.

Just last year, at the Romance Novel Convention in Vegas, I simultaneously wiped out two room keys in one swoop, right after my roommate lost hers. Yep. We were stranded outside our room. And later that night, my roommate and I were in a hurry to get away from some drunk Aussies (won’t get into that now), so we exited the elevator and raced to our room, but it wouldn’t open. We tried her keys, my keys. Nothing. Then we had the foresight to check the room number. You guessed it. Not ours. Did I mention it was 2am? Thank goodness the occupants weren’t there.  Can you imagine hearing someone trying to get into your room at that hour? I swear, only I could be that loopy. And no, I don’t mean drunk. I had soda all night. Maybe a drink would’ve helped. lol

And I guess I can’t say only I, since my roommate is just as bad/funny. I can remember her and I talking in the elevator and one of the guest authors smiled and glanced from me to my roommate and said: “You two are seriously funny.” We looked at each other and shrugged. We were just being us.

At RNC last year...shh...don't tell her I posted this...

 

Do you have a buddy like that? Better yet, do you have I Love Lucy-cuckoo moments? Please tell me I’m not alone in that stereo-type, although, I honestly don’t mind. It’s always good for a laugh…and a scene in a book. ☺

By the time this posts, I’ll be on my way back home from this years’ Romance Novel Convention, and yes, I’m staying with my same author friend. I can only imagine what ‘moments’ I can now add to my Lucy memoires. I promise I’ll tell you about it, but please forgive me if I don’t get on to respond to your posts for a day or two. I really look forward to hearing about your ‘episodes’.

There’s a little bit of me in all my heroines. You can check out my books here: www.donnamichaelsauthor.com .   

Have a great day, and thanks for reading,

~Donna

OFOTCN: a blast from my past

One Flew occupies a special place in my heart and my past. During my first college experience (I've had several, but that's another story), I received a B.A. in English (British fiction, actually). For my M.A., I decided to work on a Popular Culture emphasis.

This was NOT acceptable back in the 1970s -- that's like saying I wanted to study comic books or romance novels or ... you get the idea.

I was lucky. I had a thesis committee that was all about breaking the mold and going for what you wanted. On my committee I had a scholar of American Western fiction (Zane Gray, if you will), a feminist scholar, and a professor interested in Vonnegut, Sukenick,  Kosinski, Federman, and other innovative authors, many of whom I met (and with whom I consumed a great deal of alcoholic beverages. But that's another story).

I decided to do my M.A. thesis on "The Popular Culture Hero in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". I did a bunch of research on comic book heroes and archetypes, Ken Kesey and his cronies (such a life!), and other rather arcane subjects. Of course, I didn't have a lot of bibliographic citations because, well, nobody was taking comic books or Kesey seriously at that time. I guess I broke new ground (I've actually been cited in other scholarly works, but that's another story).

Long story short: I defended my thesis rather well, I think, by equating RPM (Randal Patrick McMurphy) to the classic American hero -- our heroes aren't gods and myths, but born from Paul Bunyan, Captain America, and Johnny Appleseed -- rebels who fight for Right and the American Way. Big Chief is the quintessential sidekick, Nurse Ratchet represents the repression of European morals, the mirror is symbolic of ....

You get the idea. The review committee accepted my defense and, lo and behold, I had an M.A. in American fiction. 

So RPM, Big Chief, and that whole crew have a special spot in my past. It was one of the first times I bucked the system and won. 

It certainly wasn't the last.

J L
(new book out: a great summer read!)
 

The Dream Team by Diane Burton

This month our theme is based on two movies, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or He’s Just Not That Into You. What a choice. I’ve never seen either film. So I’m going to write about another movie that takes place in a mental institution, like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It's called The Dream Team (Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Boyle). If you haven’t seen this one, do so. You’re in for a real treat. The inmates go to a baseball game in New York City, where they’re stranded when their chaperone ends up in the hospital. Worse, they’re pursued by criminals who know they witnessed a crime.

What I like about The Dream Team is the way they are forced to work together. Back at the mental hospital, none of them got along. Now in order to survive, they have to push aside their neuroses and act like “normal” people. In the process, they find that the outside world is sometimes crazier than the one they left behind at the hospital.

Working together as a team, they discover they are stronger than they could imagine. Isn’t that true of real life?

When my daughter entered first grade, she wanted to join Brownie Girl Scouts. Somehow (don't ask) I offered to be the assistant leader. When the leader quit, guess who became the leader? I’d never been a Girl Scout so I had a lot to learn. One of the things I learned was working on a team. I would never have tackled chairing an event for a group of fifty girls if one of the other leaders hadn’t said she’d help. Years later, with the help of more leaders, I organized events for over 300 girls. And then training events for leaders. Again with the help of many. During my years as an adult Girl Scouts, I learned the value of team building and working as a team. Hopefully, the girls learned the same thing, too.

This group, The Roses of Prose, is strong because of its team. By ourselves, we’re okay. Together, we are better. As a solo blogger, I am often at a loss as to what to blog about each week. Here, we discuss ideas, which spark other ideas. Stronger together than alone.

I hope you find a group that makes you stronger.

 

Science fiction romance author Diane Burton blogs here on the 8th and 30th of each month and Mondays on her own site http://dianeburton.blogspot.com

Crazy Good

“I must be crazy to be in a loony bin like this.” McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

I’ve never seen the movie, but this quote could have been pulled from my own head. It’s one of those lines that cuts through the stress of everyday life. When things feel off-the-charts hectic (which happens way more than I’d like it to), it’s easier to blame it on craziness than admitting that this is actually my life.

My life that often appears to be happening at warp speed.

My life that isn’t always what I imagined it to be.

My life that I’ve been hard at work constructing over the last 40 years (yeah, I turn 40 in two days, whoohoo).

My life that sometimes I’d like to deconstruct and reassemble in a completely different arrangement, preferably with me living in Hawaii and running a cool little hangout right on the beach.

My life that has been mostly a wonderful gift.

My life that is what I make of it.

So, yeah, I’ll take the crazy, because without it, I probably wouldn’t enjoy the awesome as much. Coming home to family and laughing with friends (both enhanced by a glass of wine, by the way) at the end of a wild day brings much comfort and chances to see what is truly important in life. Many times we run like hamsters in a wheel.

go-go-go-go

run-run-run-run

faster-faster-faster

And what do we have to show for it? Nothing. Just like the freakin’ hamster. Sure, our thighs look great from all that running, but we haven’t really accomplished anything that means something to anybody.

This fourth of July, take a moment to breathe. To enjoy. To smell the roses… or burgers on the grill. Make a plan to do something different with your freedom. There are opportunities all around us to make small changes that will have big effects on your happiness and quite possibly the happiness of others.

Hop off the wheel. Break out of the loony bin. Do it. 

Toodles,
Chris
www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com 

I'M FLYING OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Rolynn Anderson

 In July, we have a chance to draw inspiration from two movies: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and/or He’s Not That into You.  The choice is easy for me.  OFOCN is one of my favorite movies because the script captures the kinds of system craziness that could send normal folks to the loony bin.  Remember the awe and fear Broom Bromden (the giant-sized Native American) holds for ‘The Combine’?  Broom thinks that the system/organizations/government molds people so they are identical, much like effect of the farming machine, called a combine, makes duplicate hay bales.  He maintains that people have no power over this massive machine and if we try to fight it, we'll be sent to the crazy house, just like the Combine sent him there.  Nurse Ratched is part of the Combine, using intimidation, shame and medication to cut men down to submissive, small sizes.

We writers struggle against our own Combine in the forms of Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google + and other emerging social networking organizations.  These entities are important to our success as book-sellers, but their administrators won’t explain how they work.  What’s more, they change their rules or formats at will and determine career-changing algorithms without sharing them with us.  Examples: Amazon has an arbitrary way of deciding who can review whose book, and recently, Amazon is taking a dim view of sexy book covers, dumping some without notifying authors.  Another example: ‘Liking’ on Facebook can bring a wave of unwelcome ‘guests’ to your personal page.

We wish these networks were regulated or somehow forced to be transparent so we have a fighting chance to understand how to use them, but I doubt that would ever happen.  We get the sense that there’s an insidious tradeoff for using their service: the more we tap into their networks to sell our books, the more they will know about us and will use/misuse that information.  That’s the power of a ‘Combine.’ 

So I ask you.  What parts of the social networking system make you crazy?  How do you keep it from molding you to its liking?

Note:  I'm in Sitka, Alaska, where the only internet access for me is in the grocery store.  Please comment and know I will get back to you around noon and in the evening.  I'm spending July 4th here, my decorated boat bobbing among the fishing vessels of hard-scrabble fishermen and women. Sitka is an amazing place.   Happy 4th to you and yours!  Rolynn
My website: 
http://rolynnanderson.com/

Check out our boat journeys on http://steveandrolynn.blogspot.com/