Today I am LOVING . . . Unpredictability

Last night I saw SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, which was an awesome movie based on the book by an awesome guy, Matthew Quick. (Who also has an awesome wife, Alicia Bessette.) I sat next to them once at the Collingswood Book Festival, and was jealous of the line of guys and girls snaking away from their table for an autographed copy of Matthew's SORTA LIKE A ROCKSTAR. I bought Alicia's book, SIMPLY FROM SCRATCH because it sounded like my kinda joint (baking and romance? sign me up!), and she did me the solid of buying MY book right back. I'm sure neither of them remembers this encounter, and this has become a total tangent, so back to what I was going to say, which was . . . .

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK did what almost no movie I've seen in the past five years has done--it stumped me! As the climactic scene got ready to begin, I was holding my breath, actually NOT KNOWING what was going to happen. Wait, back up. Not only did I NOT KNOW, I had NO INKLING. It could have gone one of twenty-seven different ways, and because of this, I had an experience I rarely have in the movie theater anymore--I was on the edge of my seat.

I won't ruin it for you, but I will say this. THAT is the kind of story-telling I strive for. The kind of story-telling all writers should strive for. And it's SO HARD to execute! We're all so programmed by years and years of novel reading and movie-going and tv-watching to pound out a satisfying arc, that we don't realize that what we think is satisfying has become the very opposite. I love a happy ending, don't get me wrong, but we don't all have to take the same path to get to the happy ending. If we all did that, how lame would life (and entertainment) be?

So that's what I'm taking from my movie-watching experience last night. Today, I will be unpredictable in my writing. And hopefully, every day from here on out.

And just FYI, on SILVER LININGS: I LOVED the ending. :)