Category: Thoughts

It’s a Wonderful Wife

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Well, tis the season for me to talk about something that I have no business being so passionate about. And that something is Mary Hatch Bailey from the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.

Disclaimer: If you haven’t seen the movie this blog post will not make any sense. Also shame on you, it’s such a classic! You really ought to consider watching it! Just keep in mind that George really isn’t the hero, okay. I’m going to tell you right now that the real hero is Mary. Mary carries the movie, dude. She is the one who saves everybody in every situation and does everything. And I feel that for decades, audiences have unappreciated her as much as George Bailey unappreciated her throughout the movie.

Remember when Black Friday hits and everybody’s running on the bank and they’re about to all go under? Do you know who saved the day? It was Mary. Mary was the one who gave up her honeymoon and all their money. It was Mary’s idea. And did she cry about her own wedding day being ruined? No, she did not. She went out, got them a house, improvised her own honeymoon. Made a full rotisserie chicken over the fireplace, like who is this woman???

So that’s number one. Number two is a spoiler alert because I got to talk about the end of the movie, but Mary is the one who saves George’s a$$. She’s the one who finds out what’s going on, makes a plan, runs around the town asking people for help. That was all Mary! You know what? She was even the one who was like, “Yeah kids, you ought to pray for your dad.” So I’m even going to go as far as to say that the angel actually came from Mary. Mary Bailey, the real angel of the story who could have bust her own large feathery wings when the bell jingles on the Christmas tree in the end.

She saves everybody. She singlehandedly reconstructs an entire abandoned Victorian mansion while having four kids and helping the war effort.

I once knew somebody that disliked Mary. And maybe the reason I became passionate about the subject was because of this one conversation that I had 15 years ago. But this person said that she was a weak character because and I quote, “all she wanted to do was get married”. Okay, excuse me, then how come if George Bailey is never born she decides not to get married at all? Riddle me that piece of information, sir. I just completely disagree with you fifteen plus years later. She gets a college degree. She is a talented cartoonist. You really can’t tell me anything bad about her.

And in fact, I would just like to say that the part where she “became an old maid” makes me laugh every year. I just know those writers were like, “Now how would Mary be worse off without George?” AND THEY COULDN’T THINK OF ANYTHING. The WORST thing that these men writers could think of was, “Okay what if she was a hot single librarian at 35? That would be so tragic.” Like, okay sure. It still makes her a strong as hell character in my opinion, because she had the opportunity to marry hee haw millionaire Sam Wainwright and said no against her mother’s obvious wishes.

DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A CHARACTER WHO “ONLY WANTS TO GET MARRIED”???

So, this is my official petition to rename the movie to, “It’s a Wonderful Wife” because I don’t even know what the story would be without Mary.

For Writers: How to Answer the Worst Question

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If you are a writer, and other living people actually know that you write, then you 100% have come across the monstrosity of a question. The big one. “What is your story about?” And that’s a really scary question, because as much as you would want to explain the world building and the lore and the character construct, you really can’t do that at a casual work party interaction.

I’ve flubbed this question a few dozen times. And that’s made me socially anxious enough to figure out how to answer as quickly and simply as I possibly can. What I realized is that when people ask you that question, they’re really only asking for your premise. If you’re familiar with three act structure language, this is your “first plot point” or “break into two”. If you’re not familiar with that terminology, you’re totally fine! All people want to know is ‘which character goes on what journey’.

So, you can use that formula: “My book is about this character that goes on this journey.” Try to get it is simple as possible and I highly, highly, highly recommend that every story that you might have the smallest sliver of a chance telling someone about… practice rattling that sentence off.

Here are some examples of what that formula might sound like:
“My book is about an orphan who goes to a magic wizardry school.”
“My story is about a paleontologist who gets invited to a theme park with real live dinosaurs in it.”
“My book is about a hobbit who has to destroy an evil ring.”
“My movie is about an ogre who is sent to rescue a princess.”

That’s it! People just want to know the character journey. You do not have to drop in like other plot points or back story or side characters.

Now, if you are professionally pitching your story idea to an agent or an editor or something, I would actually do two sentences. First sentence: plot point one. Second sentence: midpoint. So, start with the character goes on the journey and then add a twist. “My book is about this character that goes on this journey. But this twist changes everything.”

So a two sentence pitch would sound something like this:
“My book is about an orphan who goes to a magic wizardry school. But once there discovers that a dark lord is trying to infiltrate it.”
“My story is about a paleontologist who gets invited to a theme park with real live dinosaurs. But all the dinosaurs escape their enclosures.”
“My movie is about an ogre who is sent to rescue a princess. But falls in love with the princess instead.”

Another way that you can very quickly pitch your story is to use comps (comparable stories). When I first started writing I SO frightened of comps. I would be telling someone my story idea and they’d be like, “Oh, that’s like this other book I read” and I would be MORTIFIED because I wanted to be completely original. But the more I’ve learned about the craft and the marketing behind it, comps are amazing! Fully embrace your comps. Especially in situations where you need to just casually say what your book is about.

The best way to use comps is this formula: “It’s like this thing you already know but it has this twist.” That is the most marketable way you can casually tell somebody about your book. In fact, that’s what people in the industry actually look for! Because it’s the fastest way to give someone a full idea of what your story is about.

Here are some examples of this comp formula:
“It’s like Battle Royale only the contestants compete by playing children’s games.”
“It’s The Three Little Pigs but from the Big Bad Wolf’s perspective.”
“It’s Pride and Prejudice but now they have zombies” (bonus points if your title is literally your comp pitch haha)

Generally, I wouldn’t worry about it. In most social circles, they just want to know the bare minimum premise / character’s journey. Honestly you don’t even to share anything about your writing if you’re not comfortable. People ask because they’re making small talk and are usually satisfied with a genre-only answer. (“I’m writing a sci-fi.”)

I hope this helps! Let me know if there are any other writing topics you want me to ramble about.

Things About America that is Weird (to me: An American)

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This isn’t political or anything. Just a short list of things that I think are really weird about my own country.

#1 How come Americans are afraid of bidets?

When are we getting on the clean-butt train? Because I’m sick of this haha. I genuinely don’t understand why a pandemic hits and we’re freaking out at the idea of not having toilet paper when actual countries around the world have a bum cleaning spigot already installed on their toilet. We could, actually, in fact, have something way more hygienic than wiping our own poo poo with a dry piece of paper. And (TMI maybe, but oh well, we’re already here) as a woman I know at least once a month I would extra appreciate having a little toilet rinse. Just the fact that we’re so against bidets baffles my mind.

#2 The sheer amount of American flags everywhere

Like it’s kind of cute. It’s a cute little quirk. But once you notice it, you can’t stop noticing it. My husband and I play this game when we’re driving around. One of us will suddenly shout, “Oh no! Help! What country are we in?” And then immediately be like “Oh, thank goodness that car dealership has six flags up, cuz I really wasn’t sure where I was.” I mean, I don’t know about the patriotism in other countries regarding their flags but here they make every school child pledge to it each morning. Americans just really love their flag, I don’t know.

3 Unpopular Opinion: But I don’t get lawns

The obsession with lawns is so weird. It doesn’t make any sense. Why we would need a patch of manicured grass out front? Like I get the idea of decorating your house, but you have to use so much water resource to grow a plant that’s not even going to sustain you. Like there’s no possible benefit other than… it looks nice? … in our American opinion. It’s actually really weird! Think about trying to explain the concept of lawns to an alien. They would be like, “Oh. Why do you do that?” And we’d be like, “We just want to show everyone where our property line is I guess. We use it to decorate.” And then the aliens would be like “Why are you using so much of your resources for that? Does it provide resources in return?” And we’d have to be all sheepish about it like, “Well, no. But it means a lot to me. I spend every Saturday trimming it and I yell at the neighborhood kids when they step on it.” So anyway. Controversial, but whatever.

4 The gap in the bathroom stalls

Back to bathrooms though. How come America can put an actual human being on the moon and develop a rocket that can catch its own boosters, but yet we still have giant cracks in our bathroom stalls? Okay, I apologize, this will be my only time I’m going to mention something politically controversial. But someone was arguing with me about trans friendly bathrooms one time and they were like, “What if a pervert comes in and peeks on you through the crack?” And I was like “How about this then, Janice. How about we fix the peekaboos in the stalls? Because that’s been a problem for forever and I don’t ever see that getting addressed.” I would very much prefer it if nobody could see me through the cracks. Whether that be a pervert or an accidental pervert that locks eye contact with me while I’m trying to do my business as quickly as possible in the Kohl’s bathroom.

5 Everything is silly massive

Everything is so huge here and not just our soda cups and citizens lol. Like the way we use space in America is actually really bizarre. Even like within a building there will just be empty spaces all around not being used for anything. This might be more of a West US thing but you absolutely have to have a car and drive if you live in America because everything is so spread out. When I came back from living in Peru that was the first thing I noticed; just how much big, empty space there actually is here. It’s like there are all these areas that we’re not even using, we’re just filling it in with lawn (lol). I’m not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing. I’m just saying this is a weird thing. I too enjoy my big sprawling American space. But if you really think about it… having a walk in closet that’s essentially the size of a small room… you know? I don’t want to have to explain walk in closets to an alien either haha.