It’s the Blog That Says “Bad Mother Fu…”

A funny thing happened on the way to my blog today…

I’ve just about finished a nice little mini-vacation- a very long weekend with a couple of weddings and a visit from my youngest brother, Joey, and his partner, Jerry. Good times! I’ve been thinking all day about what I wanted to write about this evening. After putting the Noodle and the Goon to bed (our 5 and 3 year old boys), I was flipping channels before coming downstairs to write. I came across Pulp Fiction about halfway through on HBO. Yup- I’ll watch that again…

…so about an hour later I’ve sat down at the PC. I know what I’m writing about this evening…

Interestingly, this ties in very well with my current thoughts about Story Blue. (What’s Story Blue? Read this. Or the excerpt here.) I’m still working on developing the protagonist. Everything I read about the process of writing stresses that the character is the most important element of a story. Watching Pulp Fiction I see the truth in that. That story has a great plot- exciting, full of surprises (did someone say gimp?), and uses an interesting nonlinear timeline. These are all great facets of the work. But I really think that the story is defined by these amazingly rich characters.

Mia, Butch, Marcellus, Jules, Vincent, Jimmy, the Wolf (call me Winston), Ringo & Honey Bunny- every one of those characters is fully drawn and holds your attention. That movie rocks because it has some amazing actors portraying some fascinating characters. Who’s your favorite Tarantino character? Why? (Please- share in the Comments below!)

This just confirms that I need the protagonist fleshed out more. I think I’m good at coming up with interesting premises. But I don’t think, ultimately, that premises are what holds a reader’s attention. I have to write a character compelling enough so that my reader has to know what happens to him or her.

This is all good- this introspection and assessment. I’ve got no formal training or practice in writing- other than what you can read on my blog here. I like this process of figuring out what I need to do to tell (write) a good story. I’m going to add some more words to Story Blue and come back at it tomorrow. Thanks for sticking with me so far- I hope you’re with me tomorrow as well!

Seriously- who’s your favorite Tarantino character and why?