The One Thing Every Fiction Writer Needs

Keri Russell as Jenna in "Waitress" movie written by Adrienne Shelly

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." - Anais Nin


It amazes me how some writers are able to muster up the courage to write about troubling and controversial feelings that most people won't even admit to, much less write about. Sometimes I'll read a writer's story and wonder: What did her mom think (and say to her) after she read this? I have definitely written my novels and stories from my heart, but I know that I haven't written entirely from my mind. I don't write everything I'm thinking, and I hold back for fear of what others will think about me after they've read me.

When I saw the movie "Waitress," I was blown away by how deep and honest the dialogue was. The screenplay was written by Adrienne Shelly who also directed and acted in the film. Tragically, she was murdered at the age of forty shortly before the film was released. The film is about a young woman's feelings about her unborn baby while pregnant. Shelly was also a mom whose young daughter was only two and a half years old at the time of her death.

Jenna is the lead character in "Waitress," and she is a compulsive baker of delicious pies. I use the term "compulsive" because she can't stop herself from baking them whenever she needs to release her emotions. She names the pies according to what she's feeling while she bakes. One pie is named "Baby Screaming Its Head Off in the Middle of the Night and Ruining My Life Pie" which is a good example of the unsettling feelings she's having during her pregnancy.



Jenna isn't happy about being pregnant at all, and she definitively says so to anyone who asks. But she feels a sense of obligation to have her baby. When her doctor tries to assure her not to be nervous during her first sonogram because it is normal to be nervous, she surprises him by telling him that she isn't nervous about her baby at all. Noticing how unenthusiastic Jenna is about her pregnancy, one of her friends gives her a notebook to write letters to her unborn baby, hoping this will summon up some feelings of warmth in Jenna. These letters are read throughout the movie, but instead of helping Jenna feel more bonded to her unborn child, she writes letters telling her baby how much she resents her. Later, when she has to pay for the crib, she writes the baby a letter telling her that the money she spent on her crib was supposed to be her money to get out of town and start a new life. She writes that now every time she puts her baby down in her crib, she's going to blame her for the fact that she had to pay for this crib and, in turn, couldn't start a new life. Once her baby is born though, Jenna immediately falls in love with her.  Shelly poured her entire heart out in the screenplay, and if any of these feelings and thoughts were actually Shelly's during her own pregnancy, it took an amazing amount of courage and self-examination to write these down for the script.

Amy Koppelman - writer of novel "I Smile Back"-  and Sarah Silverman who starred as "Laney" in the movie

Another writer who is incredibly brave is Amy Koppelman. In her novel, "I Smile Back," she writes about a wealthy mother who feels so much pressure to lead the perfect life of a suburban mom that it causes her to break down and secretly live recklessly by using drugs and having sex with strangers. Again, not autobiographical, but it was written as an exaggeration to show how a woman often struggles trying to live life in the role of a happy and well-adjusted suburban mom. Koppelman, who is also a suburban mom, has stated in interviews that all of her novels contain at least something of herself and her life. Koppleman's book takes courage to have out there because no writer would want anyone to believe that the things Laney does and says are in any way autobiographical. Readers often believe that at least SOME of a novelist's protagonist's thoughts and actions come directly from the writer's own psyche and experiences. It took a lot of courage to write so uninhibited and to take the chance that anyone would think Koppelman felt Laney's feelings or worse did the things she does in "I Smile Back." There is one scene where she masturbates with her son's stuffed animal and another where she tells a stranger she just met in a bar to lick her ass during a sexual encounter. Laney acts out due to fear and depression which is explained in much of the dialogue in the movie: "I just don’t understand why anyone bothers to love anything at all. I mean by the time you’re three you’ve pretty much figured out that everything you love is going to be taken away." Laney doesn't see the point of being happy when there is so much misery in this world.

Quote re having a child said by Sarah Silverman starring as Laney in "I Smile Back" movie based on the novel by Amy Koppelman 

I feel that both Shelly and Koppelman have successfully and commendably completed works with a no-holds-barred approach. They have dug deep inside their souls and wrote about the feelings that all of us women have lurking somewhere inside but would never have the courage to admit, much less write about.  Again, not everything a fiction writer's protagonist says should be deemed autobiographical, but we do know that many literary giants have admitted to basing their novels' protagonists on themselves and that events in their plot lines were often true events.


I still have yet to conquer this fear of what others will think about me when they read my writing. This is a hurdle that every fiction writer needs to overcome in order to be truly great. Of course, the best way to write is as if nobody will ever read it, and then, once it's done, just release it and throw caution to the wind! We have to become fearless in writing, same as we need to take chances in all other facets of our lives. For women, this often gets easier with age. Most of us can only become truly radical once we are older. We have to risk being not liked. We have to risk not being dutiful and good. We have to deal with the verbal onslaught and mistrust that will ensue once we have gotten our writing out there. It's not the end of the world. I guess that's the only way to be brave enough to write EXACTLY what we are feeling and thinking and to never hold back in writing ever again. To realize that whatever happens after we've released our writing to the public, it will never be the end of the world.

Adrienne Shelly

"Fifty Shades Of Christian....errrr....Grey!"

E.L. James wrote "Fifty Shades of Grey" to be the grown-up version of Edward and Bella's romance from the Young Adult series, "Twilight."  Remember Stefanie Meyer's books featuring Edward, the vampire, and his teenage bride, Bella, who gives birth to a half human/half vampire child?  Well, that story is actually much more likely to happen in real life than the things that happen in "Fifty Shades of Grey." This "Erotic Romance Novel" features 27 year-old billionaire CEO, Christian Grey, and 22 year-old college student, Anastasia Steele, who is a virgin until he introduces her not only to sex but to his wonderful world of S&M. 

Christian and Ana meet when she interviews him for her college newspaper.  Almost immediately, they realize they can't keep their hands off each other, and although she says she'd be perfectly satisfied with what he calls "vanilla sex," he has some serious control issues wherein she can't touch him without his permission, and he wants them to become involved in a Dominant/Submissive relationship where she must sign a contract agreeing to all his demands. Throughout the entire book, she still isn't sure if she wants to sign this contract which contains clauses such as:  "The Submissive will keep herself clean and shaved and/or waxed at all times," and "The Submissive will not drink to excess, smoke, take recreational drugs, or put herself in any unnecessary danger."  It also allows him to dictate what she wears, eats, how often she goes to the gym, and that she must stay at his house every Friday through Sunday.  So Ana is really confused about whether or not she wants to sign this contract.  If it were me, the choice would be easy. I would have signed the contract, no problem, and then have shown up at his house drunk and with greasy hair the very next Friday.

From a writer's point of view, this book is sometimes painful to read. The characters are supposed to be from Seattle, Washington, yet the British author has not made any effort to try and make them speak any differently from the way she does. Less than four pages into the book, a character says: "Olivia, please fetch Miss Steele a glass of water;" the word "Lovely" is used FAR too many times; and the only word she thinks we use here in America is "Jeez," because she has Anastasia say it about 200 times.  She also obviously based some of Anastasia's speech on Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz because every time Christian wants to introduce her to a new and possibly scary sex act, she says, "Oh, my," as in: "Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!" She also has the poor habit of constantly describing Christian's finger as his "long index finger" which immediately brings to mind the long, glowing finger of E.T., the Extraterrestrial.  But by far, the worst of all is Anastasia's continually telling us readers: "I do as I'm told." By the seventh time, I felt like saying: Stop doing as you're told for this control freak, Anastasia, please! Just grow some, OK?

So why have these books become the phenomenon that they are? Because EL James has created a hot leading man with a sultry teasing voice who knows how to do "things," so to speak. That's why. The women who love these books are willing to ignore the lack of literary prowess for the imaginary world of Christian's sexual prowess. EL may not be able to write a literary novel, but she sure knows how to write a good sex scene.

I think most of the criticism of this book is because people aren't taking it for what it is: an entirely fictional, could-never-happen-in-this-lifetime, x-rated romance novel. If you start the book realizing you are not supposed to take it on its word but, rather, realize you are reading a fictitious story with fictitious characters and are NOT supposed to go out looking for a real Christian Grey, you will take the parts that you like for what they're worth and realize you are on an amusement park ride. This book is NOT a novel, you are not supposed to learn any of life's great truths from it, and it is not now, not EVER, supposed to be taken as a book that you should try and emulate any of your future or current romances on!

The problem I had with whether or not to read this book was all the S&M stuff. I've seen way too many episodes of the TV show "Medium" (which often has psychos tying up women and bounding their hands above their heads) to be comfortable with Christian doing that type of stuff to Ana, but then I realized something:  Although EL James may not realize it, she has actually made a social statement because instead of continuing to have women fear these images and to look at them as something to get upset about, she has taken them back from the men who have always controlled them and has claimed them as her own.  Similar to how African-Americans have taken back the "N" word, and how Mel Brooks claims "The Producers" was written because he wanted Hitler to be funny as opposed to scary in order to take back his power. Again, I don't know if EL James knew she was doing this, but the women who read these books will now have a completely different way of looking at these images and can claim them as their own.

Overall, I liked "Fifty Shades of Grey."  There is an actual plot to it, although it is mostly a book to get turned on to.  For at least three quarters of the bookThis book is about two nymphomaniacs who have sex way more often than a person without the nymphomania disorder ever would. Not only do most people not want to have sex that often, they also don't want to read about it that often either.   "The man is insatiable, or maybe all men are like him. I have no idea, no one to compare him to," Anastasia says.   No, Anastasia, all men are not like Christian, and that's exactly the way we'd like to keep them!

An afterthought:  There are movies being planned for the "Fifty Shades" series as we speak, and my pick for the actor to play Christian would be Christian Bale, but 10 years ago.  It's not going happen, he is no longer 27.  But again, similar to the way I've enjoyed the majority of this book, I'm willing to embrace the unreality of the situation!

I Guess I'm Just Not Your Typical Romantic

Nicholas Sparks, romance author, recently chose his five most romantic films for "Entertainment Weekly." His choices correspond with a list of my own called "Chrissi's Five Most Repugnant Films."  The only film I don't hate from his list is "Casablanca," although not because I found the movie romantic.  I saw that film years ago, very surprised at how many lines from it had seeped into our popular culture.  I sat by myself in the crowded "Revue" theater, trying to be serious, when suddenly I heard: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine," which I'd only ever known previously as a sample from a song by one of my favorite '80's bands, "Big Audio Dynamite."  If that wasn't enough, there were also lines like: "Here's looking at you, kid," a variation of "Play It Again, Sam," and "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," all of which I'd originally heard as a kid spoken by a very popular character named "Bugs Bunny!"  So I do like that movie, but mostly due to its unintentional entertainment factor.

Now, here is my rundown of why I hate his other four picks:

1.  "Ghost"  I found it depressing and frightening. There's nothing romantic about one half of a couple dying.  And now I hear there is a Broadway musical of it coming out.  Oh, the torture!

2. "Titanic"  I had similar feelings for "Titanic" (with the added bonus of seeing blue people floating in the water at the end of the movie), but my biggest complaint is calling this movie a "love story" when it really is a "lust story."  Rich society girls don't fall in love with poor guys, but they just might have a lustful fling on a sinking ship.  That, I'll buy.

3. "Dirty Dancing"  The female lead's name is "Baby" because she's supposed to be so innocent, but about halfway through the film, she is naked and in bed with Patrick Swayze.  Turns out there's nothing innocent about "Baby" after all.

4. "Pretty Woman"  Absolutely, hands down, the worst of the bunch!  It's scary that people have nicknamed this movie "A Cinderella Story."  This is not a movie for young girls to one day emulate, particularly because of what's obvious to me but apparently not to others -- that the female lead (played by Julia Roberts) is a working prostitute!  Worse still, the movie dances around this issue by having Julia Roberts spill her guts about her seedy past to her "Prince Charming" (a/k/a "Paying John") without ever actually admitting that she does indeed have sex with men for money!  Watch the movie closely and you'll notice this.  I remember sitting in the theater that day waiting and waiting....

One movie I do find romantic is a movie based on one of Sparks' own novels called "The Notebook."  I hated it at first for the same reason I hated "Titanic" -- rich girls know to go for rich guys, they don't go for poor ones.  Initially, I had only seen the two leads as a young couple, but one night, I saw the movie on TV in its entirety.  The scenes of the now-old couple really got to me.  My husband found me crying in my recliner, and I tried to explain to him what I'd just seen:  "He didn't need to be in a nursing home.  But he went there to be with her," and "She wrote the book he's reading to her because she knew she was getting Alzheimer's, and she wanted to remember their relationship."  I was barely audible.  Now, I was truly moved by all of the movie because I knew I was seeing a real love story.

I don't buy that whole "love at first sight" thing.  "Lust at first sight," yes, but true love is what comes over time when a couple live together on a daily basis, some days are ordinary, others extraordinary, but that's the kind of love I believe in.

Who knows?  Maybe I'm wrong, and the leads in "Dirty Dancing" and "Pretty Woman" would have stood the test of time.  Maybe Ingrid Bergman did not get on that plane and instead wound up staying with Humphrey Bogart.  I'd watch the film one more time to really see how their characters interact to make my final judgment, yet I'm not confident I'd be able to see that movie again without constantly being reminded of Bugs Bunny!