Our Story

My wife and I watched a movie last night that we both found maddeningly lacking in anything resembling a story. The film was obviously made with great care, and the actors did a fine job, and I did get to see a very realistic portrait of a young divorced father and his eleven-year-old daughter’s relationship while they enjoyed a holiday, but if there was a central conflict, I couldn’t possibly tell you what that was. When we watched a trailer, I was intrigued, but feared we might be in for disappointing experience. “I’ll watch it,” I said. “But if we don’t like it, we can’t spend thirty minutes afterward breaking down what was wrong with it.”

We were about twenty-five minutes into our post-movie griping when my wife reminded me of my edict. My goal had actually been to not talk about it afterward at all, but that wasn’t possible. The difference between what I wanted a movie to be and what I’d just spent one hour and forty-one minutes watching was simply too great. I believe my frustration was made all the worse by the rave reviews it had apparently received. Did those critics really like it, I found myself thinking, or did they just want to like it because it was so conspicuously unconventional?

I’d never know. I’d never know how many drafts of the script the filmmaker wrote until she arrived at the final version, nor how she raised the millions of dollars it no doubt took to make it, nor how she acquired the necessary distribution. A lot of people had to believe in this film for us to be able to sit on our couch and grumble about it. If I met them, I’d probably like a lot of them. I almost always enjoy talking to authors whose books I put down after a few pages.

As an artist, it’s useful to recognize what you like and don’t like. How else are you going to know what belongs in your story and what has to go? But art isn’t an argument. There will never, no matter how long Jen and grind our teeth about such things, be a right and wrong way to make a movie or write a book. The thing, after all, I like about people, is that they aren’t me. That’s what makes them fun to play with, not knowing what they’ll say and do next, and glad to be a part of this story we’re all telling together.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com