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.

My Neighborhood is Proof We’re Living in the Matrix

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We are living in The Matrix, dude. No one can convince me otherwise, okay. And if you disagree that we’re in some sort of strange computer simulation maybe just come over and visit my neighborhood from time to time. Because it is living proof that nothing’s real lol.

Okay, I have this one neighbor that no matter what time of day, no matter what’s going on, this guy will spawn if Dan or I step outside. I KNOW this sounds like a joke or an exaggeration. But it seriously isn’t, okay. ANYTIME one of us is outside, he’ll spawn and start walking around the neighborhood. If I’m dropping my kids off to school at 7:30 in the morning he is out there walking around. If I am checking the mail like late into the evening, he is out there walking around. He never changes direction or pace. He never talks or does any other programed action other than walking. He’s always either wearing the same navy tracksuit (even in the summer) OR… he is out walking around in his pajammies.

I REALLY AM KIDDING YOU NOT. One time we had one of the worst monsoon storms we had in years. Like it was ripping out all the trees by their roots and our phones were blowing up with warnings. I went to my front window to watch the lightning and I am not even joking you this man spawned in the rain and the wind and the lightning. He was walking around the neighborhood in his track suit.

And he’s not even the most NPC of my neighborhood NPCs. I have this other neighbor… now, look, I realize I am in the business of making things up and this is about to sound REALLY made up. But I swear this is a REAL person doing this. There is this lady that paints her own car… in her driveway… in the dark… everyday for the past sixteen months. Yup. She just paints her car another layer every night. Different colors too. What is she doing? I don’t know. Maybe she’s trying to make it bulkier? The paint’s got to be at least like 6 in thick at this point. The only conclusion I have is that we’re living in the matrix and they have programmed the NPCs in my neighborhood with very few interactions lol.

And if you don’t think your neighbors are NPCs let me present this theory that’s been tickling the Internet. The theory goes like this: You’ve never once seen your neighbors bring their groceries inside. And the reason you’ve never seen your neighbors do this is because they’re not real and they’re not programmed to have groceries. Y’all ever seen your neighbors take their groceries inside?? No. But they’ve seen you, haven’t they?

Dan and I were talking about this theory and the very next day, I DID see my neighbors take groceries inside. And you know what their groceries were? A single rotisserie chicken and a gallon of milk. I was like, “That’s even weirder than just seeing normal groceries!!” I swear the programmers were just panicking because Daniel and I are on to them. But we gotta have a newbie programmer working on our neighborhood haha.

Comment with your neighborhood’s weird NPC behavior. Let’s compare lol