Back in the Saddle Again… Kind of

Dear Readers,

Let me start by thanking everyone who came by over the summer to read my fiction. I had so much fun with it, and I hope you did as well. I’d love to know if you had a favorite piece.

It’s finally fall—at least, culturally speaking; the weather is cooling a bit, school is well underway, stores are pushing Halloween decor… so what if we have like 10 days till the equinox! This is my favorite time of year, and originally I had planned to do Fall Fiction Fridays, before settling on the plan to run that during the summer. I also toyed with extending Fiction Fridays through the holiday season. However, I do feel that it’s important to get back to practical posts. Not to insinuate that reading fiction can’t help you get better at writing, but I’m stuck on how to get to the ending (or even if I have the right ending in mind) for “The Last Great Adventure,” so it seems a good time to get back to what I originally intended this blog to be: Advice on the craft. What little I know offered to you in the most appetizing way I can plate it.

One of the last posts I did before my foray into fiction looked at the theme of Beauty and the Beast in both the 90s animated classic and the 10s (is that the right way to refer to the twenty-tens? Or should it be the twenty-teens? Whatever, I’m going with it.) That post performed pretty well, and I’ve been meaning to offer a counter example. After all, there’s nothing wrong with re-making a film. So what if I told you that the House of Mouse managed a film remake nearly identical in conceit but opposite in execution? I’ll give you a clue: it’s not The Lion King, Aladdin, Dumbo, or Mulan. And it doesn’t look promising that it will be Pinocchio either, but we’ll see.

The Jungle Book (2016), in my opinion, was actually better than its 2D animated counterpart. The reason why isn’t because it looked more realistic or because it starred a live-action Mowgli. It wasn’t better for it’s relative lack of music.

It was better because it fixed problems with the original’s characters.

Sadly, I won’t be going into that in this post. I spent most of today (Sunday, September 11) getting my older son checked out for a possible ear infection. As a result, I wasn’t able to finish the re-watches and note-taking required to make my case. Please bear with me as I ease myself back into these posts that require more research and preparation and editing. Next week, I’ll have it all ready for you. I hope you’ll come back! Maybe you’ll even have time to re-watch the two films?

Thanks for your patience. For this and for the fate of Teddy and Wes. I promise they’ll get an ending eventually.

Sincerely,

Sam