Advice for Writing, Editing, Reading, and Life.
New posts on Mondays (for non-fiction) or Fridays (for fiction)
Back in the Saddle Again… Kind of
It’s finally fall—at least, culturally speaking. It’s important to get back to practical posts. Not to insinuate that reading fiction can’t help you get better at writing, but 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.
A Case Study on Theme: Beauty and the Beast (1991 vs. 2017)
Obviously, any great work of fiction can have more than one theme, but there is usually one central theme that any other themes hang on; a trunk from which other themes can branch. The themes of 1991’s Beauty and the Beast deal with prejudice, freedom, love, and forgiveness. And the 2017 remake fumbles basically all of those. But none more egregiously than the “trunk” that made ‘91 so great.