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Rule 4: Power to the People
Rule 4.One of the funniest and most instructive class discussions I remember from teaching had to do with the movie Notting Hill. Plot: A beautiful actress at the top of her game, an American, falls in and out of lust/love with a poor London bookseller.A conflict only works if the two parties are truly equal in some way, have some kind of power over each other. It might not look on the surface to be the case, but they do. The power passes back and forth, and this is how tension is created and the reader's interest is kept.
One group of students thought the movie failed because there was no tension, and there was no tension because the bookseller was not as powerful as the actress. He had no way to hold her or influence her; what she wanted was what was going to happen. The other group disagreed, of course.
My take on this (not very good) movie is that there was a basic problem with the characterization and conflict, one that could have been remedied. In a well done story, a poor bookseller can be as powerful as an A list actress or the president of the United States. Just in the same way that a disabled elderly woman in a wheelchair can be as powerful as a thirty year old, healthy, strong, successful son. She may poke and prod and manipulate to get her way, or she may encourage and cheerlead and manipulate, or she may be in a coma and all her power is derived from the power of memory.
Emotional weapons provide more bang for the buck than any kind of wealth or power, at least when it comes to characterization.
October 19, 2005 10:28 AM
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