Sunday, November 2, 2014

Learning From Movies - The Fury





*****Spoil Alert*****


I am not a big fan of war movies, but I agreed to see this one with my husband. I'm glad to say the acting was good. The dialogue was usually believable. Unfortunately, most of the plot was predictable. At least it was for me. That could be because I'm a writer.

When they introduced the young soldier who wouldn't shoot anyone, I knew the story would center on how he becomes a killer. When the main jerk in the movie told him he was a good man, I knew the jerk would die soon. When they decided to face down over a hundred Nazi soldiers by themselves, I predicted everyone would die except for the young soldier.

To be fair, I did not predict that this handful of men would decide to face down over a hundred German soldiers near the end.

What can writers do to keep their plot points from becoming predictable? Write a list of possible twists in the story until you start to come up with ones that are different, yet believable, and true to the characters. You can also ask a friend what they think will happen next in the story and if they guess your plot, change it.

Until next week,
happy reading and writing.
Tina Swayzee McCright

No comments: