And a Little Controversy, Please

 So, I am slightly drunk but that only makes me much braver and possibly unwise in what I’m going to type.

I believe Dylan Farrow. I believed her when she was seven years old. I believed her in 2014 when her op-ed was posted in the New York Times, and I believe her in the recent documentary that just aired on HBO. I have been on Team Dylan from the very beginning.

Clearly , this is more than just he said, she said, but the larger meta (and I’m always about the larger meta) is how do you separate art from the artist? I find I can't.

I have endured scorn from my own family members and friends for my vocal condemnation of people like Polanski and Allen. I did have a private moment of gratification when my son, who initially thought I was being hysterical about these sexual abusers early on in the PR game, had the stones to say to me at some point when MeToo was at its height, Yeah, Mom, you nailed it. Yeah, I did. 

I cannot disenfranchise the artists from the art. I can’t. Plain and simple. You watch a veritable bouquet of Woody Allen films and a theme emerges: the nebbish nerd as the object of desire by a young woman. Not all his films, but enough to give you a sense that this is a troubled individual. I remember seeing Husband’s and Wives and remarking to my husband, Wow, he must hate Mia Farrow. Did you see how he filmed her? 

Anyway, I cannot distinguish an artist and their art. I was never a Picasso fan, so his legendary behavior as a beater of women didn’t cause much cause and effect with me. Yes, I have seen Guernica, and it’s a masterpiece. Do I see the bruised faces of the women he routinely beat? You’re damn straight I do. Same with Roman Polanski, He’s a rapist. People who have defended him, yes, Johnny Depp, I’m looking at you, asshole, is now part of my list. I adored Johnny Depp for many years,  Now? Persona non grata. And all those actresses gushing about Allen as they waved their Oscars in the air. Say goodbye to any money from me.

I won’t die if I never see another Woody Allen film in my life. Or a Polanski film. Or a Depp film. I won’t. It’s a line that I have drawn for myself. If your line is different, well, it’s different. But don’t try to change my mind or defend them, because I will rip you to effing shreds.

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Mystery Writing Tip #6

 This brings us to—insert organ music of doom—The Stakes. Every book must have stakes. Something to gain and something to lose. Something to prove, something to disprove. Rehabilitation at the cost of humiliation. Donald Maas, the guru of books about the craft of writing, stresses this over and over again. I would strongly recommend checking out his books. What are “stakes?” These can be large stakes on a national level, like a Senate majority leader is a total hypocrite in terms of rushing through a judicial appointment that only four years earlier he repudiated on record because he’s a lying dirtbag, but he is desperate to get a conservative on the Supreme Court. Said Senate Majority Leader is willing to sacrifice his integrity for that judicial appointment. Or stakes on a very personal level, where the abused wife who turned her husband into the police is abandoned by her children because her husband is now serving his sentence on Death Row. Make sure that the outcome matters to someone important in the book. I firmly believe that there is no free lunch. Like the woman who lost her children because she fingered her husband. Morals are emotionally expensive. They are hard. That is why the struggle to do the right thing is so fraught with tension. Or it should be.

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Mystery Writing Tip Number 5

 If you find your novel bogging down, make them move. I am serious. Make them walk, run, vacuum the house, or climb a tree to look into a window. In the movie, Sex, Lies, and Videotapes, the protagonist discovers her husband is have an affair with her sister when she vacuums up an earring. That’s some VERY angry vacuuming. These mundane tasks that affect a story’s trajectory are simple events that can have a profound effect on the storyline and yet one that we can all relate to. Most of us own vacuums. Can you relate to the anger in finding evidence of your husband’s affair in YOUR bedroom with your SISTER as YOU vacuum? I sure can.

Physical action will immediately pick up the pace. Different scenario. What about the physically abused wife who runs around the block because the thought that her husband might be a murderer is creating such mental chaos, she needs to outrun those thoughts. Or our protagonist nearly falls out of a tree because he’s spying on his neighbor who he thinks killed his wife, and, bob’s your uncle, tension on a platter. Of course, this movement should pertain to either the plot or character development; see earring above. Remember our star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet? Shakespeare throws in some awesome sword fights, and the death of Mercutio at sword-point seals our lovers’ fates. The tragedy of that play hinges on a sword fight. Another example is the Harry Potter series. Every book in the series spans a school year. The strength of this series is in the world-building. We don’t really have a ton of plot movement over the breadth of the series—Voldemort is trying to kill Harry—and yet we have those AWESOME Quidditch matches where several supporting plot points to the main plot arc are introduced.

Brooms flying through the air!!! Is there anything more exciting?

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