{"id":1362,"date":"2012-02-28T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2012-02-28T06:00:51","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T12:00:51","slug":"muse-in-a-drive-in-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=1362","title":{"rendered":"Muse in a drive-in theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fox<\/a>
The Fox 50 drive-in theater in Lenexa, Kansas. Photo courtesy Cinema Treasures.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post over on my blog about “Creativity and TV crime<\/a>.”\u00a0I talked about watching too much television during my formative years and how that had a profound impact on my storytelling. But today I want to talk about another medium, one that had an equally important connection to my desire to write.<\/p>\n

I’ve been a fan of movies since I was a kid. When I was young, my parents would pack us kids into the family car on Friday nights every summer and take us to the Fox 50 drive-in theater up the street. We saw Disney films like Now You See Him, Now You Don’t<\/em> and Herbie the Love Bug<\/em>. Disney movies became synonymous with family outings, a tradition I carry on today with my family.<\/p>\n

I can’t count the number of ways that movies have influenced my writing. I write stories with a 3-act story structure used in screenplays. I see my actors and actresses playing the roles of my characters, which helps me flesh out descriptions. I hear music and add it to the “soundtrack” of my story. Most of what I know about heroes, villains, romance, drama and comedy comes from the movies.<\/p>\n

And when I’m having trouble visualizing the direction of story, I like to imagine what the trailer would look like. A good movie trailer hits the high points of the film leading to the climax. When I envision the trailer of my story, I hear a voice-over, a swell of music, and the titles that grab the audience’s attention. If nothing else, it helps me to write a good synopsis.<\/p>\n

By the time I reached high school, I had seen a lot of movies. I read magazines about movie special effects and make-up. I dreamed of working at a movie studio. But Hollywood was half a country away, and it wasn’t likely to happen. At some point during my senior year — as I waited in line for snacks at a concession stand — I made the decision to become an English major when I enrolled in college.\u00a0I wanted to write stories.<\/p>\n

And if somewhere down the line those stories were made into movies, all the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post over on my blog about “Creativity and TV crime.”\u00a0I talked about watching too much television during my formative years and how that had a profound impact on my storytelling. But today I want to talk about another medium, one that had an equally important connection to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[295,317,715,1155],"class_list":["post-1362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influence","tag-disney","tag-drive-in","tag-movies","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}