Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Screenwriter Always Rings Twice

You can't trust writers. Anything you say or do is fair game to us. We dress you up in a different gown and use your words and your hair and your eyes and steal your soul.

from "Robbie's Wife" by Russell Hill.



"Robbie's Wife" was a good read, a bit of James M. Cain goes to England if you will, and I mean that in the best possible sense. And while that quote is a little too on the nose and that character literally writes down each and everything that he experiences, it made sense within the plot.

Of course I can't imagine an actual screenwriter (the protagonist's profession) this side of Joe Ezterhas at his most self-indulgent, writing every other thing down in an almost verbatim fashion. So trust me when I say that unlike the police, I will not hold everything you say against you...

...unless it's juicy enough. Then, I'm at least going to change your gender and ethnic origin.

3 comments:

Shelley Jaffe said...

So, I'm a male from New Delhi?

If you're "inventing", can I please also own a boulangerie called "The New Delhi Deli"?

Gifted Typist said...

Swine! I'll get you, you just wait

Cormac Brown said...

Baroness,

The Countess came ashore on an alabaster-like scallop shell, some seven-feet in diameter. Her feet barely touched the sand and with each gliding step, she seemed to hover.

She stood above me and pointed at me with a graceful hand.

"Hey, Schmendrick, are you gonna finish that pastarmi sandwich all by yerself? You could stand to lose a ton or two."


Gifted,

He was a former editor that fell from grace from a major city paper. Gale was as wide as he was big and he constantly had a lit cigar in his mouth, despite the no-smoking ban throughout the paper's premises.

He blew a lungful of that fetid cigar smoke my way like some angry newsprint-covered dragon and gently said "are you going to finish that pastarmi sandwich all by your lonesome?"