With Thanksgiving behind us, I’m getting into the holiday spirit. So what better time to discuss our favorite Christmas stories? I have a lengthy and diverse list (instead of a gift wish list!).  Watching these movies or television specials is an important part of the holiday tradition at our house.

First off, I love the Christmas specials from my childhood:  A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman.

Then, I’m a sucker for old movies, so TCM is my buddy this month.  Christmas In Connecticut (Barbara Stanwyck is a stitch—and I covet that farmhouse in Connecticut,especially the fireplace!), Miracle on 34th Street (Edmund Gwenn is the best Santa Macy’s ever had!), The Bishop’s Wife (Cary Grant as an angel, David Niven as a bishop, Loretta Young as the wife who inspires both—and when Cary trims the tree?  Brilliant!), The Shop Around the Corner (because what’s Christmas without Jimmy Stewart?), Holiday Inn (Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as country mouse/city mouse), and White Christmas (beautiful singing by Bing and Rosemary Clooney, divine dancing by Vera Ellen and Danny Kaye at his possibly most charming).

My dh turned me onto It’s A Wonderful Life.  Can’t believe my mom never had me sit down and watch that as a kid.

Some newer films have grabbed my attention.  Will Ferrell is so wonderful in Elf.  And Love Actually celebrates Christmas—and love—in such a beautiful, poignant way.  Plus it’s got a killer soundtrack.  And dare I admit that I loved Bad Santa?  Go ahead, put coal in my stocking, but I laughed so hard at Billy Bob Thornton in that film.

My dad loves A Christmas Story. A little secret about that film—my cousin Mia appears in the opening sequence when all the kids and adults are looking in the shop windows. The scene was filmed in downtown Cleveland, and Mia showed up in a WAC uniform and they popped her into the crowd scene!

And then there’s the completely non-Christmas film that has become a bit of a holiday tradition in our house.  We watched it one year on Christmas Eve, and decided it was a great way to celebrate.  The film?  The Great Race, Blake Edwards’ romp about an around-the-world auto race starring Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk.

The season isn’t all about movies and television.  I also try to reread some of my favorite holiday stories.  From The Night Before Christmas (yes, I read it to my cats at bedtime on Christmas Eve) to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Have I left your favorite off my list?  Please share it!  And feel free to include which holiday stories are part of your family’s tradition.

Me (age 7) and our Siberian Husky Tanya. We read Charlotte’s Web together that summer.

This post first appeared on my former blog March 7, 2011.

We all have them.  Come on, admit it.  Somewhere in your past is a story—be it book or film—that you love so much, it’s a guilty pleasure.

Guilty pleasures are stories you return to again and again.  They lift you when you’re feeling down or comfort you when you’re sick or blue.  They prepare you fight back when life has dumped on you.  They’re a welcome interruption when life is screamin’ by you.

With books, I tend to think of them as “keepers.”  These are the faded, stained and tattered books we will never part with.  For me, the keepers includes titles by Elswyth Thane, Robert Lawson, Rudyard Kipling, E.B. White, Tom Clancy, Dorothy L. Sayers, Georgette Heyer and Kathleen Woodiwiss.

With movies, well, any movie that I stop to watch over and over is a prime suspect.  My guilty pleasure movies?  Any Harry Potter film, nearly any Disney animated classic, Sense and Sensibility and, of all things, The Fifth Element.

Yeah, you could say I have eclectic tastes.

But WHY is a story a guilty pleasure?  Where’s the guilt?  For me, it’s because I consider storytelling to be my profession.  By the time I’ve read a book or watched a movie a half dozen times, there’s very little left for me to learn from that story.  It becomes pure entertainment value.  And I always feel I should be out “broadening my horizons.”  I mean, if I’m going to be entertained, shouldn’t I at least seek something new?

All logic disappears when I’m flipping channels and I find The Fifth Element.  I can now enter that movie at almost any point.  I don’t have to follow the plot—I *know* the plot and I know how the story ends.

Where, then, is the point in watching it again?

For me, it’s the characters, the situation, the careful revelation of secrets.  It’s the nuances in gestures, specific tidbits of dialogue.  With movies, it’s often action sequences or the quest that pulls me in.  With books, it’s because I’ve grown to love the characters as if they were part of my family.

So what books or movies would you rate among your Guilty Pleasures?  And what draws you to that story again and again?

I am already gearing up for football.  And I’m not really a serious sports fan.  Not like my brother.  He can talk stats and scores and teams and players for every sport.  Might come with the territory of being the father of three grown sons.

But as a writer, I’m also intrigued by how the media turns so many elements of sports into STORY.  First, there are the many personalities and life stories of the players.  These bring stories like The Blind Side or Bend It Like Beckham to life.  Then, there’s the fact that many sports provide the central conflict necessary for great drama: football, soccer, basketball, baseball, horse racing, NASCAR.  These sports pit individuals or teams directly against each other.  As fans, we root for our favorite (the hero) and despise the opponent(s) (the villain).  Our hero may have allies and enemies out there on the field, court or track.  Numerous events play out during the game providing our hero with obstacles to overcome as he tries to win.  There may be a black moment—that point as the contest/game is nearing the end when it looks as if all is lost for our hero.  Sometimes, our hero doesn’t overcome this, and the event ends “tragically” for us (i.e., our hero loses).  But other times, our hero defies all the odds and comes back to win.

For a case in point, I recommend this play from a 2010 Jaguars-Texans NFL game.  Note, when the video loads that there are 3 seconds left in the game on the clock.  This is the Hail Mary throw to beat all Hail Mary throws.

Now, THAT is drama at its best (with apologies to the Texans, because they played great football that day, and this Jaguar win was, in many ways, a fluke).  There was great conflict throughout the game, and there were wonderful twists and surprises that kept fans on the edge of their seats.

Let’s face it, sports events where one team trounces the other are not that entertaining.  It’s the close competition we crave.  The anticipation of a great play, the fear of imminent disaster.  The Kentucky Derby is referred to as the most exciting two minutes in sports.  And it is!  But you’ll notice the television coverage starts a couple hours before post time.  And, oh how they build up the conflict, the favorites, the underdogs, the long-shots.  Drama, drama, drama, so we’re compelled to stick around and watch that two-minute story.

Most sports also have a certain amount of pageantry.  The national anthem.  The coin toss.  The line up at the starting gate. The traditions give fans a chance to celebrate their team before the competition even begins.  At this moment, every participant is a winner.

Professional sports are big business.  They attract a lot of fans.  For years, I didn’t watch much sports.  I couldn’t quite understand what all the excitement was about.  But over the past few years I’ve started to watch more and more football.  I like the intricacy of the rules.  The strategies that come into play.  (I also adore Curling after watching enough of it during the 2010 Olympics to appreciate the strategy involved in that—amazing!)  I’ve tried to watch basketball and baseball, but they’re just not working for me yet.  I prefer to watch golf.

How about you?  Are you a sports fan? Do you enjoy the stories that play out during sporting events and media coverage?  Do you have a favorite sports story from books or movies?

I’m wild about heroes who play the role of “Protector.”  From True Grit to Terminator 2, there are hundreds of stories that feature this iconic hero.  Often a loner or someone who has been shunned by society, the Protector defies convention and risks his life to keep the heroine safe.

Of course, there are heroine twists on the Protector, too.  Sigourney Weaver’s character in Aliens must protect the orphaned girl, Newt.  And John Grisham has a boy who witnessed a suicide hire an attorney (played by Susan Sarandon in the film) to protect him in his story The Client.

The big name superheroes tend to be Protectors.  Obviously, they’re protecting mankind in the larger sense, but the films tend to give us a specific heroine who becomes the focus of that attention.  Superman has Lois Lane.  Batman has Vicki Vale. Spider-Man has Mary Jane Watson.

In romance fiction, Protectors abound.  Firefighters, cowboys, Navy SEALs, cops.  In today’s world, the heroines aren’t necessarily shrinking violets—they’re capable women who can take care of themselves.  But when faced with overwhelming odds or life-threatening circumstances, the Protector still arrives to provide comfort, support and to help defeat the villain.  They never intend to fall in love, but when they do, it’s forever.

One of my recent favorite Protectors is The Fifth Element.  Bruce Willis plays a retired military officer driving a cab in a futuristic world under siege.  He protects a girl who literally lands in his lap, only to discover that she’s the key to defending the Earth.

And I’ll be honest–I’m thinking about Protectors because my nephew just graduated from basic training at Fort Jackson.  He’s starting his advance training today.  A huge cheer for all the men and women who help protect our country!

Do you have a favorite Protector character?  Why do you think this role has survived as a hero icon for hundreds of years?  Do you find Protectors romantic?

Go ahead and list them.  Those “classics” you were forced to read in school.  Which ones were on your list?

Great Expectations

The Grapes of Wrath

To Kill A Mockingbird

The Red Badge of Courage

Julius Caesar

Macbeth

Hamlet

I read Great Expectations in high school.  Don’t tell anyone, but I *loved* it!  I was always two chapters ahead of the class.  Yeah, Dickens was a little long-winded in his descriptions, but Pip and Magwich and Miss Haversham—wow, what characters.  Dickens provided an emotional roller coast my adolescent heart found so appealing.

I remember wading through The Grapes of Wrath.  Our teacher even got us the movie to watch, in addition to reading the book (although, I suspect many students stopped reading the book and just waited for the movie).  Nope, neither of them appealed to me.

Shakespeare gave me such an appreciation for drama that I majored in it in college.  I read plays by the Greeks, the Romans, medieval mystery plays (which weren’t mysteries at all, I learned).  I’ve read most of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as some Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe.  I read Restoration comedies and existential dramas from France.  I even read Neil Simon plays.

I’m such a nut for “classics,” that I’ve even read a few of Jane Austen’s books, and some by Jules Verne and Alexander Dumas.  I’ve got Colette and Truman Capote hiding in my To Be Read pile right now.

I see a timeless quality to classics.  Sure, they may be steeped in the morals or cultural attitudes of their era, but beneath the period costumes or formal language beat human hearts.  These stories share the universal emotions that haven’t changed in hundreds of years—the vices and virtues we all recognize.  Greed, envy, love, faith, to name a few. These stories “hold up” even in our evolving world.

Just curious—did you enjoy the classics you had to read in school?  Have you read others?  Are their classics you’d like to read?

Raise your hand if you were a Mr. Ed fan. Remember him? The talking palomino who lived in architect Wilbur’s little barn? (Go ahead, I’ll wait while you sing the theme song…)  For a city kid who dreamed of one day owning a horse, that show was like candy.

I have always loved the majestic beauty of horses. No one else in my immediate family rides, but from the time I could walk, I was horse crazy.  I pretended to be a horse.  I learned to make sounds like a horse.  I tried my best to draw horses.  Instead of Barbie dolls, I played with Breyer horses.  I still have a collection of over 200 of them around my office.  I may be practical enough to know I can’t own a horse, but I still love them.

I was also one of those geeky kids who read a lot.  Naturally, I sought out horse stories.  An early one was Little Black, A Pony.  Little Black is saddened when the boy who rides him chooses to ride Big Red instead, but when the boy gets into danger, it’s Little Black who rescues him.

I had a number of Marguerite Henry’s classics.  The stunning illustrations by Wesley Dennis in Album of Horses made me sigh with longing for a horse (and sent me for paper and pencil, but I was just never able to capture the beauty myself). Henry’s stories Misty of Chincoteague and King of the Wind were two of my favorites.

By the age of ten I had moved onto The Black Stallion by Walter Farley.  And when I discovered there was a whole series of books featuring The Black and Alex?  There was no stopping my visits to the local library. I think every book report I gave through fifth grade was about a horse story.

Hollywood has given us wonderful horse stories, too.  National Velvet features a vibrant pre-teen Elizabeth Taylor as a girl who wins a horse in a town raffle and trains him for Britain’s greatest horse race, The Grand National.  Pop up the popcorn and grab a box of Kleenex.  This is great stuff.  (Movie Trailer here, but the video quality is a bit rough.)

The Black Stallion came to the big screen in 1979 in a stunning film, but I still love the books better. And since then, we’ve enjoyed Hidalgo, Spirit—Stallion of the Cimarron, The Horse Whisperer (never saw the film, but the book was amazing), Seabiscuit and most recently, Secretariat. By the way, Secretariat clippings adorned my bedroom walls in 1973.  You can watch his races on YouTube—brilliant runner!

And one of my guilty pleasure favorites, Arwen’s determined ride to save Frodoe in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.

Enjoy!  And if I left off your favorite horse story–in book or movie–please let me know!

This post first appeared on my former blog December 5, 2010.

Come on, you’ve got one.  Who is it?

Cruella de Vil?

Lex Luther?

The Wicked Witch of the West?

Voldemort?

Great stories often require great villains.  Without them, our heroes cannot be truly heroic.  They provide the force we long to see our hero overcome.

But great villains can’t just be evil.  We need to understand them.  Frighteningly, we often need to empathize with them.  In 1989’s Batman, brought to life by Tim Burton, The Joker was given a more complete back story.  We experienced his pain, and while we may not have agreed with his evil deeds, we understood where they came from.

Still, we cheered for Batman as he defeated this villain.  Wiping such negativity from the earth is something that resonates with many of us.

I was taught that to increase the impact of my hero and his/her success, I had to first increase the impact of the villain and his/her nefarious deeds.  The more dangerous a villain, the more heroic the hero.  That’s why Greek heroes defeated the Minotaur, the Gorgon, the Cyclops and others.

I was also taught that every great villain is the hero of his/her own story.  So, as a writer, I often try to approach my villain with the idea that he truly believes what he wants to achieve is good—at least for him. And like any hero, he’s frustrated by others who cross him.  To the villain, the hero is someone who must be defeated for the good of all.

And recently I learned a great term: contagonist. We all think of the villain as an antagonist—someone who is in direct opposition with the hero.  But sometimes, the person we perceive as blocking the hero doesn’t have villainous intentions.  He may merely be on his own path, which somehow intersects and interferes with the hero.  This is a contagonist.  A find them fascinating.

Then, of course, there were the Gothic heroes–the brooding silent men who watched over heroines.  The heroine never knew whether this man was a protector or a danger to her.  In Hitchcock’s Suspicion, Cary Grant played this a modern twist on this icon. If you’ve never seen the film, by all means, watch it and decide for yourself whether he’s a villain or a Gothic hero.

Okay, so my favorite villains?

Scariest childhood villain:  The Wicked Witch, hands down.  As a kid, she terrified me. And those flying monkeys?  <shudder>

Most annoying childhood villain:  Nellie Oleson from The Little House books.  Arggh, she drove me crazy! (And yet, now I’m following actress Alison Arngrim on Twitter, go figure…)

Scariest adult villain: the Alien in Aliens.  Though I covered my eyes for half the film, I loved watching Sigourney Weaver kick that thing’s ass.

Most annoying adult villain:  Dr. Smith from the Lost in Space series.

Creepiest villain:  Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca.  Not even Laurence Olivier could convince me to sleep under the same roof as that woman.

Villain I most wanted to see redeemed:  The Terminator. Oh wait, they did redeem him for Terminator 2!  Okay, okay, how about Hannibal Lechter.  I mean, the man is brilliant–twisted, but brilliant!

Who is your favorite villain and why?  Is it someone you love to hate?  Someone you wish you could redeem?  Someone who makes a hero jump off the page (or screen) for you by pushing the hero’s limits?

This post first appeared on my former blog December 1, 2010.

Hans Christian Andersen brought us some lovely, compelling tales about characters who didn’t quite fit into their world.  The Ugly Duckling.  The Little Mermaid.  They recognized that they belonged among a different crowd.  They just didn’t know how to get there.

The Little Mermaid has always drawn me as an iconic character.  She knows she doesn’t fit in.  She’s desperate to experience the human world, and she goes so far as to trade her voice so she can have temporary legs and climb onto the land.

Of course, being such a different creature, she can’t explain her situation—even if she did have the ability to speak.  Humans would think she’s mad.  This creates a poignant, and potentially funny, situation.

Hollywood has used it many times:  Splash.  Enchanted.  The Little Mermaid (well…obviously!).  Even movies like Big and Elf trace their roots to Hans Christian Anderson’s tale.

Unlike television sitcoms where the “fish out of water” character has a cadre of friends aware of the situation, the true little mermaid is completely alone.  To me, shows like Mork & Mindy, Bewitched and Third Rock from the Sun are fun, but not nearly as deep as Superman.

For me, this iconic character—regardless of age or gender—reminds me of my adolescence.  Oh, I wanted to be one of the popular crowd.  But I wasn’t.  And I didn’t know how to fix it.  At the time, I would have traded just about anything to fit in, to be part of that world. Unlike the little mermaid, who trades off what makes her so unique to fit into a more mainstream world, I was more like the ugly duckling, aware that I couldn’t hide my unique qualities in the mainstream world.  Eventually, I accepted that I wasn’t a typical duck.  Not sure I’m a swan…maybe a goose?  <G>

It’s a joy to find a fresh twist on an iconic character, and that’s just what happened recently when I read Cattitude by Edie Ramer.  Here, a cat and a human change places.  Belle the Cat, trapped inside a human body, is a joy to behold.  Ramer takes the “fish out of water” scenario to new heights. I may be biased, because I’m a cat lover, but I found the story full of wonderful twists.  Near the end, I couldn’t tell whether I was rooting for Belle to remain a human or return to her cat body.  Either might have worked, but I was wholly satisfied with Ramer’s ending.

Do you have a favorite version of The Little Mermaid character?  Perhaps a story that you didn’t recognize as an adaptation of this theme when you first started reading?

This post first appeared on my former blog Nov 29, 2010.

Let me just start out by saying that I love the character Harry Potter. I’ve seen the movies through The Half-Blood Prince. Thrilling, enjoyable, and for someone who didn’t raise her own kids, what a treat to watch Harry, Ron and Hermione grow up over the years.

But as a writer, I hid my dark secret until recently: I’ve never read the Harry Potter books.

Well, okay, I’ll confess—I did just start. I’m nearly through book 2. My husband, who tends to avoid fiction unless it has John Irving’s name on the spine, is reading through the Harry Potter books with me. We’re watching the films as we go to try and nail down the continuity of the overall story arc before we launch into The Deathly Hallows, Part 1.

I was excited to launch into them, and I plan to continue reading, but I’m also aware of how time-consuming it is to read a pile of books that aren’t the type of story I ever consciously plan to write. It feels so wrong to set aside time to read for the pure curiosity and pleasure of reading. Funny, because that’s exactly what attracted me to reading as a kid!

So, I’m curious for your thoughts. Should I bother to read all these Harry Potter books? I mean, seriously, at the age of forty-mumble? Aren’t I a little old for them?

Will I really get more out of the final movies if I’ve read the series? Or am I wasting valuable time I could spend, I don’t know, writing my next book, by reading these story lines when I’ve already seen the movies?

And can anyone put a finger on exactly what about Harry Potter has captured our modern day imagination and turned the young wizard into an iconic hero?

For the record…I have read the books and seen all the movies now. But I’m not spoiling anything…