The crap we put out

There's a principle in fiction, ably outlined by Don Maass in his book WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL, which states that when things are going badly for your characters, make them worse. I doubt anyone follows this rule more closely than Stephen King, and though I don't read much horror, there are some of his pieces, CARRIE in particular, which I admire. But honestly . . . the movie based on his novella THE MIST takes the rule much too far. To quote my mentor, another writer I admire deeply: Greg Bear said once, when I was his student at Clarion West, that "we have to take responsibility for the crap we put out." Director Frank Darabont has a lot of crap to answer for.

Here's what happened: Beloved husband and I went to the theater to see ELIZABETH, which had unaccountably already departed. Because it was beloved husband with me, I agreed to see the only other film that even came close to being interesting, and it was THE MIST. Blech. Dreck. Intriguing only because of what it did wrong.

Now, this is just opinion, and it comes from someone who thought that THE KITE RUNNER's plot was unfailingly bleak and nearly sadistic. I tell you that to give you perspective. But after Darabont took the essence of King's novella and blew the fun right out of it, he decided--on what authority I can't imagine--to change the ending. Okay, in case you just have to see the 2007 version of a 1950's creature feature, I won't tell you how he changed it. Suffice it to say that as we walked out of the theater people were either 1)laughing (that was us) 2)snarling at what a bad movie it is, or 3)shaking their heads in confusion.

Principles are fine, but judgment is good, too. We writers can go too far.