Today we have a recommendation from WF member Dave Smith on a movie that is both a holiday story, and a writer story.

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I hate it when writing experts try to tell me how to write a story and then use a movie as an example of what to do. Movies are different damn it, like a thousand words blah blah blah, right? A camera is not a pencil.

But you know what? This blurb is to convince you to watch a movie. Say what?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever anguished over the perfect name for a character, or if you talk to the individuals in your stories (or maybe they talk to you), or if you find inspiration in the strangest places, or if you think you’re a failure, etc, etc.

Put your hand down now.

The movie is called The Man Who Invented Christmas, and it follows Charles Dickens through the few months before Christmas in 1843, during which he wrote A Christmas Carol. Even though Dickens was by this time a successful author, he suffered all the painful insecurities we all have about our writing and reacted as we all have. My wife said the weird scenes looked vaguely familiar, as in reminding her of me at times.

The movie is not about how to write, but about how an author struggles to write.

A delightful show and thoroughly relatable. I found it on HULU. I won’t offer any more spoilers, but we all know the outcome: A little over 27,000 words comprising one of the most well-known stories ever. So good they make movies about it.

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