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| Saving Mr. Banks |
Last night I
watched Saving Mr. Banks for the first time. Screenwriters like to write
scripts about writers. Unfortunately, the writing process does not make for
exciting movies. Good stories require tension and conflict. Conflict
between a writer and a keyboard doesn't quite cut it. Saving Mr. Banks had plenty of conflict, and
the conflict occurred between two fascinating characters. I would rate the
movie high for a film about writers and a decent drama across all
genres.
There was a
line in the movie that caught my attention. A one point, Tom Hanks, as Walt
Disney says, “Because that's what we storytellers do. We restore order with
imagination.”
Disney, like
many successful entrepreneurs, was a control freak. (Think Steve Jobs.) The
line reminded me that Disney supposedly once said he preferred cartoons because he didn't need to deal with messy actors—or something close to that. Disney
controlled every aspect of his empire, and at the end of his life used Epcot
Center to show the world how to build a proper city. If he had lived long
enough, he probably would have reordered the universe.
So the line
from the script captured Disney’s personality and life ambition. He wanted to restore order
with imagination. But the character revealing aspect of the line isn't what caught my attention. I listened to it several times because it reminded me that a writer’s world
is ordered. If not on the first draft, it becomes increasingly ordered with each revision.
Every aspect of a story is exactly as the author intended. Storytelling is an imaginary tale where everything is ordered as perfectly as possible given the skill of the author.
I started
writing fiction when I consulted on the other side of the nation and found
myself spending a significant amount of time alone in hotel rooms. I've always
thought I wrote in the evenings because stress faded away when I transported myself to another place and time. Writing also relieved loneliness because my
characters had become friends. What I hadn't considered was where the stress
came from. I consulted in the travel tour industry which was chaotic on slow
days. The rest of the time it was so frenzied, it made Congress the epitome of
order, calm, and reason.
As I look
back, I realize that writing restored order in my imagination. I couldn't change the
real world, but in my stories, I had complete control.
So if you feel stress
or frustration with life, pick up a good story and escape to our world. We
storytellers will take care of the rest. “Because that's what we storytellers
do. We restore order with imagination.”