The holiday season makes for plenty of reasons to bring family and friends together. Conflicts between family can run deep, and have a way of bursting out when you put everybody in a social pressure cooker. For the real world, Marielle Segarra and Audrey Nguyen offer strategies for minimizing or avoiding family fights at the holidays.
But what about in writing, where conflicts at a family gathering are something to mine for high drama and acid-tongued dialogue?
Jason Bailey suggests adding The Ref to your holiday watchlist, where a family’s Christmas dinner boils over into chaos when a fugitive forces himself into their home. That unexpected “guest” offers a fresh perspective on the long simmering tensions already within the family. For a deep dive into the film with screenwriter Richard LaGravenese, check out Scriptnotes Episode 593.
A frequently repeated gathering creates an opportunity to create and upend the audience’s expectations, like the Sunday dinners in Soul Food. Francine McQueen gives her reactions to watching the film for the first time, looking at the development of conflicts between the central family members:
Sometimes a secret can drive a story that brings a family together. Seongyong Cho celebrates The Farewell, the story of a wedding organized as cover for a family to say goodbye to a dying grandmother (without letting her know she’s dying). For more insight into the film, check out Scriptnotes Episode 426 with writer-director Lulu Wang.
Christian Hartshorn analyzes how the Dogme 95 filmmaking of The Celebration adds additional impact for the audience. When an adult son reveals a history of childhood sexual abuse by his father to the guests of a birthday party, the camera feels like an uncomfortable observer in the room. It documents the shifting mood of the guests from denial and anger at the disruption of the festivities, to their eventual acceptance that the man they came to celebrate is a monster.
Therapist Jonathon Decker talks through the toxic family dynamics of the Thrombeys in Knives Out, where a murder investigation brings to light years of secrets and lies:
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⏱️ If you need to step out of the room, why not Write Sprint?
Each week we post a comment thread for writers to meet up, cheer each other on, and put some words on the page with a Write Sprint.
What’s a Write Sprint?
John wrote up an explanation, but here’s the short version: Set a timer for 60 minutes, close down all distractions, and do nothing but write until that timer goes off.
Sometimes that’s all it takes to get some momentum going with your writing: You set aside this time for writing and nothing else, so you’d better use it!
Shout out to Elyse Moretti Forbes and Brian Matusz for sprinting with us last week!
🎴 In case of present emergencies
Just in time for the holidays, the Writer Emergency Pack is on sale!
Both the original deck and the new XL deck make great gifts for your favorite writer. Either one can fit conveniently in a stocking, or in a decorative gift box.
Find out more about the Writer Emergency Packs and how they can help stories get unstuck!
Previously on Inneresting…
In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link Emily St. James investigates the rumor that The Simpsons episode “Flaming Moe’s” is a thinly-veiled jab about one of the original creators of the series not getting the credit he deserved.
What else is inneresting?
Substack publishers call on the company to stop allowing people to make money off of newsletters using Nazi symbols and promoting white supremacy:
If you want to know if a McDonalds ice cream machine near you is broken, this site can help.
Bjork narrates a video explaining how fungi break down dead trees to recycle their nutrients.
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
Inneresting is edited by Chris Csont, with contributions from readers like you and the entire Quote-Unquote team.
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