Rebeca Schiller

Last year I read all three of Stieg Larsson’s books–The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest--and when I learned the first book was made into a film in Sweden, I was curious of how it would play on the silver screen.

Thanks to Netflix, I had the chance to watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Impressions? Had I not read the book, I would have thought it was a bit on the slow side. Playing the role of critic, I would have liked the characters more drawn out, and know more of their back story. The secondary subplot–Blomquist’s slander trial–was almost swept under the carpet, and the conclusion to me seemed rushed.

However I did read the first book (to read my review go to Alvah’s Books), and

Alvah Bessie is Spain, 1937

Alvah Bessie Testifying before HUAC, 1947.

I thought I would share what I’m learning from the online writing course. The first lesson is about story ideas. Where do we get them. Anita offers some very good suggestions like taking classic stories and tweaking them. Changing the sex of the main character or changing his or her age. Maybe change the locale and weave in local customs. Other ideas can come from from proverbs or sayings. Or, the most obvious one write what you know best.

For each suggestion, Anita gives good examples then she provides two exercise questions. The first one asks what do I do to generate story ideas? I basically get a lot of my ideas from a

I love research. I can spend hours digging up stuff I know at some point I’ll use somewhere. In Julius, a future story, or even in conversation. My latest obsession is Trotsky. That’s right, Leon Trotsky–revolutionary, part of the Bolshevik troika (Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin) and Commander of the Red army.

What’s with the obsession? It appears that I need more conflict between my MC and narrator and her beloved. I made her a very academic Marxist and he’s leaning more towards Trotskyism. Will the two characters knock heads over theory and ideology that it causes a rift in the magazine they plan to publish? That’s my intention. Is Julius a polemic as one person who critiqued the first few chapters accused it to be? Not at all, at least I hope not.

Back to the research . . . because I decided to add this little twist to the story I