April 26, 2010

• Dissecting Revisited...

  I forgot that my entry into the Nicholl's was due May 1st and all I have is a year of scenes and 24 pages of text...  so I give you something from 2006.. bc I can!  And I'm still not writing Wren's story... not yet!

  "You there?"

  "Hmm?"

  "I'm talking to you. Pay attention."

  "What?"

  "Are your eyes red?"

  "Red?"

  "And puffy. Like you've been crying?"

  "Me? Crying?"

  "Jezz, you're distracted."

  "Am I?"

  "I bet you couldn't even count your heart rate today while exercising, could you?"

  "Hmmm?"

  "What's wrong with you today? You upset about something?"

  "Me?"

  "You! You see anyone else in this room to talk to?"

  "You know why that scene worked?"

  "That scene?"

  "The one that made me cry even though I knew the ending."

  "Oh, the one where he's trying to create happy last memories?"

  "Un huh."

  "No."

  "Me neither, but when I do, then I'll know something important."

  "Really?"

  "It's an easy formula. Everybody knows it. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl."

  "Except when it's complicated."

  "It's all complicated. Think about it. Boy meets Girl. Sounds so simple, but what is that happens when two people meet that draws them to each other? Is it as simple as being attracted to the light of a firefly?"

  "We don't have fireflies here, remember?"

  "Shhh, I'm thinking aloud."

  "Mouth zipped. Boy drawn by the light of the nonexistent fireflies or?"

  "Or is it more? What is it that makes these two people fall in love?"

  "Is that a rhetorical question?"

  "And then there is the whole Boy Loses Girl thing. That's the story conflict piece that makes or breaks the love story. What is it that can separate two lovers? You know how in Romeo and Juliet, it's the pressure of society and their families? That's powerful motivation so it works for hundreds of years. It's hard to have that kind of societal expectations in our country. So what does work?"

  "Can I talk now?"

  "What? You're still listening?"

  "Plus, Boy gets Girl...."

  *drumming thumbs* "I'm waiting!"

  "Humm?"

  "For the rest of that thought."

  "Oh. Boy gets girl... that's the happily ever after part that doesn't exist in real life, you know. You don't really 'get' the girl. You get the mumps, the flu, and even once in a while you get ice cream. But you don't get people."

  "You know they write books about how write romance stories. Why don't we go to Border's."

  "What? Sorry. I was thinking."

  "Books? Border's?"

  "Funny. That's what I was just thinking."

  "That's odd."

  "No, I was thinking that my search for understanding the love story started a year ago when I started reading shojo and manhwa. I think I need some new manga."

  "That's your answer for everything."

  "No. Think about it. For example, in Winter Sonata..."

  "Which is the only Korean TV drama that ever made you cry..."

  "For example, in Winter Sonata the conflict is deep and multilayered, like the layers of compressed sand in the mountain. There's the societal and familia pressures,"

  "Are you comparing it to Shakespeare?"

  "Absolutely not. I doubt that it will stand the test of time. But the conflicts in Winter Sonata encompass more than the requirements of a fairly rigid society."

  "You know, the only things you know about Korean society you learned from their TV dramas and Manhwa. I don't think that qualifies you as a expert."

  "You are annoying the hell out me today. I know that. It's just a example. A dissection of a love story. OK?"

  "Listening... kind of..."

  "Ok. You have the expectations of society, the flaws of one's parents,"

  "The whole 'sins of the father' thing."

  "Or in this case, mother."

  "Right."

  "Flaws of one's parents, fate, need to belong, need to not be lost, need-"

  "Wait a minute."

  "Huh?"

  "Those are big things to keep reeling off. I need a diet coke. Hang on."

  "Ok- you know what you're missing here that is a staple among the Korean love stories?"

  "What?"

  "The triad."

  "What if the story begins like this....

  Because the angles of a triangle add up to 180°, at least two of them must be acute (less than 90°). In an acute triangle all angles are acute. A right triangle has one right angle, and an obtuse triangle has one obtuse angle.  Or at least that is how Payton would explain what happened. But then Payton used math to explain everything, and even he didn't have an answer. The obtuse one would be Wren. She didn't understand from the beginning how angles and degrees could get so complex so fast. She just wanted to swim in the lake. She waited impatiently next to the rowboat while Payton and Sean argued about what needed to be done next so it would be waterworthy. She scratched a mosquito bite on her arm until it bled and licked the blood away.

  "Don't do that!" Payton scolded. "Lemma get you a bandaid." He ran towards the house, his long white legs hitting a stride quickly.

  Wren plopped down on the gravel and picked up small pieces of the white rock. "So how long have you known Payton?" she asked, tossing a rock at Sean.

  He caught it easily. "Since he moved next door in third grade. You?"

  Wren missed the catch when he tossed it back to her and it smacked her in the forehead. "Ow!" Her face scrunched up and tears quickly formed in her eyes. She covered it with her hand.

  "Oh My God!" Sean hopped off the side of the rowboat and knelt next to her. "Lemma see." He pulled away her hand and blood flowed down her face and mingled with her tears. What do you do for a head wound? Sean couldn't remember his Boy Scout first aid at all, but he knew he couldn't let the blood pour down her face like that. "Use this," he said, stripping off his favorite Rolling Stones t-shirt.

  Wren pressed it to her head.
  
  "Geez," Payton moaned as he reached them with a bandaid big enough for the bug bite on her arm. "What'd ya' do to her, jerk?" He punched Sean in the arm.

  "It was an accident," Sean said, flushing angrily.

  "Lemme see. God, Wren. It's gonna' need stitches."

  Sean picked up his bike and mounted it. "Just cuz your mom's a doctor, Payton, doesn't mean you know anything!" He peeled out of the driveway, spewing gravel into the lawn for the lawnmover to hit the next time Payton mowed.

  "Quit crying, Wren." Payton yelled. "It's only a stitch or two."

  .... and this is the story I'm not writing.... yet.

  "You know why that scene worked? The one that made me cry?

  Because you felt the pain of the characters- because it was real."

  "That... or 12 hours of Korean TV drama in the last 24 hours is a bit much"

  "That too."

  

  Yeah... it's all in my head. I wonder if that's a problem!

  Not watching.... bc I finished it...

  Currently Watching Winter Sonata By Bae Yong Jun, Choi Ji Woo, Park Yong Ha, Park Sol Mi see related

  • 6:13 pm
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