Stephen King, everywhere I look.

I forgot that I was supposed to write a Stephen King themed blog for the second week of the King’s March linky sponsored by Forth Street Review and Wendsend.

Click the pic to go to this week’s link up.

Luckily, I’ve been completely immersed in King for the entire month.

1) I’m continuing to re-read Christine. On this pass, I’m learning a great deal about how to do a first person narrative elegantly, which is going to come in handy because my planned writing project for April is in first person.

2) I enjoyed reading all the blogs posted by the other King’s March participants, but my favorite was this one:

LITERARY MIXTAPE | THE STAND by Rory, of Fourth Street Review.

I might chose different songs (and I might actually do it, some hot night this summer, while sitting on the patio with my iPod speaker-stand-thingie and a beer) but I can’t fault the creativity that went into Rory’s selections.

3) What I didn’t expect was that I would be watching The Shawshank Redemption this week. My son “had” to watch it so that he can participate in a group project for his communications class. The assignment is to study the relationships between characters in the film, then write about the dynamics of said relationships.

I’ve never been so pleased with a professor before.

Ogre and I happily settled in with The Boy one blustery evening last week. Of course, we’d both seen the movie, but this was the first viewing for our son. He is not familiar with King, because he’s not interested in horror. (He’s a fantasy guy.) No matter how I often I tell him that King isn’t JUST about horror, and that even the all-out horror novels aren’t the kind of horror he thinks they are, I’ve not been able to persuade him to give Constant Writer a fair shake.

I’m sure it will surprise no one that he loved the movie.

I was rather hoping that seeing the film would make him want to read the book immediately, but I’d forgotten how even formerly voracious child-readers resist reading anything they don’t have to in these high school / college years. I’ll just have to wait until summer, when perhaps he’ll be willing to read for fun again. (Believe me, I’ll be leaving tempting stacks of King books around, just in case.) In the meantime, I can’t wait to see which relationship he chooses to write about.

There is something to be said for going into a movie with such a specific agenda. (At least upon a second or third viewing.) It focuses you on one aspect of the film, which helps you notice details that are otherwise missed.

My menfolk seemed to think that the relationship most worthy of deeper examination is the one between Andy and Red. I disagree. If I were going to write the paper, I’d explore the relationship between the warden and Andy. Or maybe, if I wanted a challenge, the one between the main guard and Andy … or between the main guard and the warden.

I guess my point is that ALL the relationships in this story are worth a second, deeper look. And that’s just one of the things that makes King a master.

So, if you had to write the paper, who would you pick?

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wrimoprog 03/16/2014: 15 + 20 = 35/80