Perceptions - Reading - Writing and Viewing

Have you ever looked at the title of a book or movie and gone ahead and read or watched it, without reading the back cover or watching trailers? Sometimes titles can be misleading and sometimes our perceptions of what the title means turns out to be something completely different, from what we started with, by the time the end comes.

You are probably wondering where I'm going with this, so I'll tell you.

I just watched an old John Wayne/Sophia Loren movie titled Legend of the Lost. When the movie begins we have John Wayne's character a drunken guide in the Sahara Dessert. Sophia Loren is his sometimes girl and a lot of the time any one's girl. Enter a very pious man needing a guide in order to find the treasure his father had left directions to (in addition to some gems). He also needs someone (enter Sophia) to save.

What we end up with is the classic tale of the drunken reprobate and bad girl wanting to go good. Both looking for that big score that will let them leave their lives and the hole they've found themselves in. Anyway - to make a long story short - or not - John Wayne dries out, because the pious man empties out his liquor bottles. Sophia travels with the two men - as though she wears a white dress (her words) and she gains self respect. When they finally arrive at the ruin where the treasure is hidden - the pious man discovers that his father not only loved another woman, but he murdered both the woman and the other man. Pious man loses his faith and tries to have his way with Sophia - who is rescued by (you guessed it) John Wayne. The pious man heads out into the dessert, leaving them with no food, no water and no mules - plus he takes all the treasure they've found.

By the time the movie has ended, it dawns on me that it wasn't about the search for lost treasure at all. But the reclaiming of the lives they had lost for both John and Sophia. I was kind of stunned by this revelation - I hadn't even thought about the movie being anything other than a search for lost treasure. In a way it was - because the treasure that was lost by the two main characters is found and brings them together and allows them to leave the hole they'd been living in for a life rich with love.

I think, that stories should have these basic elements - flawed protagonist(s), disguised evil, the struggle and growth of the protagonist(s) - and in the end the protagonist(s) reach their goal/win. Seems simple doesn't it? But to do it well enough to keep your reader/viewer with you to the end requires that extra bit of magic. Sometimes as a writer, I know that I've reached that magic in a story - other times, I struggle trying to find the magic. What makes one story reach that place and another one not? If I knew that (and could consciously do it) I guess that I'd be well on the way to being a good writer. Until then, I tell the stories my characters tell me and hope that I reach the magic (or with the help of my writer's group, find it) that defines a compelling tale that will be read or watched to the end.