Perhaps you’ve heard about the new Great Gatsby film that begins shooting this summer. Australian director Baz Luhrmann will be shooting the Leonardo DiCaprio 3D film in Syndey, and I’m more than a bit puzzled as to what he sees in the book that would make the movie adaption ripe material for 3D treatment. Baz, […]
March 3, 2011
What if Fitzgerald had written a total of 10 chapters instead of 9? What if he’d originally shown his editor an alternative chapter 6 with more scenes of Gatsby and Daisy as a couple, but set to a groan-inducing sub-plot–like a visit from Nick’s adorable tow-headed cousin Lil’ Oliver, and you would not believe the […]
March 2, 2011
When I’m reading an all-time great like Gatsby for the second or third time, I begin to imagine what the first draft of the story looked like when the author submitted it to his editor for review. What if the author purposely inserted an undeniably awful sub-plot or chapter to gauge if the editor had […]
March 1, 2011
The Comedy Rule of Three is a structure for setting up a punchline: you give two straight lines to establish your meaning is going in one direction, and then the third line is a joke or ironic twist going in another. There’s a musicality and rhythm in listing three that always works better than two […]
June 14, 2011
70