Book report: reading, writing and research

I’m at the very final stages of my WIP now – this draft, anyway. The troublesome character has been ironed out a bit more (still not completely there, she’s such a pain) and the MS has had a rigorous read through with various sections moved around. Now I’m back on the laptop, taking in all my corrections and those of my readers, and I’m tying up loose ends plotwise and research wise.

The book contains a lot of film references, sprinkled about in a very cavalier fashion when I was writing the first draft. Now I’m having to rewatch the final list of films to make sure I haven’t gotten anything terribly wrong as it was all done from memory. Surprisingly, there was quite a lot of subconscious thinking going on because I’m able to draw parallels that weren’t so clear to me before. Do they blend well? I’ll have to rely on others to tell me that.

I thought I’d share a couple of links to this weekend’s research subjects as the full films are available on YouTube, and so worth watching.

Domestic tragedy

The first is Brief Encounter. What a beauty this film is – the wonderfully tight script, the heartbreaking performances from Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, even the claustrophobia of the station platform cafe where the lovers meet. It never fails to move me:

Screwball classic

At the other end of the romance spectrum is Bringing Up Baby. This is such a daft comedy, with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant both playing against type respectively as a ditzy socialite and a hapless nerdy professor. She sets her cap at him and won’t accept the minor inconvenience that he’s about to marry someone else. And there’s a leopard thrown in (the Baby in question), for no good reason apparently other than that it struck the filmmakers as funny.

Its frothiness is matched by Hepburn’s outfits, some of which seem to be spun from candyfloss. But it’s a cheerful, enjoyable romp, worth watching if only for the sight of a normally suave Cary hamming it up in a negligee:

Wordcount: 100,674 words, 347 pages.

Missed the last book report? You can read it here. Or start from week 1 here