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Hollywood: Stop Helping! The Help was fine as it was. An Open Letter to Kathryn Stockett.
Dear Ms. Stockett, I’m sorry for your loss. I mean, really, truly, I am sorry for your loss. We can’t expect your fantastic first book to translate on the big screen exactly as you wrote it, and into 2 hours and 17 minutes. That would be asking for perfection, and we know nobody’s perfect. However, there were some key pieces missing in the film adaptation of your book, and I felt the void. It left me wondering if others who have read your novel felt the plot changes, too. Now, Ms. Stockett, don’t get me wrong—the cast of “The Help” is tremendous–they did you proud by acting out your characters…
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Elephants…Again. But this time, they’re Hemingway’s.
I’m currently reading The Help and enjoying Kathryn Stockett’s use of dialogue to paint a picture of her characters. Some of Stockett’s characters have a dialect and use slang and incorrect grammar; if she didn’t write them this way, they wouldn’t be authentic. So how can writers get inside their characters’ heads to make them realistic? One way is to use your ears. Listen to how people talk and the way they interact with each other. Studying people is a fascinating business. A showcase example of effective dialogue is Ernest Hemingway’s short story Hills Like White Elephants. Told primarily in dialogue format, it’s absolutely brilliant and is my favorite Hemingway…
