The Alphabet Series D is for Disappear

D is For Disappear

D is for disappear as in the New York Times Best Seller novel, “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn.

Nick and Amy Dunne, two out of work New York City writers, move to Nick’s childhood home in North Carthage, Missouri when they learn Nick’s mother is fatally ill.

Nick is a journalist.

Amy writes surveys or opinion questionnaires, e.i., Which of the following will lead to personal happiness.

A.  Caring more about others than yourself

B.  Discovering a passion

C.  Exercising and eating well daily

D.  All of the above

Nick persuades Amy to invest the last of her Trust Fund in a business for him and his twin sister, Margo. They name the bar, “The Bar”.

Amy disappears on their wedding anniversary, and Nick becomes the prime suspect.

However she didn’t disappear, she’s hiding.

Gillian Flynn has written a plot driven novel that I read quickly and was reviewed favorably, but I could have put the book down easily. The twisted ending was a turn off for me. The movie also has the same distortion of love, or love gone crazy ending. I like happy endings.

“As The Washington Post proclaimed, her work ‘draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.’ Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit with deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.”

Amy’s disappearance is not to vanish, perish or cease to exist. Her vanishing act is one of revenge and dysfunction, concocted when she discovers Nick’s infidelity. Victimized and  bamboozled Amy plans to get even and does.

I can imagine the survey/questionnaire Gillian Flynn might ask readers to take about her character, Amy.

What makes this character happy?

A.  If you can’t have the one you love make sure no one else can either.

B.  Make everyone who hurts or disappoints you suffer for the rest of their lives.

C.  Inflicting pain on others is key to personal happiness.

D. All of the above

The author, Gillian says “she was not a nice little girl,” and “Libraries are filled with stories on generations of brutal men, trapped in a cycle of aggression. I wanted to write about the violence of women”

“The point is, women have spent so many years girl-powering ourselves — to the point of almost parodic encouragement — we’ve left no room to acknowledge our dark side. Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids.”

Have you read the book or seen the movie?

Words Matter

Does every word count?

Writers think so! They think grammar and punctuation does too.

Discussions about a comma can be endless. Even a pause makes a difference to a writer. Remember Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County?

However, word choice trumps all of that, and has greater value or impact today.

But, writers are schooled to use actions verbs.

This is when a thesaurus is worth its weight in gold.

Instead of hate. . . a writer might use, dislike, prefers, or never cared for. Instead of angry he could choose, annoyed, upset or bothered.

For example;

                    John hates people who wear purple underwear.

                     John dislikes people who wear purple underwear.

However, both sentences have a problem. John is being targeted, not his underwear. The person hates yellow underwear. (I have no preference about other people’s underwear or if they wear underwear. However, . . . I cringe at the latest fashion, t-strap bikini swimwear.)

I’m getting sidetracked. Back to the point, what you say has power.

Man sentence for Murder, a story in this Sunday’s Daytona New Journal, got my attention. After reading the article I felt sorry for the man.

Here’s what happened. Joel Tatro told James Z. Powell, 15 at the time, he was not invited to and had to leave a gathering at Tatro’s home in 2019. Powell left and came back and shot the homeowner. Paralyzed from the neck now, the homeowner lived for three more years, then died from COVID.

James Z. Powell chose these words to express his condolences to the Tatro family.

Quote from the newspaper. “But this situation was never supposed to happen. This was a COVID death, sir. I never had no intention of doing no harm to him. I’m not the person that they are trying to paint me to be. I’m not a criminal. I’m not a gang member. I’m just me.

                                                                                     

. . . just saying

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