How Disaster Movies Creep Into My Writing

Hands up – I am a disaster movie geek, which is perhaps strange considering I only write romantic comedies. Part of the attraction is the element of danger, which doesn’t exist in my day-to-day life (not complaining!) My nine to five is spent at home, tapping away at the keyboard.

I don’t even risk being knocked down by a car or throttled by an office colleague, spending my working hours alone, cocooned in the cosy bubble of my home. So I like nothing more than watching a movie to strike terror into my heart. But does my love of this genre affect my writing? It’s a good question and one I’ve thought hard about. To my surprise my answer is undoubtedly yes.

Characters.

Take the Poseidon Adventure, one of my disaster movie favourites – the original 1972 version. A cruise liner, fit for scrapping, is knocked upside down by a tidal wave during a New Year’s Eve celebration. A small group of passengers decide to take their chances and try to climb up and out. The story is held together by a cast of very diverse and hugely distinctive characters.

You have Gene Hackman as the righteous vicar and Shelley Winters playing the curvy Jewish grandmother. Red Buttons is a shy bachelor. Then we get to know a singer and former prostitute, plus a brother and sister… Each of these people pulls at our heartstrings in different ways. Each has a stand-out quality – one is heroic, another the joker, one is terrified, someone else is the voice of reason…

And, when I look at my own books I can see that I’ve also create bands of very different people who nevertheless work together to achieve a common goal. Take my debut book Doubting Abbey. The Croxley family face losing their estate unless they take part in a reality show to win a million dollars. Outspoken, ballsy but ditzy pizza waitress Gemma helps them out.

She works alongside handsome Lord Edward who is brooding, uptight yet full of integrity and broad-thinking enough to realize that his family must adapt to modern ways. There is gruff old Earl Croxley, with his tobacco-filled pipes and tweed hats and propensity not to look forwards. He scoffs at innovation.

We meet no-nonsense, down-to-earth portly Scottish cook Kathleen who is beady-eyed and extremely loyal to the family. In looks, temperament and outlook these people are all different but pull together, each bringing a quality to the team that, overall, wins the day. Just like the cast of Independence Day, including brave pilots, wordy politicians and inspired scientists.

Pace

Looking back over my novels, there are definite elements of the pace of the disaster movie genre – in other words something catastrophic is happening or going to happen and can only be remedied in a set out amount of time. In Doubting Abbey the Croxley family has two weeks to save Applebridge Hall.

In my summer 2015 bestseller Game of Scones, strong-minded Pippa must help turn around the fate of a small Greek village struggling with the recession before the council gets its way and turns it into a soulless tourist resort. In my new novella How to Get Hitched in Ten Days, Mikey only has ten days to help Dave turn around his disastrous proposal to Jasmine, before she heads off to New York.

So there are deadlines that set the pace, just on a much less grand scale that in disaster movies. My characters must, for example, save a relationship or local economy – in a disaster movie the aim might be to prevent a looming environmental disaster, such as a volcanic eruption in Dante’s peak or arrival of a devastating whirlwind in Twister.

Yet the basic premise and plot arc are the same. Lay out the problem. Try to resolve it. Feel the fear. Make progress. Have a setback. Feel hopeless. Try again. Have huge success. Oh no, a last minute challenge and… well, my books are happy ever afters so no one is going to die, be swept out to sea, abducted by aliens or preserved for all time in volcanic lava!

Plot

I think disaster movies are so relatable because even though their main plot is on a B I G scale – alien invasions, the end of the world – it is the characters and small sub-plots surrounding them are highly relatable and, in essence, more interesting to us.

For example in the sequel to Game of Scones, My Big Fat Christmas Wedding, there is a dramatic drowning chapter where a boatful of Syrian refugees capsizes near the coast of the little Greek village Pippa is trying to save. Yet this big storyline makes the reader focus on the smaller, relatable elements linked to the drama.

How much does Pippa really value her relationship with estranged boyfriend Nico? She has to face this when it looks like he has been lost at sea. Plus the pure horror of witnessing Syrians die makes her question whether she really wants to return to glitzy London or settle in a village where charitable, community spirit means everything.

The reason we care so much about the characters in disaster movies is because we relate to their smaller problems – will the Kate Winslet character, in Titanic, follow her heart and ditch her unappealing but wealthy fiancé for genuine but poor Leo DiCaprio?

So overall, yes, my love for disaster movies has greatly affected the way I look at writing a novel. I guess this is so because, at times, everyone feels as if they are living through their own little disaster movie, whether that is because they are suffering from unrequited love, a bereavement or job loss. And as in many of these movies, humour plays an important part in my books. Laughing in the face of adversity… a very British sentiment and one that sees us through.

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Samantha Tonge lives in Cheshire with her lovely family and a cat that thinks it’s a dog. When not writing, she spends her days cycling and willing cakes to rise. She has sold over 80 short stories to women’s magazines.

Her bestselling debut novel, Doubting Abbey, was shortlisted for the Festival of Romantic Fiction best Ebook award in 2014. Her summer 2015 novel Game of Scones hit #5 in the UK Kindle chart and won the Love Stories Awards 2015 Best Romantic Ebook category.

Find out more about Sam on her website: http://samanthatonge.co.uk/

Follow her on Twitter:https://twitter.com/SamTongeWriter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SamanthaTongeAuthor

Tags: disaster movies, featured, inspiration, Romantic Comedy, women writers

Category: On Writing