Welcome everyone!
Make it your own!
That’s pretty much the message of this episode. This week Cheryl and I sit down and chat about the devices that really get readers immersed into a story. We chat about not fearing the cliche, but embracing it and turning it into your own.
To celebrate that fact, this week’s song is “Down with the Sickness” by Disturbed as done by Richard Cheese. Now…
Let’s get to the show! Put some cheese on that cracker!
Breakin' In! 
TALK ABOUT A HAPPY ENDING!
It’s funny… even though I think The Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction, and Forrest Gump are three of the most overrated movies ever made, I still found the discussion fascinating and the advice at the end (regarding using cliches as temporary band-aids to keep you from getting stuck during those parts of the first draft that aren’t as great [yet!] as the rest) GOLD!!!
(By the way, “Groundhog Day” is one of my all-time favorite movies. And I also like “Blade Runner” a lot… I guess because for some reason voice over works with film noir type movies.)
I don’t find reading novels helpful as most of them rely so heavily on being able to simply tell you what characters are thinking. Which is not only unlike screenwriting, but also real life.
And I’d rather watch something that is insightful about how people betray their true thoughts indirectly rather than simply be told what some character is thinking. I therefore fine watching great movies (or TV) far more inspirational (to getting me in creative writing mode) than most fiction.
(And always remember what someone once said about King: the only reason to buy one of his books is so if you ever meet him you have something big and heavy to smack him with.)
P.S. I am absolutely floored about your approach to “Gravity”. Even the reviewers who raved about it said it will lose most of its value on the small screen. (A sign that the screenplay isn’t very good.) (But you don’t even need to infer that, as most of them they come out and said the screenplay is pretty lacking!)