Many years ago, while Diane was at UNC for the evening, I watched The Lost Moment on the 15″ black-and-white portable TV which had been given to us. The movie was released in 1947, and starred Robert Cummings, in an unusual role for him, if you remember him in the Love That Bob reruns. The Lost Moment was about an unscrupulous editor who was trying to get the love letters of a famous poet from the poet’s widow. It was based on “The Aspern Papers”, by Henry James, who’s work I didn’t appreciate then, and still don’t. I do appreciate the movie.

There were several times when it seemed that the story was going to go in a certain direction. But it never did, which was always a surprise. Twists in the story were always unexpected. I watched it again a few years ago, and I was still impressed by how the subtle twists were not given away before they happened — not just plot twists but character and dialogue and narrative twists.

We returned from nearly three years in England in 1998. The in-flight movie, for which there was plenty of time, was Titanic. I didn’t rent earphones, so I couldn’t hear it, but I couldn’t help watch it, since the screen in front of me was only two seats forward. The underwater scenes were terrific, being footage of the actual dive, made for the film. Then the story started.

There were times in the movie, I don’t remember how many, when it seemed that the story was going to go in a certain direction. And it did. The next time came, and the story went as I expected it to. I began, at each of those times, to predict what would happen before it did — conflict, interruption, her father coming, and so on. And I was always right. Everything was predictable. There were no surprises. I tried, not very successfully, to not watch* the rest of it. The only scene that was remotely interesting was when Kate Winslet was having her portrait painted by Leonardo DiCaprio in the hold of the ship. Maybe two minutes out of one hundred ninety five.

Predictability happens to me when I try to plot out a story, and focus too much on what I think ought to happen, what I would like to happen. The story becomes predictable, and I get bored, and eventually I give up. My characters aren’t alive in my head, and so they are not alive on the page. The setting is static, not dynamic as if I were experiencing it, even if only in my imagination. I have pushed, instead of following my muse.

I have to let my characters be what my unconscious (my muse) creates for me from my knowledge of human nature. I have to let them act and speak according to the situation in which they find themselves, and according to their natures. I have to discover the setting by not thinking about what I want, but again, by letting my muse bring it from unconscious associations modified by a bit of dream thinking.

Each scene in a story has its own beginning and ending. I may have an idea about what I want to accomplish, but it’s best for me if I have no idea about how to do it. That way I am always, if only mildly (and sometimes not so mildly) surprised. My favorite surprises concern my characters when they do something totally unexpected — “I didn’t know she could do that!”

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This is not an error, “to not watch” does not have the same connotations as “not to watch.” I deliberately chose the former.