An One Armed Man Scratched My Car, Officer!

Nah. But I thought that would get you to read on. Heh heh. I figure if that was in the police report, I might have had a more interested response than the official "it's bad, bad, bad surfers" line. Surfing in the dead of night. Rrrrriggghht. A one-armed surfer, perhaps?

I did recently watch the movie version of The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, filmed in 1993. I remember watching the very successful TV show in Malaysia while growing up, but being young and English being my second language, I missed out on a lot of the nuances of the verbal play. Not that there were that many nuances in the movie version! :grin:

It's a classic suspense formula, isn't it:

1) smart man convicted of a murder
2) his need to prove his innocence
3) a chase
4) a shadowy figure that is always a little bit ahead

What made The Fugitive cool was The One-Armed Man. That's the killer, the guy who was always out of reach, making our hero suffer while he learns the truth a little at a time in a race against time.

To me, it's the same writing suspense. As a writer, I'm always looking for my One-Armed Dude (or Dudette) in my story, the element that would not only engage the readers into a mental chase in their mind, but also engage their emotions and ultimately, their championing of my hero/heroine's cause.

What made The One-Armed Man worked in The Fugitive is the story as told by the hero himself: (paraphrased) "I fought with the man and suddenly I pulled off one of his hands! A one-armed bandit killed my wife, I tell you!" In the wrong hands, this line could have gone into parody territory (as it has, in so many great comic spoofs) but here the writer and the actor pulled us in and we believed them.

As a writer, the most important thing is the balancing act as we juggle all our elements. The wrong step, and everything falls down, and the plot becomes a parody of a great performance as we weave around trying to keep the act going. After all, even a parody is done on purpose and the weaving and stumbling around are part of the act.

So, why am I bringing up watching The Fugitive all of a sudden when yesterday I was venting about, oh...a crime? ;-P I dunno. I guess I'm just processing my experience in the only way I know how, so that I can move on. Does that makes sense? Find meaning in a meaningless act?

*****
So. ACT II, juggling other items in life:

There has been a suggestion put forth in the Gennita Low Yahoogroup recently about a discussion board/forum. The reader says that she finds it frustrating that she can't continue commenting about certain blog posts because I've moved on to something new and most visiting readers might not read the comment area or add to the conversation because the post is a few days old.

So, the idea is that a "forum" is linked from the blog where a conversation of a past post can be "continued." For example, the reader might (God forbid) have found another article about smegma that she just have to share, but posting the link today means nobody, except me, will read it. With a forum, she can title the post More Smegma Stuff (and maybe put the date of the post to which she's referring) and then publish her link. Other interested readers can then access this link and make relevant comments, thus continuing the older "conversation."

Am I making sense? Is this something that would be of interest to you? Have you ever wanted to comment on an older post but decided not to because you think no one would read it? Just wondering.

Setting up a forum similar to the Romantic Times Book Club Forum is relatively easy, but I'm not looking to start another romance board, per se. It would be limited to posts relevant to topics from my blog, and that's really not such a huge limit at all, since I blog about everything under the sun, from roofing to veges to TV shows to bad boys to favorite books! Just make it relevant to a specific A Low Profile post, that's all. I'm sure, as time goes by, either the board will stand on its own or...dies a silent death ;-P, depending on your interest.

As a promotional tool, perhaps it would attract a few new readers who don't like blogs but enjoy a forum type atmosphere, and perhaps they will try some of my books. I know all those half-nekkid kilt pictures sure attract a great number of hits from somewhere! ;-) Perhaps I can put it to good use somehow, heh.

As usual, brain overworking. All your feedback enables me. Coz really, I'm just like Dr. Gregory House (oh, how wonderful to see my Sexy Grouchy Doctor back on my TV set again tonight!) and I'm just looking to bounce all my ideas off you, my ducklings.

And oh, yeah, I LURV my new LotR "Truth or Dare" gif!

So I dare ya...gimme some truths!

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!