Today’s episode of Fable and the Verbivore finds Bethany and Laura talking about Christmas stories. During this informal discussion, we look back on a difficult year and discuss what connects us emotionally to these stories.

Truths and strong theme are often present in these holiday stories. We unpack the ideas that we resonate with in these stories such as:

• Where’s the value in a life?

• Life’s a struggle, but it’s a worthwhile one

• When we’re looking for love in the world, we see it

• While there’s life there’s hope

We take a large portion of our time to discuss the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. This film has great examples where the story demonstrates emotions through action, how the writers built a likeable but flawed character that you then watch struggle for the majority of the film, and how each scene shows something about his character or the changes he’s undergoing.

We also talk about the desire for positive and hopeful messages as we go into the winter season, especially in the year 2020.  

We hope you all enjoy this episode as you follow your own traditions, and have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season!

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

The Verbivore references the final line in It’s a Wonderful Life. Here is the actual line:

• "A toast to my big brother George: the richest man in town.”

The Verbivore paraphrases the opening scene of Love Actually. Here is that actual quote:

• “When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”

The Verbivore references a quote from the movie The Thoery of Everything. Here are those words:

• “There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope.”

The Verbivore references line from Marlene DeVose’s Poinsettia. It is: “They drove off in a direction that Leemi had no knowledge about except that it was forward. As vague as she thought it seemed, she drove in the direction of forward.”

Movies Mentioned:

• It’s a Wonderful Life

• A Charlie Brown Christmas

• Love Actually

• The Theory of Everything

Books Mentioned:

• Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere) by Lisa Cron

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

• Poinsettia by Marlene DeVose

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)