Cephalopod Coffeehouse Chat – The Green Mile

From the ArmChair Squid: 
“The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.”

I’ve seen the movie multiple times over the years. The Green Mile starring Tom Hanks and the late Michael Clarke Duncan is hard to watch, especially uncut with all its horrible details laid bare. I never want it to end the same even though I know it can end no other way. Not only because the movie script demands it, but because the characters and storyline do as well.

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Stephen King. Reading it enlightened me since it went into depth and gave closure to the characters, telling what happened after. I liked that. The cinema version was nearly word for word in many spots. No surprises. 

What kept me reading, even though I knew how it would end, was the example of a writer who never stopped learning his craft. I have Mr. King’s book, On Writing, dog-eared and coffee stained, by my computer at all times. But it isn’t like experiencing the master at work up close. 

For a writer, a good book is our classroom. Note the use of nouns and the placement of verbs. How a significant adjective can spark a whole brain full of pleasure.

Read The Green Mile for pleasure, read it to compare it to the movie if you want. But writers, absorb it like an instruction manual. It comes from a man who loves his job.