As an author I should be the last person to complain about words being put into someone else’s mouth and as a woman who loves the Hallmark movies, especially the Christmas ones, the ones on this Wedding June, many of which are sequels to the Christmas ones, are driving me crazy today!

For both Marrying Mr. Darcy that ended an hour and a half ago and Wedding in Graceland which is still on the families are driving me crazy!  The bride and groom are from different worlds, as in worlds apart, and therefore their families have different ideas of what the wedding should be.  Of course you have the down-to-earth common thinkers and then the hoity-toity stuck-up snobs who want three million guests and neither family is concerned with what the bride and groom want.

So this one, right now, the mother of the groom and the mother of the bride are at odds over decorations and when the bride says she likes both equally her mother says “I think what she’s saying is she wants to go with traditional”… so it’s been almost four hours of movies with those sorts of assumptions and putting words into someone’s mouth.

Sigh!

I realize that as authors we do this all the time with every character we develop.  We give them the stupid ideas, we give them the smart ideas and we get them to do things that other people roll their eyes at but we do manage to tell a story from beginning to end and they are OUR characters!

In the movies they are someone else’s characters but I also think that, to a certain degree, they are merely trying to create enough conflict to get the story to fit into a two-hour time slot so it feels like they’re reaching.  I’m not saying weddings and families aren’t different nor are families always going to be on the same page and understanding but I think the biggest thing we try to teach our own kids is to communicate which is the one thing not happening in these movies… at least not these two!

So, my author peeps, keep creating those characters with their flaws but try to keep characters from putting too many words into other character’s mouths!  Let them think for themselves!