After watching The Man Who Invented Christmas I acquired the book to see if it had a different take on the movie. I only got through about two chapters with the busy week that I've had but in those two chapters, I learned a great deal about Charles. His childhood was quickly brought to a halt when his family was thrown in jail because of a debt that his father couldn't pay. Aren't you glad that we don't live in England back in his time? That's a tough thing for a kid to suffer.
Back to the movie. Charles got the idea of A Christmas Carol after three flops. His publishing house was losing faith in him. Like most writers, Charles was offended when his publishing house turned him down that he decided to self-publish A Christmas Carol. This wasn't something that was often done in Dickens' day.
The struggle that Charles endured throughout the process of writing this book is familiar I'm sure to all of the other authors out there. One of my favorite scenes in this movie is when Charles is trying to come with the character Scrooge. He can imagine him in his mind and he had dreams about him but Scrooge has yet to appear to him. To quote Dickens "Get the name of the character right and then they will appear." This is a true statement if i do say so myself. Writing has a lot to do with imagination. I remember when I was a child. I had imaginary friends that I would talk to. I say that coming up with a character is just like having an imaginary friend. Name them and they will appear.
Charles was tortured with coming up with the perfect character. Up late at night writing away while the rest of his family slept. A writer becomes possessed in a sense by their work. It keeps them up late, characters are constantly chatting in your head and giving you new ideas to write into the story.
Writing a book isn't as easy as everyone thinks. There is a lot of torture that a writer goes through. The one that we all know and WRITER'S BLOCK! It's the worst, absolute worst to be plagued by while in the process of writing a story. Charles also experienced writer's block while creating A Christmas Carol. The cause was because he wanted to make things happen and the characters did not agree. Scrooge wanted the story to go in a different direction. He grew a heart and wanted Tiny Tim to live. I bet you didn't that in the original writing of the story Charles was going to kill off poor Tiny Tim and Scrooge was going to continue to be miser that he set out to be from the start. But, with a change of heart Scrooge changed Charles' mind and changed to story to Tiny Tim surviving and Scrooge changing his ways. All of this is explored in the movie.