Comparison: Brick

In order to write a children's book, I need an idea to expand on. I will be writing a book with three main characters; one girl and two boys. The main character, Molly, is traumatized by her mother's death and is forced to deal with bullying on a daily basis on top of it all. Things finally start going her way when a courageous boy named Ben stands up for her. In comparison to the book I am writing, I have watched the movie "Brick" in hopes of expanding my story. Brick is about a teenage boy who receives a distress call from his ex-girlfriend, only to find her dead three days later. The movie is about his journey to figure out what happened to her.

The relation between the two is the concern present in both boy's attitudes. The protagonist in my story is Ben because he is not violent but he stands up for Molly anyways. Even though they have never met, he is too kind to sit aside and watch her be tormented. The antagonist is the bully, Craig. His self-conscious attitude makes it hard for him to be nice to people because in order for him to feel good about himself, he has to belittle others around him. In "Brick" the protagonist is Brendan Frye because he is the one who solves the murder of Emily, his ex-girlfriend. He spends all of his time and risks his life many times to solve her murder. The antagonist in the book is Tug because from the start he lies to Brendan, when in reality, he is the one who killed Emily to begin with.

The two books relate in numerous ways and both infer the lesson of standing up for others around you. The antagonists do not put themselves in the victim's shoes and therefore will never know what it feels like to be hurt. I will use some ideas from "Brick" in my story such as how Brendan was constantly pre-occupied with solving Emily's mystery. That interested me and made me want to make my book a little more exciting and add more mystery to it. I would love the protagonist, Ben, to research why the bully is doing what he does to Molly and possibly propose a solution. Eventually the two could end up friends once they settle their differences, but Ben has to solve the mystery first of why he does the things he does.

The movie "Brick" was inspiring in many different ways. Because I watched the movie with the state of mind of writing my children's book, I adopted a lot of great ideas. While watching the movie, I was thinking about how it related to my book and also thinking about how I could ammend some ideas from the movie to fit into my book. Humans are born with compassion and no matter what, it will always be hard for someone to watch someone else get hurt.