Mulan and Plotting

Joanna Bourne, Historical Romance

Watched Mulan — the live action movie, not the cartoon.
It works, and the story message is one a lot of young girls and women want to hear.

Technical weakness in the presentation of the soldiers who are closely associated with Mulan. The final group of five or six who survive to the end. The strike team.

 There’s physical differentiation between them. That’s good. But give them nicknames. Give them something distinctive in their outfits. Have something one of them won’t eat. One whistles as he strolls around. One is anxious and wakes up with bad dreams. One tells shaggy dog stories. 

The movie differentiates with individual backstories, which they confide to Mulan. 

More interesting, I think, to give the revelation of backstory to the group.  The pessimist among them has one view. The optimist, the humorist, the prima donna, the playboy show who they are as they react to the same story.

We’ve seen this group building in a thousand war movies. Army unit, cops at the station, or criminals doing a heist become a close-knit group. Showing Mulan joining such a group would add an interesting dimension. It is a missed opportunity, I think.

Hollywood knows how to economically differentiate within a group.

RITA-winning author Joanna Bourne writes historical fiction set in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France and Regency England. It was a time of love and sacrifice, clashing ideals, and really cool clothing.