I almost didn’t write an essay this year — not because I didn’t make it through a truckload of dramas or have lots of words to share, but because it was a rather lackluster drama year for me.
You see, I like to squee and squeal — yes, like a farm animal — when I watch my dramas, and I feel like I got less of that this year, and more of that moment where you only have the word “Really!?”
From dumb plot moves to bad endings to generally disappointing execution, this year might have felt meh, but it did offer a lot of lessons around storytelling, as I asked myself questions about what each story was doing. Or not doing. So, below is a selection of the dramas I watched (or dropped) this year, and some conclusions I’ve drawn from them. This, of course, is entirely personal and not at all critical in nature. It’s mostly made up of my own thoughts on stories, storytelling, and creating; the lessons I gleaned from these dramas might not be the ones you did, and that’s okay, because stories are personal — and I take them damn personally.
Our Beloved Summer
Storytelling lesson: A story can live on its tender moments
I have pretty much nothing bad to say about this drama, which I truly enjoyed. But months and months after watching it, what still stands out to me are its tender moments. I can think of three in particular: our hero putting his head in his mother’s lap and getting comforted; our heroine locked in a hug with her grandmother; and the black-and-white sequence that so beautifully captured a moment in time when two people knew they loved each other deeply. The storytelling lesson tells itself: those tender moments gave the drama life, and they’re the things I’m still thinking about. Stories need these.