Almost taking the easy way out
Posted by brenatevi on February 18, 2009
Inspiration is like crystal, if you hit it the right way, it rings sweet and clear. Inspiration has taken me the past week, and last night I’m pleased to announce that I wrote over 2000 words for my novel. It reminded me of a conversation with a perfect stranger on the Internet who asked me if I ever smoked marijuanna; I responded no, but who needs mind altering drugs when I can soak in inspiration? I can come up with mind blowing ideas without cheating.
(aside: the ladies at Bob Evans like my bluetooth keyboard.)
So last night I found myself with a momentary conundrum that I feel I sidestepped ably: I had no idea why a character had a messed up Heaven. I knew that it had to with his family, but the details eluded me. But I kept writing, creating and discarding ideas as my fingers tapped out words. I almost went with the “evil priest” route, sexual abuse and the entire cliche. But I hesitated. I had already been there two and a half times (one was a near miss…) and I didn’t want to cheapen it by overusing it (I think I’m handling it sensitively enough.)
So, I started thinking along other lines, like how does a bully become a bully? Ah, parents, gotta love them. And I damn near made the mother a “villain,” but following the thought, I came up with another idea: how would a bully’s father respond to being told, especially since he’s the reason the kid is a bully? Poor naive young Kyle. No wonder why he doesn’t think too high of Heaven.
Later, I’ll post about “villains” and trying to find sensical, non-evil motivations for them, because as the creator of Babylon 5 once said, villains never see themselves as the bad guy.
