Stories

Since I was really small, I've been doing stories in my head. Now that I'm older, I still do stories in my head  (and sometimes with Sorella). I know it sounds a bit dorky, but it's really rather fun. Lately I've been going back to old stories that I completely ruined by kidnapping the characters and running away from the plot and reworking them.

When I get really excited about a story, I share them with Charna. In my experience, there's very little that can compare to the feeling of telling someone a story you've created and having them actually be interested. Charna sat and listened to me for about two and half hours tonight as I shared what I was working on with rapt attention. Not only did she offer ideas, but she also inspired me to start a whole file of character information, family trees, and general knowledge relating to the world.

As corny as it sounds, the story I'm reworking is a vampire one. No, it has nothing to do with Twilight (and it makes me a bit queasy to know I just mentioned that horrible series in the Arcana Files). If it draws from any already created vampire series, it would be Vampire Knight (almost a little too closely in one particular plot line).

My favorite part of writing a story is making the characters. I love flushing out their personalities and then putting them in situations. In some cases, characters happen organically. For example, in this particular story, there are two women, Cornelia and Marion, and I think they might be closet lesbians. I don't know what happened; because I skipped around throughout the story, I don't even have a scene for them meeting or even interacting much, and yet all of a sudden their relationship is much closer than friends (but not quite lovers). It was weird.

When I make characters, they become very real for me. In the stories I create with Sorella, it's almost as if the characters are very close friends we haven't seen in ages. We go to the mall and look at clothes and say, "Wow, that vest is so Remy" or "Aid would wear that". It's really fantastic, considering we haven't worked with those characters in a good three or four months.

I think what I find most interesting, however, is that I still find this story worth working with even though I have a definite ending planned out. Usually, once I know the end, the story dies for me; I don't see the point of filing in the blanks if I know the final result. Maybe the difference is that I'm not creating, but rather twisting, embellishing. I'm still very in love with this story.

This story almost makes me want to write it all down, but we know where that leads. Maybe once I have all my character files, world comments, and plot outlines created, I might do so. I might even share it with you. You never know. Whimsy might be able to get a NaNoWriMo out of me yet ;)

What kind of stories do YOU make up?

Wander safely,
Arc.

How I Failed NaNoWriMo

I was supposed to do NaNoWriMo this November, again on the behalf of dear Whimsy. I only managed about 300 words before the project crumbled. I love to make up stories, but putting it down on paper seems almost like a chore. Because of this, most of my work stays in my head. However, I was quite proud of the storyline that I had created for NaNo. Since it’s probably never going to get written down in any form, I figured I could share it with you.

The story was going to be told through letters. In the beginning, the corespondents are only knows as S and K. For reasons unknown, K ran away from home. S puts a lot of effort into his letters, informing K of just about everything going in his life, while K’s letters are short and ill-informing. My intent from the start was to make S a much more developed character than K for reasons to be later explained.

As the story continues, you learn that S’s name is Seamus and K stands for Kristie. Her letters slowly become more developed, explaining how something is chasing her and she’s trying to get away. It becomes apparent that Kristie is running from something big and incredibly dangerous. Her letters are haggard, rough, and enigmatic.

Seamus tells Kristie he isn’t getting along with his parents because they want him to start taking his medication again. He complains that they deaden his mind. While Kristie tells him to do what’s right for him and not take the pills, he caves to please his parents and takes them anyways. Simultaneously, Kristie’s letters become shorter and more panicked. We discover that she’s running from an obsessive stalker named Donovan, who had developed the “if I can’t have her, no one can” mentality, and he’s catching up with her, fast. The story hits the climax with a desperate letter from Kristie about how she thinks the only way she can escape Donovan is to kill herself.

The last chapter was supposed to be a doctor’s assessment of Seamus, who was rushed to the hospital for slitting his wrists. He was diagnosed as a schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder several years ago. Originally, the doctors thought that if he saw a shrink twice a week and was carefully monitored with his medication, he could carry on a normal life. His file shows that he has several personalities in him, but the most prominent personality is a female named Kristie. An attached file from Seamus’s shrink documented how Kristie frequently complained of a voice in her head she called Donovan, who constantly told her he loved her and no one else could have her. Kristie found it therapeutic to write letters to a made up pen-pal, a boy she named Seamus. The more she wrote to Seamus, the more intense Donovan’s voice became until she could no longer stand it. The doctor’s note ends with a comment that if Seamus should take his pills consistently, both Kristie and Luther will disappear permanently.

I was incredibly proud of this story line, and a little disappointed it may never get down on paper. Maybe it will one day, you never know. 

Please don’t steal my plot.

Wander safely,

Arc.