I would like to ask the help of anyone who reads this on a story idea that I have. Since I have virtually no readers, I guess I'll just ask generally. I have been inspired recently by Pan's Labyrinth, by The Science of Sleep to write a play about a certain young adult who confuses fantasy and reality. I'm not sure how to proceed though. I would like to be able to depict their inner life crossing over or overlapping their 'real' life. The way that I have to do this so far is to have some fantasy character or monster come on stage at times who the main character, (male?) will converse with. This would be one way of putting their inner life on display, showing a kind of inner monologue. One of the catches is that the main character is about eighteen or twenty and still has this imaginary friend. At other times, the other 'real' characters in the play could be shown as the main character sees them, in phantasmagorical costumes, physiognomical representations of their personalities. I am not sure about a lot of details. How clear should this crossover be? Should it be clear which part is fantasy and which is reality? Are there other ways to show the character's inner life? What does this character want? Is there a love story? (I think there is) Is the love requited? What kind of family does this person have? Does he live with them? Is he funny? Do they understand him? What is the conflict? These are all the questions I need to answer, but I am asking them of you as well, if you have any thoughts or insights. Peace,
Leopold
4 comments:
Sorry to be responding to such an old post...
I think this is a brilliant idea. It might almost have a "Jeckyll-Hyde" aroma to it, but it certainly doesn't have to imitate whatsoever. My gut instinct is that it should be clear, at least by midway through the play, that the monster should be recognizable as an "alter-ego."
I suppose there are a couple ways you could go with it: you could have a mild, socially ordinary person with a terrible, ugly inside; or a slightly weird, sick, or dysfunctional manifest self with a saint(though not in the least the "saintly" cliche that most picture) as the inner self.
Then I suppose there's the question of the other characters: could their inner selves be made plain at intervals, interacting with our hero's inner self? Perhaps simultaneously as the outer selves are making ruin of things, the "inners" are tying the invisible reality up quite nicely, though they and the onlookers don't see it. Or vice versa.
Gee, now you're giving me ideas.
thanks so much for your thoughts. It was funny, the post was so old, and my idea of the story is in such a different place now. When I read what you wrote, I was like, "what the heck is he talking about?" and then I re-read the post and realized how much my idea had changed, and how much sense you comments made. I liked what your ideas were, almost especially so because they were so unexpected. I want to avoid setting up a dichotomous relationship between him and the 'monster.' The monster has since transformed itself into an imaginary friend of the main character's (Connor) which is a large bear with wings named Nikita. They converse quite a bit, and are separate characters, but Nikita is very much a kind of mirror image of Connor; sort of his reflection of pure inwardness - like Narnia with no wardrobe, neverland with no Wendy. Which is why no one else can see him. Because our purest whims are intangible. As soon as they come in contact with the external, they lose some of their purity, to gain interconnection. Nikita never speaks in words: I guess because our more limitless, essential selves do not seem to me to use words. But we can't communicate with each other that way, hence the predicament of being together - we can never really say what we mean. Wow, I didn't even know that all until I wrote it! I don't know if Nikita has any dangerous or 'monsterish' qualities or not.
As for the other character, I am so grateful, because I forgot that I wanted to portray them through Connor's eyes like that. I may have his mother start squawking like a chicken at some point. I feel like there should be some sort of ominous aspect which I haven't really considered yet. I never get really evil with my characters. As it is, there is no embodiment of darkness, though the mother comes close at times, but she thinks she is always doing the right thing. Maybe it is because I have never really met anyone who I thought was truly bad person; only ignorant people who did bad things out of ignorance and addiction. I have so many outlines on this, I should make another post. Maybe I will.
I am just beginning in this new world. I'm certainly enjoying what you have to say.
No longer new to writing, I find this a very interesting challenge. Many times I see more than one person or character in myself. I'm even comfortable referring to that other person. She and I watch out for each other. We give permission to play. I do consider myself quite sane.
The words for my book ran around in my head for years. I had lots of thoughts about one topic. What really pushed the work was the encouragement I received from a weekend with my brother and sister.
We sat in a motel room one Saturday night discussing our projects, ideas, and everything else. It was a very loving creative and affirming time, nothing like what we had growing up.
So let those ideas flow. It's ok if there's change. Cutting, pasting, and deleting were developed just for that. I think they were.
Sal
Post a Comment