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I Got A Really Good Idea



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Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:10 pm
Icaruss says...



But it's a little bit convulted. Just gonna put it here to see if it makes any sense: enter Robert Smaldon. He's a low profile comic-book writer, working for hire at a company that could either be something like Marvel or DC. Doesn't matter. Thing is, he's not proud of his job. He wanted to write a novel once, but never could. And then he wanted to write artsy, underground comicbooks, but he didn't want to starve to death. So he sold out. And now he writes a weak-selling book. He's having a writer's block which is not good when you're working on deadlines.

He takes a lot of pills, and drinks a lot. He goes to the psychiatrist.
He's a pretty pathetic individual.

And then he starts seeing stuff. People who look like the characters he's writing, watching him. And he feels like he's living through situations he's scribbled down in notebooks. He takes more pills, and this goes on for a while, until the characters start talking to him. They knock on his door. They talk to him on bars. He tries to ignore them, while his editor nags him on missing deadlines. Finally, the bad guy from his superhero book threatens him. He says: "Either give me a happy ending, or die." But the good guys are also telling him: "You'll do the right thing."

So he hands in a script where nothing happens. Where the characters just stare at the reader for 22 pages. And... he almost gets fired. His mask of sanity is slipping. Fans -that he can't even fathom having- approach him in the street, and he scares them away screaming. He gets drunk some more, tries to get laid, gets his friends worried about him.

And then he has a break-through: he'll write himself into his comicbook and kill everybody. The bad guys and the good guys. So he does and mails the script to the editor. Then he goes to a bar and... meets me. As in, me. Jorge Ossio. We have a conversation, and he talks about meeting your own fictional characters in real life, and I think he's talking gibberish, but it gives me an idea to write a story. Which is the story the reader is reading now. And... that's the end.

It'll be narrated in first person by Robert, with excerpts of his scripts placed in between sections, and third-person narration for his psychiatrist sessions. I don't think it'll be that long.

Crazy or what?

It came to me because I wanted to enter that "Person Behind The Story Contest" (which I won't, because I'm too lazy) and wanting to write the kind of first-person narration that begins with the character sitting in his house while thinking about other things. The kind of first-person narration in autobiographies. Like Bob Dylan's Chronicles. Yeah.
there are many problems in our times
but none of them are mine
  





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Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:42 pm
BigBadBear says...



I like the idea, but parts of it became a little too cheesy for me. Maybe it's just the way that you described it, but it didn't seem realistic. Well... realistic even for a fantasy.

Finally, the bad guy from his superhero book threatens him.


Right here I'm imagining a bad guy with a sinister smile and tights walking up to your character and saying, "Gimme the happy ending or else!" ... Yeah. Doesn't sound really plausible. I think that this would benefit a lot if the comic writer thinks he's going insane or something. Who knows. This could actually be a comedy if you write it a certain way.

Anyway. I'd read it.

-Jared
Just write -- the rest of life will follow.

Would love help on this.
  








Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise? I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life... He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. It's ironic he could save others from death, but not himself.
— RazorSharpPencil