GAH. So I was filling up hot water bottles, getting ready to head to bed (it’s winter here, and while a Brissie winter isn’t terribly onerous, the lack of any kind of insulation where I live means it’s as cold inside as it is outside), and I was thinking thinking thinking.
Polyphony. Yeah. I harp on it. Foundational theory for me. Anyway. The original scope of Neyu’s story was quite big and long. …Ignore the double entendre. It was expansive, and had like three to five parts to it divided into smaller chapters. Which is epic, and not a problem when you’re working on something for the long run. And it’s not to say that I’ll never get to those far-flung places.
But I won’t get to them for this thesis. Because all those opposing and conflicting and resonating viewpoints? It’s all in the ship. It’s like I said, what, two days ago? Maybe? I could write a play with just the things that happen on the ship.
It’s astonishing to me just how much of my playwriting has influenced what I’m doing now. I’ve always been dialogue-oriented — I stole lots and lots from Douglas Adams as I learned writing for myself — and it’s just so bleeding obvious but voices, hello.
The entire stretch of story I write for this thesis may rest in the ship and nowhere else.
I just realized this probably makes no sense. So, brief overview: I’m writing a story about a young teenage girl named Neyu who’s forced by war to escape for her life. She gets on a spaceship, a tramp freighter, with the crew and a stack of other refugees (see, that part is new), and has to figure out what the hell to do next. This being the first time she’s ever been alone, as in without familiar faces or family, and the situation is as dire as it can get without involving immediate mortal danger.
Seriously, how the hell did I not see this before?
I have to go ruminate now.
BUT BEFORE I GO. This revelation? This idea spark of the mallet of obviousness that I’ve somehow not seen all this freaking time? It provides the natural and organic impetus for transmedia extensions of this story.
GAH. And yay.
Okay, seriously, off to ruminate now. And here I was, planning an early night’s sleep.