Rough Idea

[Alexander Morou]

I've been kicking around an idea, for a story I want to write, for about the last five years. I've made a few attempts at rough drafts, but I keep hitting a wall where I just don't seem to be fleshing the characters out enough for them to be believable.

Rather than give you the full story as I have it, I'll just outline the basic premise. The concept is similar to the standard 'Alice in wonderland' concept, only not as nice. It introduces the main character in his world, and once the setting is established, everything 'goes to hell' (essentially his world's apocalypse). As if waking from a bad dream, he jolts forward, only to be rewarded with intense vertigo and the realization that it probably wasn't a dream: he's connected to strange machines, in moving his shoulder he notices his arm's missing, he can only see below his upper torso: the rest simply isn't there. Before his consciousness, once again, fades to black, he hears a calming voice, "Don't be alarmed, for now, sleep." The second time he awakens, he has all his limbs and torso; he's in a hospital room all alone, and, in trying to get off the bed, he falls to the ground, flat on his face: his legs aren't quite as long as he remembers. To make this part short, he finds out that nothing about him is the same, he's completely different, everything from hair color and length, eye color, height, weight, gender, and physical age, is different. The rest of the story involves him, now her, trying to figure out why she's still alive, what really happened, and trying to cope with a new and mysterious reality where she's all alone.

Granted there's a few cliches in the above, the spirited away concept, the gender switch, and younger body, but it's more focusing on her life being entirely different than a joke of being a girl, or younger. I'm not a funny person, so I won't write it as a comedy.

As strange as it sounds, I have a lot of scattered ideas, and I know that none will come to fruition if I don't write them down, but at the same time, I'm apprehensive that it'll simply suck.

Now, I'll admit that anime is probably one of the worst sources for inspiration, as most of them are insipid tripe, but I think there's also a lesson to be learned from them: what not to do. One thing I've noticed on anime, where they tend to show characters as either intelligent, or clever in some way, they have a tendency to use common thought patterns through multiple characters. Where one might be considered an intriguing idea, it's not long after that one or more characters tends to have similar behavior patterns or thought processes, typically making it difficult to differentiate character archetypes as individual or unique.

I've also noticed a writer's shortcut, in times where an author can't establish a valid course of action or depict some thing in a proper light, instead of showing a half-assed attempt, they omit the action or thing entirely and refer to it after the fact or in an indirect manner. I'll derive an example from Dexter, a television show I've found mildly entertaining: Dexter's shown as an intelligent serial killer working in law enforcement; he's always ten steps ahead of the law, but there's a few things they omit entirely: they never show the body's disposal, in cases where there's a technical aspect that doesn't make sense for him to know, or some time sensitive action that would be difficult to depict, they just imply that it happened and leave it at that (example, he wanted to talk to a suspect, so they had him shut off the interrogation room's camera, but they did so by showing the light on the camera, indicating it was recording, go off, rather than showing him performing the act of disabling the cameras.) The question here is: Is such a shortcut necessary?

As a side note: A while back (about a year and a half ago) I attempted to post a concept for a parody on anime to another website, they downright ridiculed me, to the point that it was practically sanctioned by staff. The intended underlying premise was that it was downright devoid of common sense, and made no attempt to establish proper suspension of disbelief (much like some anime requires you to suspend all thought on the matter.) That doesn't necessarily mean that they were wrong, though. I'd just prefer if you think the concept is trash, you don't entitle me 'Worst writer ever', as they publicly did.

 

[Stardust]

Hehe don't worry - I'll be nice. :thumb:

The premise sounds interesting, but it'll be incredibly hard to pull of right. The part where he wakes up without an arm or lower body is extremely interesting, but you need to create a Bioshock-like mood to make it work. And the switch to the new body needs to be preceded by some inner monologue, maybe about how he/she is hoping to find the rest of his/her body when he/she opens his/her eyes, wiggling the fingers of the arm he/she didn't have before, etc.

In terms of fleshing out a character, I've found that flashbacks can be a good tool if used correctly. Especially since she's not in the same body, flashbacks could draw important connections to her previous life and her new one.

Personally, I think it's a brilliant concept, but it has to be done right to achieve the effect you're looking for. If you post any actual rough drafts or pieces of it, I could help further. But for now my best advice is that you need to make sure you're creating the right mood.

 

[Alexander Morou]

I have a slight dilemma, since its inception it's changed a lot, so my thoughts on the story are scattered. I have ideas, and I'm told often the ideas are interesting, and it's typically in execution that I fail. I need to write a rough draft up and have it evaluated so I know where my execution falls apart.

I'm also curious as to how you'd cope with going from age 16 to age five. The way I see his falling on his face as plausible is: your world is relative, sometimes I think back to how things used to be, and I don't feel all that much different in my perception of reality, but I know from pictures and other things that my size has changed. Granted, this is likely due to the change being gradual over many years, but I think the same thing applies: when you move your hand, regardless of its size, you don't really focus on its size, shape, or even think about whether your feet will touch the floor quickly or you'll need to brace yourself for a greater impact on moving yourself off the side of your bed. I've also found myself surprised at times by things not being as I think they are. If you see something that looks heavy and pick it up, only to find that it's super light, you might find your interpretation of how far it was supposed to have moved is wrong: you used the force for a heavy object but it was excessive, and a larger movement results.

 

[Glitchfinder]

If this is what I think it is, then it looks like you've moved a bit farther from the rough draft you showed me a while ago. Personally, I thought the rough draft's biggest problem was the shift in writing style between the beginning and end of the few chapters you gave me, and not the story itself. I recommend that, if you do want to put this to paper, you should focus first on what the story should be. Then change focus to what it can be, based on the real or perceived limitations of how you write, and how people will read it. Finally, you should actually start writing, keeping in mind that the reader isn't omniscient, and won't know what you were thinking when you wrote that vague statement at the end of the chapter. (This was another problem with the bit I saw, because there was quite a bit I was supposed to intuit (and, because I read a lot, I was able to get most of it, unlike many people), and that, in general, you shouldn't leave it up to the reader to figure out what the hell just happened.