My Mind Runs Awry, Part 1
Feb. 21st, 2007 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
treehatIn lieu of having anything worth discussing, I'm going to try something new here: I'm going to post little bits of various story ideas here to share and see how it sounds. Unfortunately, they all sound genius in my head, and my head is obviously biased. I'll be doing this fairly often, hence the "Part 1".
Back in November, I saw the RSC present The Tempest. A few weeks later, I found my old VHS of The Lion King while cleaning up the basement. I was about to toss it when I decided to watch it again - I don't think I ever really liked it when I was a kid. So I decided to watch it and see why it was so popular back then - and to see what the reference was to in last year's Doctor Who Christmas special.
A short bit into it, something clicked, and I spent the rest of the movie in the "they don't make movies like this anymore" mindset. I wanted to read up on it for some reason, so I hopped over to Wikipedia and read a few articles. I came across a mention of the heavy influences of Shakespeare, particularly Hamlet, on the film. As I read this, something else clicked into place in my mind, some part of the subconscious that had been creating ideas both since we saw that fantastic production of The Tempest.
All of the sudden, I had a fully-formed story swirling in the grey sea of neurons, sometimes beaching on the corpus callosum before being gently pushed back into the murk. It was amazing. I've not felt something so strange and wonderful. I was lost in thought while I ran the story through once, after which I wrote down everything.
In my eagerness, I neglected to notice one simple fact: this was a story that would have to be told visually, but I had no means of doing so. I would love nothing more than to present the story as a feature-length animation, but I've no idea where to even start on that. It then occurred that it could be done as a graphic novel, but it would lose a fair amount of the wonder I'd like to put in. So it's on the back burner right now. I'd like to someday persuade an animation company to do it - a real, hands-and-pencils animation company - but that's probably impossible at this point. Because it'd be difficult as hell for a college student to convince 'em to do such a thing.
Anyway, I'd had this story stewing for a short while when I noticed that Shayde, an artist over on deviantArt, was taking commissions. At this point, I realized that I really hadn't fleshed out the characters and their backstories like I'd wanted to, mostly because I needed to see them. As an interesting sidenote, Jason in Kitewinds was originally planned to be a supporting character who, although he was quite pathetic, always got credit for things that he had others do - but as soon as I saw how![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
octan drew him, that part of him changed drastically. But that's a story for another time.
Anyway, I commissioned a picture, based solely on written description. I decided I'd ask for Duir, the closest thing to a protagonist I have. It's a fair statement to say he's based partly on the character of Prospero (the Duke-turned-sorceror of The Tempest). When I sent the description, I had only a vague idea of him - he was but a wisp. When I got the picture and saw it, I knew near everything about him. He had become a full being, probably wanting to attack me for what I'm planning on putting him through. Here is said picture:
(Image is © 2007 Shayde.)
There's a lot here, but I want to talk about the shell for now. The creature it's taken from - which I've temporarily named a eadhaluis - is a rather disgusting eel-like sea creature. It's the kind of strange and disturbing animal that you'd expect to find at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. It's actually extinct. When it was alive, it was thirty feet long, with its head only counting for 2.5 to 4 feet. That head was shaped roughly like a manta ray with a giant overbite. Its giant mouth hung open, letting horrid tooth-lined muscles contract and shred food. The rest of its body past five feet was largely free of bone, consisting instead of muscle, redundant circulatory systems and scattered cartilage. Even so, the "tail" was still long and sinewy, not unlike a thin oriental dragon. It would have been the ugliest creature ever seen, if anyone had been unlucky enough to see it. Essentially, it was a creature that inhabited the areas of the map where "here be dragons" overlapped "there be monsters".
The shell, then, is the skull of the eadhalius with some vertebrae still held on by fossilized nerve tissue. It was based loosely on the RSC production, where Prospero wore a giant bone cloak while summoning the titular tempest. I took it a step further and made it the sorcerer itself - the shell is aware of base magic (really just a form of quantum mechanics) and can facilitate small changes in quantum fabric. To that end, it uses Duir while he uses it for his own devices. (Because if you're going to use raw magic, the cliche of the magic using you is pretty much required.)
I could go on, but I think that's enough rambling for now.
Back in November, I saw the RSC present The Tempest. A few weeks later, I found my old VHS of The Lion King while cleaning up the basement. I was about to toss it when I decided to watch it again - I don't think I ever really liked it when I was a kid. So I decided to watch it and see why it was so popular back then - and to see what the reference was to in last year's Doctor Who Christmas special.
A short bit into it, something clicked, and I spent the rest of the movie in the "they don't make movies like this anymore" mindset. I wanted to read up on it for some reason, so I hopped over to Wikipedia and read a few articles. I came across a mention of the heavy influences of Shakespeare, particularly Hamlet, on the film. As I read this, something else clicked into place in my mind, some part of the subconscious that had been creating ideas both since we saw that fantastic production of The Tempest.
All of the sudden, I had a fully-formed story swirling in the grey sea of neurons, sometimes beaching on the corpus callosum before being gently pushed back into the murk. It was amazing. I've not felt something so strange and wonderful. I was lost in thought while I ran the story through once, after which I wrote down everything.
In my eagerness, I neglected to notice one simple fact: this was a story that would have to be told visually, but I had no means of doing so. I would love nothing more than to present the story as a feature-length animation, but I've no idea where to even start on that. It then occurred that it could be done as a graphic novel, but it would lose a fair amount of the wonder I'd like to put in. So it's on the back burner right now. I'd like to someday persuade an animation company to do it - a real, hands-and-pencils animation company - but that's probably impossible at this point. Because it'd be difficult as hell for a college student to convince 'em to do such a thing.
Anyway, I'd had this story stewing for a short while when I noticed that Shayde, an artist over on deviantArt, was taking commissions. At this point, I realized that I really hadn't fleshed out the characters and their backstories like I'd wanted to, mostly because I needed to see them. As an interesting sidenote, Jason in Kitewinds was originally planned to be a supporting character who, although he was quite pathetic, always got credit for things that he had others do - but as soon as I saw how
octan drew him, that part of him changed drastically. But that's a story for another time.Anyway, I commissioned a picture, based solely on written description. I decided I'd ask for Duir, the closest thing to a protagonist I have. It's a fair statement to say he's based partly on the character of Prospero (the Duke-turned-sorceror of The Tempest). When I sent the description, I had only a vague idea of him - he was but a wisp. When I got the picture and saw it, I knew near everything about him. He had become a full being, probably wanting to attack me for what I'm planning on putting him through. Here is said picture:
(Image is © 2007 Shayde.)
There's a lot here, but I want to talk about the shell for now. The creature it's taken from - which I've temporarily named a eadhaluis - is a rather disgusting eel-like sea creature. It's the kind of strange and disturbing animal that you'd expect to find at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. It's actually extinct. When it was alive, it was thirty feet long, with its head only counting for 2.5 to 4 feet. That head was shaped roughly like a manta ray with a giant overbite. Its giant mouth hung open, letting horrid tooth-lined muscles contract and shred food. The rest of its body past five feet was largely free of bone, consisting instead of muscle, redundant circulatory systems and scattered cartilage. Even so, the "tail" was still long and sinewy, not unlike a thin oriental dragon. It would have been the ugliest creature ever seen, if anyone had been unlucky enough to see it. Essentially, it was a creature that inhabited the areas of the map where "here be dragons" overlapped "there be monsters".
The shell, then, is the skull of the eadhalius with some vertebrae still held on by fossilized nerve tissue. It was based loosely on the RSC production, where Prospero wore a giant bone cloak while summoning the titular tempest. I took it a step further and made it the sorcerer itself - the shell is aware of base magic (really just a form of quantum mechanics) and can facilitate small changes in quantum fabric. To that end, it uses Duir while he uses it for his own devices. (Because if you're going to use raw magic, the cliche of the magic using you is pretty much required.)
I could go on, but I think that's enough rambling for now.
