Tuesday, February 22, 2011

I'm drawing clowns and writing dialogue.

Strange things happen with my stories sometimes.

A satirical dark comedy about straightforward ghost hunters turns into a serious dark story with comedic undertones that grapples with complex issues of nonlinear time and multiple universe theories. A bit character who sells rootwork supplies to one of the central characters becomes a romantic entanglement and a major plot mover. A character who was supposed to be a straightforward, normal college kid with a normal life becomes a former foster kid whose adoptive parents died and whose father is in jail for kidnapping her when she was eight.

I mean, it's not remotely the same story it started out being. These are not the same people.

To illustrate this, here's a conversation between Eliot Haskell and Mahomet Veilleux:
"Who's Ellie?"
"Angel-maker what was, cher."
"Angel... maker?"
"Jah. The old one. Come before yours."
"You mean Walker?"
"Jah. Angel-maker, you gots to call her, you want them to understand who you talking about."
"Them? What are you talking about? I'm just a driver, dude."
"Neh. You en't listening. Angel-maker pick you. You with her."
"So what does that make me?"
"Make you my angel, mon cher."
"See, I knew you were just trying to get into my pants."

Two months ago, Eliot and Mahomet - whose name used to be Jimmy - would never have even thought about having this conversation. There was no such woman as Ellie, and none of this angel-maker shit. I mean, Jimmy used to be from Flagstaff.

I sometimes think being a fiction writer is like having a very focused form of schizophrenia.

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