Whatever happened to having the first draft of Storyland done by January? I don't know. All I know is, I am considering scrapping Storyland, and chalking it up as yet another failure. I have tried to write this draft three times already, and each time it's just failed. I feel like giving up on it, but that would be the fifth or sixth time I have failed to finish a novel. I want to start something completely new, but I am afraid that it's just going to fail again, the same way that everything else has. The trouble is that there are just too many possibilities for the way things can happen. Do character A and B already know each other, or are they going to meet? Is C the daughter of D, or the enemy of D? Are D and A the same person? Is E an important figure, the underling of Evil Enemy F, or is he a loser student? It's all stuff like that, which can end up completely changing a story. Sigh.
The worst part is that I have realized that Storyland really should be a graphic novel, because pictures tell it so much better, and the graphic format really lends itself to the metastory humor, besides the fact that the ideas I get for it are more in the form of serial short stories than a real novel.
Problems:
1. I can't ever create it, though, unless I can nail down the story first, even if I don't write it in novel form!
2. I can't draw well enough to do it justice, and I would much prefer to draw it myself! Oh, horror.
Now for some story-specific gripes: I was going to make Destiny and Margaretta the same person again, but although the character would be funnier and more well-developed, it just creates too many paradoxes. How can she be Althor's dead ex-wife Margaretta, and also be the single (and this bit is important) ALIVE Destiny? Also, (MAJOR SPOILER ahead!), if Destiny was Margaretta, I wouldn't really be able to hide the fact that Margaretta is Greta von Twisselhoft.
I was going to make Jason and Eddie the same person too. However, that also introduces too many paradoxes. The whole idea is that Jason starts off as an ordinary person, who thinks he's a complete loser, and only gradually starts discovering special secret powers, or if he already has them, finds that they actually mean something more than just a random talent. He couldn't exactly be Eddie (who has been a Reaper since the beginning of time) without having been so from birth, which would make him an established figure of supernatural power. That's not to say that Jason won't have awesome Reaper powers eventually. He'll just have them in his own right, rather than being Eddie, who I rather suspect is his master.
Before I get too confusing, let me explain. I don't know if I mentioned this already, but if I have, I apologize for the redundancy. There is another major spoiler ahead, by the way. I should say right now that this will be a rather frequent occurrence, so if you don't want spoilers for my stories, you probably shouldn't be reading this blog. XD
Jason starts off as an ordinary Joe…for a given definition of ordinary. I rather think that he is going to be an important underling for Wilhelm von Twisselhoft, who is…an antagonist, insofar as any of my characters are ever antagonists so much as they are all protagonists with alternate, conflicting points of view. There. However, he thinks that this is as far as he's ever going to get. He's set in his point of view. Then…something happens to overturn that view. I don't yet know what. Maybe he's been brainwashed, and starts to realize it. Not sure. However, he starts either to gain powers or develop powers already in existence. These consist of various versions of manipulating the world around him, in ways that should be impossible for any regular Character. I already knew that Jason was going to find out that he was the Narrator. It was my friend M who suggested that Jason and Eddie be the same person. For the reason mentioned above, that won't work. However, I am going to stick with the idea that the Narrator and the Reaper should be the same person, because the Narrator symbolizes Storyland: birth and death, The Beginning and The End. Part of the current instability of Storyland is due to the fact that the Narrator and the Reaper have so far been separate people, either Sundered at some point, or always separate, conflicting entities. It will be Jason who finally unifies them, as he realizes that not only must he uphold the legacy of the Narrator, but also the legacy of the Reaper. He will have not one, but two masters.
As for Destiny, I rather fancy the idea of turning her into a female version of Arthur Dent. The fact is, she hates quests and the idea of being a useless princess. She'd much rather go on adventures *after* she's had breakfast, thank you very much. But an accident happens at Madame Kiteroo's Institute for Damsels in Distress, and due to the nature of Storyland, of course it's a single student who goes out to save the world, rather than a team of trained professionals. I think that at the beginning of the story, Destiny and Jason do know each other very well, but Destiny thinks that Jason died a few years ago. It will make Jason and Destiny be apart for a while, so they can finally meet later in the way I wanted, as pseudo-strangers, but the basis of friendship that I needed would also be in place.
During the accident at the school, possibly Destiny gets a sign that he's alive, and this is what spurs her to go on a quest. The only thing is that while I do want them to fall in love and get together at the end (yes, I am a sappy sappy sap sack full of sappy sap), I don't want it to be one of those 'true love knew we were meant for each other since childhood' things. If it were, that would be enough to spur Destiny to go questing. However, it is not. She has no idea in her head of such a thing, and in fact, I want to make it seem like she'll fall for Althor first, especially according to the way such things are hinted at in books. I might go with the whole 'realistic relationship' angle, in which it is quite conceivable that in another universe, she might have chosen Althor instead, but I rather think that Althor trying to kill Destiny is enough of a reason that Destiny might break up with him…although she might have been falling out of love with him since even before. Why am I going on this whole rant?
Destiny, like Jason, is also going to have her world overturned. But while Jason starts off as a bit cynical, a bit questioning, and ends up being forced to accept the reality of a world of which he is the guardian, Destiny starts off as always playing by the rules, even if she hates them. To her, that's just the way the world works. Her comfort is short-lived, however. Slowly, the Ineffable Wizard starts to take over, and he breaks all the rules. This makes her *angry*. It also scares her, however, because things no longer work like they do in books. Slowly, those close to her start to betray her. Her "love interest" tries to kill her. The friend with whom she had a lot of childhood memories turns up alive, but also turns out to be evil (according to her). Plot bunnies die. In the greatest betrayal of all, the Narrator, who was supposed to be the source of all that was good in Storyland, turns out to have been orchestrating the chaos in collusion with the Wizard all along. It is true that part of it was under duress, but the fact is that he sort of wanted to do it, and all it needed was for the Wizard to push his buttons. The Narrator was the central pillar of Destiny's world, the one who held all their fates in the palm of his hand, and this last betrayal sends Destiny over the edge. While Jason learns to embrace his power, Destiny learns to hate what she once represented. They start off at completely opposite ends of the spectrum, but in the end, though their views go a complete 180, they are still at opposite ends of the spectrum. Along the way, however, they hopefully learn to find at least a little sliver in which the circles of the venn diagram that is their relationship cross, a little something they can agree on, and in the process, discover that they can still be friends, and perhaps something more. In the end I hope that they'll both discover that they can be people in their own right, rather than let themselves be defined by their sides.
I promise you this will not be romantic comedy.
Sorry for the long, long paragraphs. I started off with just a small update, and it turned into a whole long spiel of me getting my thoughts down. That's about the state that Storyland is in right now. I still don't know precisely what happens, but hopefully I'll figure it out soon. Otherwise come February, I am just going to pause and do something completely new. More on that later! :-D
