Another OC core dump post...
Feb. 15th, 2005 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
letterblade...except this time it's my senior project.
Because if this isn't interesting, god help me.
For those of you who somehow haven't heard, I'm doing a creative senior project during this my final year at Bennington. I'm going to write seven interconnected short stories--that's what I'm madly doing right now. Each is narrated by a different character, but they all know each other and there's a larger story going on. So it's playing with all those network fiction ideas.
The characters, by title (and their titles are in some ways more important than their names), are the Goddess, the Consort, the Child, the Librarian, the Murderer, the Runaway, and the Architect.
Once I get back on campus and put the final touches on the stories, I'll be getting those stories recorded by actors and putting them up at listening stations around campus. With luck, it'll be up for a week or two, so people can go around and absorb whatever amount of the story they wish.
The story itself all takes place in this one city (smallish city). I haven't named it yet. I'm considering not naming it. It's the sort of thing that could be not named. I don't know what I've call it,genre-wise. Magic realism? Slipstream? (Which is what SF lit geeks--the same kind of people who say SF stands for speculative fiction--call real-world stories with a touch of the strange.) It's the sort of story where everything is heightened. Individual people are more important and talented and intense than they really could be. One of the characters may (or may not, depending upon your point of view) be an avatar of the ancient mother goddess. That sort of thing.
All the speaking characters, the main seven, had titles before they had names. I think part of what this is about is how people's roles do or do not define them. Etcetera.
Graham Wellington (one of my speaking characters, titled the Architect) designed this city--redesigned it, really, got it massively rebuilt according to her plans. She's one of those characters I don't know so well yet; I'm still trying to get her to be coherent about her
philosophy. She's certainly looking to make life better for the citizens, and nearly everybody who lives there is happy, in a sort of complacent suburban way, but she is also keenly aware of the
inevitability of negativity in life, and has some peculiar ways of dealing with it. The idea comes very clear to me when I'm contemplating cutters--intelligent, successful kids in good circumstances who deal with stress or anger or anything along those lines by injuring
themselves. And there are other metaphors, of course. To the Architect, these are sacrifices. The drops of blood from all the suburban girls
with razor blades, etcetera, etcetera, join into a river that flows into the heart of the city. It's all metaphysical, but it has a very real effect on the psychology of the city. The flow of traffic into the city mirrors the flow of sacrifice. And in the heart of the city is a mirror, because she's big on conformity--and not in an off-putting way, even to me, dutifully nonconforming Bennington student that I am. "To see
oneself reflected in another is the greatest comfort and joy of life." That's the sort of thing she says.
It only makes sense even to me on a symbolic level, damnit.
The Architect herself is mirrored in the afformentioned Goddess, who's calling herself Rosa Salvador for the time being, and is the symbol of
the opposite--the savage, not the civilized; the dirty, not the sterile; the frightening, not the comforting. And in some ways the story is all
about the conflict (and the similarity, because I subvert dichotomies on principle) between them. Both of these ladies can be scary as hell, and
are very powerful, and don't at times seem entirely human. Rosa, in the ancient goddess mythology tradition, has her ever-dying ever-reborn Consort, a human man whom she quite literally kills and resurrects. A few years before the time of the story she thought Nathan Lang, her
current consort's older brother, had potential for this, but it gave him a nervous breakdown instead. She was then drawn to the younger brother Christopher, who has the mettle for it. (Go geekboys, for he is indeed just such a creature.) Though when he finds out that his beloved Rosa was
responsible for his brother's breakdown, I doubt he takes it very well.
Mmm. Did I mention Nathan and Christopher are in their late teens and the sons of the Architect, by a marriage now divorced? They live with their father in the suburbs. Ms. Wellington visits every other Sunday. When Christopher drops the small atomic bomb that he's Rosa's consort, she doesn't take it very well either.
So that's the Goddess, the Consort, and the Architect. I suppose the best place to move next on the network is Johannes L. Falconer, the
Librarian. He's been working for Ms. Wellington as the city librarian for years, a shy, aging, infinitely bibliophilic man. He's too musty to
be popular. She did that on purpose. He even lives in the library, in a little apartment on the third floor; his only friend in the world is a fat little pug named Herakles, because he is exactly the sort of fellow who would name a small dog after Hercules, in the Greek form of the
name, mind you. He keeps the town chronicles, and observes a fair portion of the goings-on, but rarely involves himself. Of course, his general equanimity is extremely rattled when his long-estranged brother turns up in town--that rattles his bookish world.
Sebastian B. Falconer--currently calling himself Rudy Bonyface, because he is exactly the sort of fellow who would do that--is titled the Murderer, and hasn't seen his brother since their mother's funeral. (Before you ask, no--she died of a brain hermorrhage. Rudy has his own peculiar code of ethics and loved his mother dearly. As to what kind of a family would name their kids Johannes and Sebastian, I do know quite well, but that would bloat this attempt at a summary even further.) He comes to town on business, hit man sort of business, but through sheer chance (or not, depending upon how one might want to interpret magic in this story), makes a most unexpected of friends, and sticks around for
her. The friend in question is the Child, Deborah Stern, nicknamed Daisy, who is shy and sweet and just escaped middle school and has Issues--as in, her father may have sexually abused her. Or maybe not. There are memory questions. And, yes, she's a cutter. In many ways, the seemingly insane but genuinely healthy friendship that grows
between the two of them is the heart of the story for me. Daisy also learns, at some point, of Rosa's existence--Rosa's aware of her as a
sort of potential priestess, as Daisy, for all her Issues, is a tough and often visionary little thing--and begins working with her as the
plot thickens.
Daisy can't remember whether anything happened. Shana Kent--who refuses to accept that name any longer, and calls herself Redthorn--another rich suburban girl in about the same situation, remembers exactly what her
father did. Like the Goddess and the Architect, they're mirrors of each other; in fact, their whole families mirror each other. Shana is the
fiercer side, the angrier side, and the Runaway. For a few months now (the whole story takes place about July to August one year) she's been
hiding out in the tall grasses of a wild field on the other side of the river from the city. And from there, she--visionary, like Daisy--can see
everything. Even Rosa finds value in consulting her--and she worships Rosa. Rosa takes Christopher with her when she visits; Christopher is fascinated by this powerful, angry, savage, who
has built her own life and world out of just about nothing, and tries to befriend her, and may or may not literally get bitten for his efforts. But then the Runaway sees her father on a walk and promptly kills him with a handmade bow and arrow, and Daisy's father falls dead too due to mirror issues, and the Architect arrests Rudy for the
murder, and it just goes downhill from there. But that's getting more into spoiler territory.
The Architect's listening station will be on one of those random open-air walkways behind VAPA; the Librarian against the brick wall with
the squirrel statues behind the Barn; the Consort in that stand of birches next to Dickinson; the Murderer in the courtyard behind Crosset;
the Child in the secret garden; the Runaway in the field beyond Ohio; and the Goddess at that tremendous grand old tree off the end of the
world. That is, if the committee approves all of those; I have backups for each.
Why am I posting this now? Mostly to see whether it's even vaguely interesting and comprehensible. Comments along those lines would be v. useful.
(If only she'd keep a *normal* LJ, I hear you cry. Ah, well. Maybe someday when I'm not going constantly insane and getting my brain eaten by senior projects and Betazoid prettyboys. o.O)
Because if this isn't interesting, god help me.
For those of you who somehow haven't heard, I'm doing a creative senior project during this my final year at Bennington. I'm going to write seven interconnected short stories--that's what I'm madly doing right now. Each is narrated by a different character, but they all know each other and there's a larger story going on. So it's playing with all those network fiction ideas.
The characters, by title (and their titles are in some ways more important than their names), are the Goddess, the Consort, the Child, the Librarian, the Murderer, the Runaway, and the Architect.
Once I get back on campus and put the final touches on the stories, I'll be getting those stories recorded by actors and putting them up at listening stations around campus. With luck, it'll be up for a week or two, so people can go around and absorb whatever amount of the story they wish.
The story itself all takes place in this one city (smallish city). I haven't named it yet. I'm considering not naming it. It's the sort of thing that could be not named. I don't know what I've call it,genre-wise. Magic realism? Slipstream? (Which is what SF lit geeks--the same kind of people who say SF stands for speculative fiction--call real-world stories with a touch of the strange.) It's the sort of story where everything is heightened. Individual people are more important and talented and intense than they really could be. One of the characters may (or may not, depending upon your point of view) be an avatar of the ancient mother goddess. That sort of thing.
All the speaking characters, the main seven, had titles before they had names. I think part of what this is about is how people's roles do or do not define them. Etcetera.
Graham Wellington (one of my speaking characters, titled the Architect) designed this city--redesigned it, really, got it massively rebuilt according to her plans. She's one of those characters I don't know so well yet; I'm still trying to get her to be coherent about her
philosophy. She's certainly looking to make life better for the citizens, and nearly everybody who lives there is happy, in a sort of complacent suburban way, but she is also keenly aware of the
inevitability of negativity in life, and has some peculiar ways of dealing with it. The idea comes very clear to me when I'm contemplating cutters--intelligent, successful kids in good circumstances who deal with stress or anger or anything along those lines by injuring
themselves. And there are other metaphors, of course. To the Architect, these are sacrifices. The drops of blood from all the suburban girls
with razor blades, etcetera, etcetera, join into a river that flows into the heart of the city. It's all metaphysical, but it has a very real effect on the psychology of the city. The flow of traffic into the city mirrors the flow of sacrifice. And in the heart of the city is a mirror, because she's big on conformity--and not in an off-putting way, even to me, dutifully nonconforming Bennington student that I am. "To see
oneself reflected in another is the greatest comfort and joy of life." That's the sort of thing she says.
It only makes sense even to me on a symbolic level, damnit.
The Architect herself is mirrored in the afformentioned Goddess, who's calling herself Rosa Salvador for the time being, and is the symbol of
the opposite--the savage, not the civilized; the dirty, not the sterile; the frightening, not the comforting. And in some ways the story is all
about the conflict (and the similarity, because I subvert dichotomies on principle) between them. Both of these ladies can be scary as hell, and
are very powerful, and don't at times seem entirely human. Rosa, in the ancient goddess mythology tradition, has her ever-dying ever-reborn Consort, a human man whom she quite literally kills and resurrects. A few years before the time of the story she thought Nathan Lang, her
current consort's older brother, had potential for this, but it gave him a nervous breakdown instead. She was then drawn to the younger brother Christopher, who has the mettle for it. (Go geekboys, for he is indeed just such a creature.) Though when he finds out that his beloved Rosa was
responsible for his brother's breakdown, I doubt he takes it very well.
Mmm. Did I mention Nathan and Christopher are in their late teens and the sons of the Architect, by a marriage now divorced? They live with their father in the suburbs. Ms. Wellington visits every other Sunday. When Christopher drops the small atomic bomb that he's Rosa's consort, she doesn't take it very well either.
So that's the Goddess, the Consort, and the Architect. I suppose the best place to move next on the network is Johannes L. Falconer, the
Librarian. He's been working for Ms. Wellington as the city librarian for years, a shy, aging, infinitely bibliophilic man. He's too musty to
be popular. She did that on purpose. He even lives in the library, in a little apartment on the third floor; his only friend in the world is a fat little pug named Herakles, because he is exactly the sort of fellow who would name a small dog after Hercules, in the Greek form of the
name, mind you. He keeps the town chronicles, and observes a fair portion of the goings-on, but rarely involves himself. Of course, his general equanimity is extremely rattled when his long-estranged brother turns up in town--that rattles his bookish world.
Sebastian B. Falconer--currently calling himself Rudy Bonyface, because he is exactly the sort of fellow who would do that--is titled the Murderer, and hasn't seen his brother since their mother's funeral. (Before you ask, no--she died of a brain hermorrhage. Rudy has his own peculiar code of ethics and loved his mother dearly. As to what kind of a family would name their kids Johannes and Sebastian, I do know quite well, but that would bloat this attempt at a summary even further.) He comes to town on business, hit man sort of business, but through sheer chance (or not, depending upon how one might want to interpret magic in this story), makes a most unexpected of friends, and sticks around for
her. The friend in question is the Child, Deborah Stern, nicknamed Daisy, who is shy and sweet and just escaped middle school and has Issues--as in, her father may have sexually abused her. Or maybe not. There are memory questions. And, yes, she's a cutter. In many ways, the seemingly insane but genuinely healthy friendship that grows
between the two of them is the heart of the story for me. Daisy also learns, at some point, of Rosa's existence--Rosa's aware of her as a
sort of potential priestess, as Daisy, for all her Issues, is a tough and often visionary little thing--and begins working with her as the
plot thickens.
Daisy can't remember whether anything happened. Shana Kent--who refuses to accept that name any longer, and calls herself Redthorn--another rich suburban girl in about the same situation, remembers exactly what her
father did. Like the Goddess and the Architect, they're mirrors of each other; in fact, their whole families mirror each other. Shana is the
fiercer side, the angrier side, and the Runaway. For a few months now (the whole story takes place about July to August one year) she's been
hiding out in the tall grasses of a wild field on the other side of the river from the city. And from there, she--visionary, like Daisy--can see
everything. Even Rosa finds value in consulting her--and she worships Rosa. Rosa takes Christopher with her when she visits; Christopher is fascinated by this powerful, angry, savage, who
has built her own life and world out of just about nothing, and tries to befriend her, and may or may not literally get bitten for his efforts. But then the Runaway sees her father on a walk and promptly kills him with a handmade bow and arrow, and Daisy's father falls dead too due to mirror issues, and the Architect arrests Rudy for the
murder, and it just goes downhill from there. But that's getting more into spoiler territory.
The Architect's listening station will be on one of those random open-air walkways behind VAPA; the Librarian against the brick wall with
the squirrel statues behind the Barn; the Consort in that stand of birches next to Dickinson; the Murderer in the courtyard behind Crosset;
the Child in the secret garden; the Runaway in the field beyond Ohio; and the Goddess at that tremendous grand old tree off the end of the
world. That is, if the committee approves all of those; I have backups for each.
Why am I posting this now? Mostly to see whether it's even vaguely interesting and comprehensible. Comments along those lines would be v. useful.
(If only she'd keep a *normal* LJ, I hear you cry. Ah, well. Maybe someday when I'm not going constantly insane and getting my brain eaten by senior projects and Betazoid prettyboys. o.O)
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Date: Feb. 16th, 2005 03:38 am (UTC)