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Writing Filter
Aug. 15th, 2008 09:48 pmI ought to be working on the crossover fic. I will work on it soon. I'm edging toward that, and I have some leeway because Cordelia's with her grandparents tonight and won't get me up early.
Still, I wanted to comment on two things that pinged me as story inspirations today, to record them for a time when I might actually do something with them.
The first came from reading a blurb about a book. The second was a song, a Kipling poem set to music and performed by Leslie Fish.
The blurb was something that I unearthed while going through a backlog of unread e-mails. A couple of years ago, I signed up for a set of readers' club e-mails that would give me a little bit of a particular book M-F of each week with a new book every week. I got distracted and stopped reading them. After they'd built up for a while, there were so many that I just couldn't face them. This week, I've been buckling down and either deleting unread or reading and deleting, depending on how I feel about the title and blurb in the first e-mail for each book. I've also unsubscribed from one of the four lists.
(There were a couple of dozen lists that I could have signed up for. I picked SF/fantasy, romance, teen and non-fiction. I've unsubscribed from the non-fiction because I know I'll never read any of those books. I'll probably also drop the romance list, but I haven't decided yet.)
The blurb was for an historical romance (I think it was called Black Widow, and I remember recognizing the author's name, not as someone I'd read but as someone whose books I've seen around). The blurb talked about a woman who bought prisoners out of a hellish prison for her own pleasure and how the men in question were never seen again. Naturally, she bought the hero. Knowing it was a romance, I knew that it had to be cover for something else, presumably for rescuing them. I read just enough of the excerpts to be certain I was right.
Of course, being me and writing about the things that I write, I started thinking about the non-romantic story, the very dark and potentially psychologically complicated story that could come from taking that blurb as complete truth. I prefer not to write (or to read) tragedies or other stories without any hope, so I'd have to tweak it a bit to prevent death or complete psychological destruction of any characters.
I just find myself wondering about what people do to survive and about what sort of person (man or woman, present day or historical) would buy prisoners for sex. It depends somewhat on the setting, on whether it's a socially acceptable thing to do or something covert and criminal or something covert and shameful.
I may never do anything with the notion, but at least now I won't forget it. It's fairly typical of the sort of story seed that occurs to me. Most of them never sprout. Some lie forgotten for years and then suddenly grow in an unexpected way. This one probably won't go anywhere because there's nothing really new to it. I'd be re-treading old ground. That's not necessarily awful if the story does something for me or if I can do something new with the theme. The former is possible if I'm ever stressed and in need of a low pressure, high psychological complication writing project. The latter...who knows?
The second story seed is one that's occurred to me several times, pretty much every time I hear the song. The poem in question is Kipling's Helen All Alone (note: there are ads at that site. It's just the easiest one I found for seeing the whole poem). I've found an essay* analyzing the poem as talking about sin, desire and temptation, but I keep viewing it as holding possibilities for a multi-dimensional fantasy with Good and Evil and escapes from traps with pursuit. From that point of view, I rather like the idea that the two characters don't end up together. People don't always, and sometimes, a shared, difficult experience is something that makes remaining near each other impossible even if the people like each other.
Again, this is something from which I may never write, but recording the notion is something of a relief. It frees me from thinking, every time I hear the song, that I should remember that it could be a neat story. It could be. Maybe I'll tackle it if I find myself at a place to try something hard and new to me.
Of course, it's possible someone else already has, and I've just never seen it. If anybody knows of stories that connect to that poem, do let me know. I'm curious to see what somebody who isn't me would think to do with it.
*I'm not looking for essays on the subject. Literary analysis frequently drives me crazy by focusing on things that don't make sense to me or that don't matter to me (possibly because they don't make sense to me). I just found this particular one while trying to find a website with the complete poem. I have no idea if this is a common interpretation of the poem. It's an interpretation that fits with what I know of Kipling and of his era, but it's an interpretation that I find no fun at all. I'd rather have the fun.
Still, I wanted to comment on two things that pinged me as story inspirations today, to record them for a time when I might actually do something with them.
The first came from reading a blurb about a book. The second was a song, a Kipling poem set to music and performed by Leslie Fish.
The blurb was something that I unearthed while going through a backlog of unread e-mails. A couple of years ago, I signed up for a set of readers' club e-mails that would give me a little bit of a particular book M-F of each week with a new book every week. I got distracted and stopped reading them. After they'd built up for a while, there were so many that I just couldn't face them. This week, I've been buckling down and either deleting unread or reading and deleting, depending on how I feel about the title and blurb in the first e-mail for each book. I've also unsubscribed from one of the four lists.
(There were a couple of dozen lists that I could have signed up for. I picked SF/fantasy, romance, teen and non-fiction. I've unsubscribed from the non-fiction because I know I'll never read any of those books. I'll probably also drop the romance list, but I haven't decided yet.)
The blurb was for an historical romance (I think it was called Black Widow, and I remember recognizing the author's name, not as someone I'd read but as someone whose books I've seen around). The blurb talked about a woman who bought prisoners out of a hellish prison for her own pleasure and how the men in question were never seen again. Naturally, she bought the hero. Knowing it was a romance, I knew that it had to be cover for something else, presumably for rescuing them. I read just enough of the excerpts to be certain I was right.
Of course, being me and writing about the things that I write, I started thinking about the non-romantic story, the very dark and potentially psychologically complicated story that could come from taking that blurb as complete truth. I prefer not to write (or to read) tragedies or other stories without any hope, so I'd have to tweak it a bit to prevent death or complete psychological destruction of any characters.
I just find myself wondering about what people do to survive and about what sort of person (man or woman, present day or historical) would buy prisoners for sex. It depends somewhat on the setting, on whether it's a socially acceptable thing to do or something covert and criminal or something covert and shameful.
I may never do anything with the notion, but at least now I won't forget it. It's fairly typical of the sort of story seed that occurs to me. Most of them never sprout. Some lie forgotten for years and then suddenly grow in an unexpected way. This one probably won't go anywhere because there's nothing really new to it. I'd be re-treading old ground. That's not necessarily awful if the story does something for me or if I can do something new with the theme. The former is possible if I'm ever stressed and in need of a low pressure, high psychological complication writing project. The latter...who knows?
The second story seed is one that's occurred to me several times, pretty much every time I hear the song. The poem in question is Kipling's Helen All Alone (note: there are ads at that site. It's just the easiest one I found for seeing the whole poem). I've found an essay* analyzing the poem as talking about sin, desire and temptation, but I keep viewing it as holding possibilities for a multi-dimensional fantasy with Good and Evil and escapes from traps with pursuit. From that point of view, I rather like the idea that the two characters don't end up together. People don't always, and sometimes, a shared, difficult experience is something that makes remaining near each other impossible even if the people like each other.
Again, this is something from which I may never write, but recording the notion is something of a relief. It frees me from thinking, every time I hear the song, that I should remember that it could be a neat story. It could be. Maybe I'll tackle it if I find myself at a place to try something hard and new to me.
Of course, it's possible someone else already has, and I've just never seen it. If anybody knows of stories that connect to that poem, do let me know. I'm curious to see what somebody who isn't me would think to do with it.
*I'm not looking for essays on the subject. Literary analysis frequently drives me crazy by focusing on things that don't make sense to me or that don't matter to me (possibly because they don't make sense to me). I just found this particular one while trying to find a website with the complete poem. I have no idea if this is a common interpretation of the poem. It's an interpretation that fits with what I know of Kipling and of his era, but it's an interpretation that I find no fun at all. I'd rather have the fun.
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