500 Words a Day

11 December, 2007; 505 Words

I spent the day considering who my characters are.  In a very lazy rather than bold move I've for the moment chosen to reuse an idea I was toying with a couple years ago.  Our story is set upon a family of five: the father John, the wife Candice, the daughter Sarah, the oldest son Isiah, and the youngest son Curtis.  There are five completely different stories, put together to make up the familial whole.  Each story tells about one of the members of the family.  The key to all of this is that the novel jumps around in time.  While one story may take place in Curtis's adulthood, another may take place when Sarah is a child.  Each story will be profound and different on their own; put together they tell the family story and perhaps foreshadow all of their futures.

The story about John was stolen maliciously by a new movie in theatres which really angered me.  John was to be a closet murderer haunted by multiple personalities in his head.  A draft of one of the conversations that took place in John's head was highly praised by a close friend of mine.  I like the idea, though, of a father that is secretly a murderer.  It's romantic in a russian novel sort of way.  John's profession, in my version, could be that of a Mormon pastor;  Mormon murderer, I like that.  Throw in the fact that one of his sons refuses to be Mormon or have any faith and you've got some pretty twisted arguements and turmoil.  That's drama.

I prefer the notion of an intelligent family.  Everyone in the family has been, or is currently, or is going to, attend some sort of institution of higher learning.  I do realize, though, that this is not very main-stream American.

John's story, the first story since it's the more gory of the five, takes place when John is in his fifties.  Unlike the movie, the demons (multiple personalities) invade his consciousness suddenly, causing him to question, while affirming, his faith moreso than he ever has before.  As the story progresses, the power of his dimensia propels him into an emotional frenzy, though those that love him notice little because he is capable of hiding the turmoil in their presence.  He does kill, and the consequences of his actions eventually cause him to...

John's story leads into the second part of this five part series of novellas suddenly, following the major climax presented in the first.  Sarah's story is significantly different.  Her's is a love story that takes place when she is in college.  Not going into details--I haven't figured out what they are yet--I do know that this takes place before her father's.  It consequentially presents a younger version of John, hopefully evoking a different emotional effect on the reader regarding his character. 

I'm really going to test my writing abilities on this one.  Jumping from murder to love is unique.  Jumping from love to what's next is going to be even better.