Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp - Posts Tagged "idle-musings"
Two grievous injuries, two stories, one big mess
About two thirds into the story I'm frameworking, the hero gets badly hurt. This is his darkest hour, the rock bottom, the point where the quest seems truly impossible. He'll pick himself up, but it's not him I want to talk about here.
The hero is not the only one to be hurt, you see: one of the supporting characters is also injured, and significantly worse at that. He will still be out of commission a long time after the hero's dusted up his own injuries and walked on. I was thinking of him returning in the story's climax to turn things around and to bring ultimate victory for the good guys.
But I'm not really sure if I want to write about that at all anymore.
Rather, the more I think about this scenario, the more I want to write about this supporting character's recovery. Just... lying around on a hospital bed, for several months, trying to not get bored to death. A bunch of things happens to him, but he never goes far from that room. It really has very little to do with the original story idea at all, apart from how he ended up in this place and what he wants to do afterwards.
If I went down this route, then I suppose the story would begin at the point of his injury. Perhaps in a dream sequence, or flashback. Then he wakes up in the bed, hurting like hell.
Problem is, I'd have to also inform the reader of the circumstances of his injury, and all the war and stuff going on around him that led to this point. And since all that stuff is so much more exciting, the reader's attention would most likely end up fixed in it - and then they'd get disappointed when it's just fairly uneventful daily struggle in a single room. It probably would not work all that well.
No, I think I'll have to separate the two stories entirely. The poor sidekick is off the hook, for now. I'll have him blown apart in a story of his own - perhaps a continuation of another story, that ends with him being hurt to begin with.
For now let's go back to the original thing. Only the hero will be injured. Everyone else is fine. It's kind of unfair, really, but he wouldn't be the hero if he couldn't handle a bit of unfairness in his life.
The hero is not the only one to be hurt, you see: one of the supporting characters is also injured, and significantly worse at that. He will still be out of commission a long time after the hero's dusted up his own injuries and walked on. I was thinking of him returning in the story's climax to turn things around and to bring ultimate victory for the good guys.
But I'm not really sure if I want to write about that at all anymore.
Rather, the more I think about this scenario, the more I want to write about this supporting character's recovery. Just... lying around on a hospital bed, for several months, trying to not get bored to death. A bunch of things happens to him, but he never goes far from that room. It really has very little to do with the original story idea at all, apart from how he ended up in this place and what he wants to do afterwards.
If I went down this route, then I suppose the story would begin at the point of his injury. Perhaps in a dream sequence, or flashback. Then he wakes up in the bed, hurting like hell.
Problem is, I'd have to also inform the reader of the circumstances of his injury, and all the war and stuff going on around him that led to this point. And since all that stuff is so much more exciting, the reader's attention would most likely end up fixed in it - and then they'd get disappointed when it's just fairly uneventful daily struggle in a single room. It probably would not work all that well.
No, I think I'll have to separate the two stories entirely. The poor sidekick is off the hook, for now. I'll have him blown apart in a story of his own - perhaps a continuation of another story, that ends with him being hurt to begin with.
For now let's go back to the original thing. Only the hero will be injured. Everyone else is fine. It's kind of unfair, really, but he wouldn't be the hero if he couldn't handle a bit of unfairness in his life.
Pankarp
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