Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Big things on the horizon…

Partly because of what my Christmas-New Year holidays have been like (including the fact that in Taiwan it's not even a holiday season yet), basically all I've had the energy, focus, or time to post are these recent Ernius and Bertus dialogues. Frankly, I love writing them and then love reading them to polish them in subsequent days. Last night, however, it began to weigh on my mind that I can't just keep these guys as random voices forever. Certainly, I could do that and make them an erratic feature of FCA. But I, myself, with my own creative neuroses, can't do that. It's sort of like driving. Sure, you can keep the engine idling, enjoying the radio and the sunshine in the parking garage, but if you really have any heart for cars or the road, then the longer you sit there, the more you feel compelled to put her in drive and DO something with the car.

So there I was lying on my bed, trying to fall asleep, but too awake mulling over the fates, destinies, of Ernius and Bertus, and then it hit me: a structure emerged from the sea of their two voices. An entire larger story appeared around them; I caught a glimpse of their proper niche in my narrative cosmos. I had never anticipated it but had simply written it into being dialogue by dialogue.

I can't let too many cats our of too many bags, but I'll put it tell you this much:

E and B live in a city being molested by an elusive serial killer––the not-very-elusive killers never really make it to "serial" status––but they are not bothered by this. They are just guys living. Either E or B will have a romantic interest and there will also be scenes of the police working the killer's case.

Between scenes of their dialogues, we are taken into a smoky, dark office where a grim, heavy man taps various photos of people and in the subsequent scenes we see those people murdered. In the aftermath of every death we are taken to the TV screen, upon which we can see E and B, and then we melt through the screen (visually) to find ourselves with E and B talking again. At the end of each of their conversations our attention is guided to a speaker. As we draw closer the news, music, ads, etc., become garbled and we sink into cataphonic darkness, only to emerge once again in the smoky office of the grim man with the photos. This cycle takes place a few times until we reach the climax for E and B. The very end came to me today in a flash and had me laughing. It's a bizarrely morbid comedy and I hope I can finish it this year.

Stay tuned.

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