I don’t know about you two, but I like when
I have vivid dreams. Especially ones where I can fly.
Cue EMTV (Epic Movie Trailer Voice)
Previously, on R. A.’s Blogs!
A great crack exploded next to me, and rain
began pouring.
And then the flight was over. Suddenly,
whatever force held us in the air gave way, and we began falling, far, far down
to the world below.
End EMTV (Dan, you know you can do it.)
I have my own policy about story writing
that I haven’t told you before, Dan. I completely agree with your relatable
characters in extraordinary situations theory, as long as extraordinary
situations involves being apart of a thousand year old war in a fantasy world,
and everything between that plain ol’ reality.
This policy comes a saying from Samuel
Johnson, which reads “That which is written without passion, will be read
without pleasure.” Hollywood could certainly learn something from that saying. My
policy basically says that if your idea for a story doesn’t come from a moment
of proper inspiration, then it’s not a story worth writing.
Unfortunately, as I’ve explained, this is
not a straightforward process. Even though I was feeling inspired, I couldn’t
come up with any good story ideas. And while I was dreaming, a subconscious
state, I came up with, what I thought, was a pretty neat idea. A city floating
in the sky, where people ride on strange skeletal, flying creatures. There is
so much creative ground to cover, how was the city created, what purpose does
it serve, what cultural traits does it possess? This was an idea born in a
moment of inspiration, and as such I think I can write a good story about it.
Let’s start with a girl waking up one
morning. She lives in a sleepy suburb, that just so happens have all of its
plants green and blossoming, and the light is soft and beautifully backlit (I
think, that’s what you said was good lighting, right Dan?) She gets up, gets
dressed, has breakfast, and then notices a shadow moving past the window. Excited,
she runs outside and stands a few steps away from her door. Her bare feet rest
on the concrete, her hair blowing gently in a light breeze. Circling around
her, then gliding down and landing gracefully in front of her. From atop this
creature, sitting on an intricately textured saddle, is a boy. About the same
age as the girl, he hops down, and lands with gymnastic precision in front of
her. Clothes clean and the right size, hair perfectly styled, skin free of any
oil or acne, and as always, perfectly backlit by the sun. He takes a few steps
forwards, to within speaking distance of the girl (film speaking distance, of
course, being about 30 centimetres away from one another.)
“You’re early.” She says, not the least bit
complaining about this fact.
“It’s getting close, soon enough I’ll be
right on top of you.” He says, a raspy, sexy deep voice coming from this mid
teen.
“Oh… yeah. Looking forward to it.” She is
practically melting into the pathway.
“So, want a ride?” He lowers his head,
looking up at her with clear blue eyes.
“Yes.” The word is muffled by an exhalation
of excitement.
They climb onto the winged creature, and
fly off into the sunset.
There is an example of something written in
a moment of inspiration. And I’m sure when you read it, you could tell that it
was something that has some inspiration, has some energy, has some presense in
the storytelling world. Sure it might not be that notable, and you might
quickly forget it, but you read it, and probably, even very briefly, was caught
up in it.
Whenever you are doing work, especially the
creative work that we do, Dan with your movies, and Andrew with your music, you
should always make it inspired. If it’s not, if you don’t feel inspired by the
work you’re doing, then how is anyone else meant to?
R. A. Lyons.
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