Writing in Reverse

New Ideas and No Time

January 14th, 2013.  I was sitting in my math class and it was around this time that I started to think about new stories.  I was in the middle of Handcuffed and didn't plan on stopping.  But that didn't stop my mind from wandering.  And it wandered... until it ended up at the horror genres door.  It was during that math class, that I wrote down my ideas for the story.  It was different and I never read a story close to what I was imagining in my head at that moment.  It hit me, and the formatting of this story would be so different, it even drew me in. 

It involved two different stories intertwined in one book.  And it was not a straight forward story too.  It's one of those that get you thinking and you need to pay attention in order to put the pieces together.  It would have a lot of symbolism in it and would really appeal in the horror element of it too.  It was such a good idea and I wanted to write it.  I just didn't know how to start once I came up with the idea.  Not to mention, I was determined not to slack on Handcuffed. 

I actually tried writing it... and I realized how different the genre horror required that wasn't the same.  I was being original and yeah, I can write it however I want.  But my goal was to make it faster paced to give it a more realistic element.  If you spend time in character development too much in horror, the story competes with it and goes along with it - which is how I happily wrote Handcuffed.  The characters guide the plot. 

I want emotion evoked as I do with my other stories.  But for me, horror was plot based more.  I planned on making character connections - because that is key.  Especially when some are... messed up in some cases including a main character.  To get my readers to see through the eyes of a murder for example and understand point of view and reason, even if there wasn't good reasoning.  Yet, horror required that connection to be made more indirectly with the readers.  Everything especially in this story I came up with would be very indirect.  I wouldn't point out problems.  I would let them pass and see if readers catch them.  That would be the fun part. 

It would involve no romance, and not much of what I have written before.  That might be a factor of why I really wanted to do it.  Because it was so different and a new challenge to write a horror story.  It would pull me out of my comfort zone and let me expand my own skills, which I really wanted.  It would also allow me to express these images and ideas I had of horrid and brutal things.  I am quite drawn to things that people find disturbing in some cases.  For example, stuff that has to do with dead bodies, graves, and supernatural shit that really could screw with your head.  Horror would be more than a movie would offer in my story.  It would open your eyes more than just a regular story line like Handcuffed.  It would make you think about those things and wonder if there really are people out there this fucked up.  It would make you understand perspective and it would be a game for my readers.  To see if they could follow if they paid close attention.  Even follow when a main character of mine couldn't.

I told myself I would eventually get to it that spring.  But it was such a difficult concept and style that I wanted to try that I got stuck.  With the fact that I was into Handcuffed still stopped me too.  I didn't want to do two stories at once.  That's what I tried before and it didn't work out.  Each of my stories deserve all of my attention and ideas.  So I would wait I thought.  Even if it would be a few years.  After all, I didn't want to start this horror story after Handcuffed when I was planning on continuing with a trilogy.  So I haven't figured out when I will write that.  I know it will happen though eventually. 

However, a similar thing happened a few months later after I finished Handcuffed.  I already had one horror story in the back of my head.  Then, another came to me... much more crazy. 

Everyday in the summer, I would go for a walk.  I live on a semi-busy street but when you walk a mile down another street, you are out in the country.  It was so nice to do that everyday.  I would blast my music and go for my walk under the sun and along the corn and pickle fields.  One particular walk though was strange....  I just started to think about this gruesome mini story which ends in death taking this boy.  Then my head would jump to another story which would end in someone living or dying randomly too. 

By the time I was about half way through my walk, I had all these little stories in my head.  I thought they were really good.  But then, the big picture came to me of what these stories could be.  And that's one huge connecting idea that was even more brilliant than the other story floating around in my head since January.

By the time I walked my five miles and looped back to my house, I was almost dazed in excitement at this deep horror story.  With connection and concepts and crazy stories that would make up one big horror story.  It would be so confusing to people that most wouldn't be able to figure out the connection... but if they did they would think it was amazing.  I'm not about bragging about my own work but I was excited and it was such a good idea for me to write it.

However, I knew it would be a challenge.  Like with the other idea of that horror story, this would be the same with issues.  It would have to be a bit faster, more plot based, and at the same time connecting.  Only for this one, it would involve horror stories with my main characters being male and some female in their point of views.  Some as young as seven and as old as 70.  It was going to be very hard I knew with how before, my characters are always girls in their teens.  That's what I was use to writing.  For this huge concept and horror stories that make one big story, it would involve me trying to get into the head of a five year old.  Of a elderly man or woman, who think differently and go about living differently then what I could come up for a girl my age.  It would be hard.  But with the idea... it was perfect.

After I went on that walk and came up with all these ideas for that story, I got home and the strangest thing happened.  I sat down, sweating and drinking some water, and my mom was watching TV.  And the craziest thing happened.  On the TV, it showed something similar of what I just came up with an hour before.  Of a poor man that had death come to him and kill him.  In the same state I imagined for one of my stories in the book.  I would explain the similarities but that would give away the story.  It was a crazy day for me to come up with that and come back and see something so similar on TV.  Of course, that was only similar to one small part, one small part in what I already new was going to be a ton of horror stories.

Like the other horror story I came up with in math class months before, I tried starting it.  And it was even harder to do.  Of course, I wouldn't get far with it with writing Fractured at that time.  And I knew I needed all my attention on Fractured.  I was so dedicated to it and knew that, like the other horror story, I would have to wait.  It would be a while away but I will face those ideas when the time comes to me.  I was looking forward to it and still am.