I am amazed at some of the stuff I wrote as a kid. I wonder if I could do that again, now, as a disillusioned adult.

We learn in writing classes that we should always write about what we know. Because even if we were to conjure something out of our finite human minds, it would still have been based on only what we have earthly known. It’s like all those Star Trek “exotic aliens” are nothing more than humanoids with a different head mask. And you take it to “Cloverfield” levels and it’s still humanoid or animal-like. So any sort of “imaginative” fiction will always be grounded anyway. Batman will ALWAYS just be a man in a rubber suit.

So what does it take to make a reader (or viewer) have that suspension of disbelief? I haven’t made a successful film that touched millions, but I’m pretty sure my writing has. Certainly my crude drawings. Can words and lines alone really evoke certain emotions from readers? Absolutely. This is why you’re reading my blog post now. Written language isn’t as efficient as a song-and-dance, but it is more robust when it comes to allowing free interpretation. You can read a word and envision many things. Whereas if you saw a monkey with wings in a video, you’d only see one species of monkey and you wouldn’t know whether or not it was suppose to be colored blue or whether it could speak. All those loose variables are certainly possible, but unless you explicitly show it in video, no one would know or cared if it existed. Whereas in writing, you could put that down in a few sentences and it gets the reader’s minds racing. That’s endless possibilities there.

When I write fiction, I’m looking for “THE GIMMICK”. It’s not just any common gimmick. It’s not like giving Peter Pan a goatee and a 12-inch-penis and Wendy is a high school slut. The very good gimmicks set a foundation for other gimmicks to thrive. A good gimmick is something that already exists and that everyone is already deeply familiar with. It doesn’t have to evoke positive or even negative emotions. It just exists.

For example, if I wanted to tell a mundane story about two snotty kids fighting over an ice cream cone, it’d be hard to convey to a reader why an ice cream cone is worth fighting for if they’ve never been exposed to the confection. Once the reader is alienated, it’s pretty hard to sell the gimmick. But make it about two snotty kids fighting for their parent’s affection, then we get somewhere. Even an orphan knows what a parent’s affection is, although lacking. So let’s say it’s a basic story about how these two snotty kids learned to stop fighting with each other.

In order to devise a gimmick to solve this plot device, a conflict, there needs to be some kind of deus ex machina, or Christian angel that swoops down and teaches these kids proper morals. And that’s putting it metaphorically. Usually, it’s some traumatic incident where they learn not to take each other for granted.

So I’m going to place this scene in a park or something. Someplace family-oriented. Someplace cliched. It’s winter time. The pond has frozen over. The two kids are with their mother and they only have one pair of ice skates. Them having only one pair of ice skates cue you in that they aren’t a wealthy family. However, being poor doesn’t necessarily make these kids the most well-mannered because their mother got them the ice skates. And in order to satisfy each child, she gave them one ice skate a piece. This would force the two children to take turns by giving up their skate so the other could use it.

Right there, I’ve established a little back story, filled you in on the central characters. You learn about their personalities and their motives. So from this point on, I could take this many directions. I could go The Good Son route and have a very evil bout between the two kids. I could go the Hallmark movie-of-the-week route and have a black angel come down in a nice winter coat and start throwing around cryptic teachings. I could have something very far-fetched happen like a Terminator coming through a portal to tell one of the kids that he might be The Chosen. Either way, whatever happens, it will propel the story so that the kids will learn their lesson.

If you kill one of the kids, the other one will grow up into some emo, depressed “thing”. Maybe that’s a different type of story. Look at “It’s a Beautiful Life”. If you kill the mother (and there isn’t a father in the picture), then now these two kids are forced to stick together if they aren’t separated when they get thrown into an orphanage. We can take that into deep, depressing places, or we can go the light-hearted route like Annie. So Imma take this one step-further and this is what I think makes my style unique.

Kill both the kids. They both fall into the icy pond while fighting for the skates and drown… AND… they find themselves having to stick together in some kind of purgatory or in Hell.

Isn’t that more interesting to read? Of course, it’s a story of redemption and forgiveness and all that good Hallmark stuff, but it’s also very compelling and controversial. Maybe, maybe not. In countries where kids suffer, there probably won’t be any major ironic redemption for the kids, but it’s still a modern convention not to put children in harm in storytelling. It’s just mean.

Anyway, the kids find themselves fighting through dark places, fighting off demons and other cursed demon-children, now having to match wits with evil. Maybe one of them is misguided and sells his soul to the devil thinking he could save his sibling, something like that. I mean, this stuff could probably write itself. But then again, if it could, I wouldn’t be writing it.

So, we take this a little further. The two kids fight their way through Hell and by the end, the readers, we, are rooting for them to step into the light (see, this is classic Christian imagery, if it works, we still use it) only to know that they aren’t going to make it. The two kids are beat, their souls doomed and damned for eternity.

So they make it to some climatic cliff overlooking Sauron and, holding hands, exhausted and defeated, they both close their eyes and collapse, dead.

So why the downer ending? Don’t you want them to learn a lesson? Why didn’t they defeat the devil and get forgiven and stuff? Well, that’s because the story isn’t finished. See, in Christian storytelling, when a person dies, they go only to Heaven or Hell. This is where we introduce story telling techniques from other cultures or religions. Another favorite source is that of Hinduism or even Buddhism. Let’s reincarnate these siblings.

After putting these siblings through tough trials and tribulations, they collapse, and see nothing but black. And in an instant, they see light. One after the other, surrounded by doctors and nurses. These two siblings have just been reborn, right from their mother’s womb. Twins. And the irony is that they’ve had an entire previous lifetime in their memories, having learned their lesson never to take their kinship for granted.

And their mother clutches them delicately, rocking the two newborns gently in her arms, cooing softly to them.

And this is where we throw in another wrench. You think it has a happy ending? No. As they say, it’s only the beginning. There has to be some kind of ironic imagery to wrap it all up. The mother opens up a gift box and inside is a pair of tiny ice skate booties. Unfortunately, the giver of the present wasn’t anticipating twins, so it’s only one pair of booties. The mother smirks, having a Hallmark moment, and simply puts a single booty on each twin.

See, that’s how you end that shit. It’s a happy ending, no doubt, but if you like time-travel or ironic, creepy stuff, there’s also that aspect of it too. A lesson to teach, now taught. Eat it, bitches. That’s how we do.