In The Beginning- New Project

I think it might be of interest to develop a script here. To do it in public, to do it so that people can see and maybe comment on the progress.

Before I start, be aware that I reserve all rights to the material posted here.  It would be lovely if someone were inspired, but I think we all know the difference between inspiration and theft*

Okay.

The idea I have in mind is... simple, and the generation of it was fairly typical, for me.

I was participating in a live play reading. One of the scripts involved a character being killed by another character. Which started me off thinking about death. Specifically, about how we prepare for death. Which led to me thinking about graves, and then grave digging.

And then- the idea. An image in my mind. A man, digging a grave.

That was it.  Not a lot of detail- a tired man, in T-shirt and jeans, quietly digging.

Who, where, why?

Actually, my first serious thinking about this wasn't developmental. It was... protective:

 Where have I seen this before?

The image was so strong, I was nervous that my mind was regurgitating something I'd seen or read. In a movie, in a script or story.  That I was about to start working on something that someone else had already done. It happens. It's happened to me. My junk file has a lot of little scraps that turned out to be me telling a story I'd already seen or read elsewhere. Saved in case I can come up with a decent variation that might allow me to use the idea with a clean conscience.

See earlier comments about inspiration versus theft.

So. I thought about all the places, movies, etc, where I might have encountered a man, digging a grave, as a distinct scene or image.

Holy sweet baby Jesus. There are lots of sources, or potential sources. Westerns, comedies, Kill Bill- which is sort of both- Star Trek... a couple of books specifically about people digging holes for unknown reasons.

The thing is... those are all similar images, similar concepts.

But... while they may use the same idea, the same starting point... it wasn't what I had in mind.  As I considered this stuff, I had a realisation.

The digging was not the point. The digging was not some odd metaphor for paranoia, or art project or what have you. He wasn't digging his own grave.

He was digging a grave for someone he intended to kill.

All of this happened, by the way, in the space between having the idea and driving home, Sunday afternoon.

Sunday night,  I decided that this unnamed man had been plotting to kill whoever for a long while. That he was now at the end of a lengthy plan- thank you Alexandre Dumas (Pere)- and that he was intending to kill his neighbour.

He'd tracked that person down, bought the neighbouring house, moved in and got friendly- the neighbour having no idea who he was.

And, as part of an extensive landscaping plan, he was actually digging the person- man or woman?- a grave.

So.

This was the end of the story, or very nearly.  All that was left was the killing.

What?

I should let this person escape? After whatever the hell- still unsure- he or she- still unsure- has done to our digger?

Late Sunday night, after waking up due to an incipient cold clogging my nose, I decided that I would avoid the temptation of starting at the end and flashing back. I had the end, but I needed to have a beginning. But-again- I really liked that digging scene. And I really wanted to start there.

So.

Either flashback or?

Or, in this case- tell the story backward. Well, mostly. Start with the grave, then go progressively backward, and then flash forward to the death.

That struck me as cool. More, as interesting. As a pretty neat stylistic, er, thing.

And, after the cold medicine kicked in... I abandoned decided against going quite that far.

Instead, I would be pure. Start with the actual, final murder, and in the next scene, start with the digging, and then with the decision that today was the day to finish off the neighbour, and then with the decision to- you get the idea.

At this point, I would normally have started writing. But... what?

This could be a play, a movie, or a short story of some kind.

And I have yet to decide which way to take the idea.

Which will probably be the next post.

*"Star Wars" An Original Story by George Lucas versus "Flash Gordon" An Original Story By George Lucas. Taking the bones of the idea is fine. Taking the meat on those bones will get you in trouble.