Saturday, February 27, 2010

Day 14: Most novels are written to a formula

...a formula to structure the story. The guide offers the example: there should be a hero and a villain, both are experts (thus the tension). The hero leads a team, and some members of the team must fall in love, and some must die. The most interesting one: "If you get bogged down, just kill somebody."

Today almost all day I thought and thought about what I'm going to write. I thought about many possibilities, but they all seemed...distant. I just don't really care about them.

But then I recall some interesting people I've known long ago:

A little girl I knew while I was a little kid, who always insisted me sitting right in front of her, watching her peeing on the street;

A nice girl who after being dumped twice, pursued a boy who was "under her league," successfully married him, and at the same time became a real bitch;

A boy who pursued a young girl w/ all his heart and mind--until the girl got lupus, went through treatments, and got swelling "moon-face"...

And I knew the girl w/ lupus had a feeling for me. But that was at the time the boy was pursuing her, and I really just saw her as my sister... very sadly, she suddenly died from complications at her early 20s.

A rich young man who changed girlfriends/fiancees faster than changing clothes--really, he intensely pursued every girl he thought was worthwhile: same strategy, same approach, same techniques; then after the girl was hooked/engaged, dumped her out of the blue w/out reasons, leaving that girl shocked to the core;

An over-protective older brother who bawled at every single man dared to come close to his younger sister, shielded away every possible "threat" (to whom?);

....

I might as well mingle those people together and see what will happen.

The formula? Some fall in love, some hearts broken, some betray the others, some affairs... if I got stuck, then more betrayals...

86 more days to go.

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