Brainstorming Babies
You know how every Simpsons episode starts out pretending to be one story, but about halfway through turns around to actually be a completely different story? Mr. Burns is fined for dumping toxic waste, so he tries to spend his fine money to repair Main Street. Halfway through, the story turns out to be about the rescue of people who are trapped on a runaway monorail (There’s no possible way that the second half of this episode was inspired by the poorly written, but incredibly Keanu-muscled and therefore surprisingly repeat-watchable movie “Speed.”). In another episode, Homer doesn’t want to have to participate in the plant’s newest exercise program, so he gains a bunch of wait intentionally in order to be able to qualify as disabled and work from home. Again, about halfway through, the episode becomes a race against the clock to avoid a nuclear plant meltdown. In the very first season, Lisa is depressed and befriends an old jazz saxophone player. Later, Homer and Bart compete against each other in a video game to see which is best. I call this the Simpson’s Twist. What you think the episode is about, is not actually what the episode is about. It’s like using a two-for-one coupon at the grocery store- if coupons were still a thing. I mean, I guess they are, but they’re now those stupid digital coupons that you can’t ever get to work, so you never really get the discount, but the stores know this is the case and that no one will bother to go to the effort to fight the broken coupon system, so they make all of this extra money off of people who either think they’re getting a sale price but aren’t, and the people who realize the system has failed them but they can’t be bothered to fight it and pay the extra money anyway. But I digress…
This week has been like a Simpsons episode for me. I’ve been working for a while on my YA fantasy dragon novel, but hit a hard wall of writer’s block. I knew the beginning part. I knew the end part, I knew most of the bits in between. I knew the characters and what I wanted them to do and how I wanted them to grow. I knew a ton of stuff. There were just two little bits that were question marks for me, and I had arrived at the first one in my drafting. So, what did I do? I called my adult child up out of the basement for a brainstorming session. What is the Simpson’s twist in my story? The result of this brainstorming session, and the three that followed in the next several days, is tantamount to a woman going into labor expecting one baby, but in the end popping out triplets. My book has now become a trilogy. Yikes! Now I have to go out and buy three of everything, and can you imagine the cost of the diapers?!
Though I’m completely daunted by the idea of committing to three books when I thought there was only one, I am more excited about the story now than I have been about anything else I’ve written in years and years and years. What was the midpoint of the one novel is now the ending of the first. What had been the ending of the original is now the ending of the second, and there’s another level of conflict that will rear its fully illuminated head at the end of that second book that will have to be dealt with in the third book. I’ve outlined the first two almost completely, and can’t wait to outline the third. But first, I’m on to draft the rest of book one, which is about halfway finished at right around 50,000 words. Having a built-in sounding board son is amazing! I recommend everyone get one. Five-star review! Would buy again.