CRIKEY. I started this article ages ago. Anyway, it’s time… Spoilers if you’re going to read Road Rage, anyway.
Been having an emotionally ruff time meatspacewise, not feeling too inspired. But stay thy tongues, those who say we must bide our times until all is in readiness, that we must take it easy on ourselves. There is a time and place for that, and this is not that day. I am also feeling that press, that vibe that tomorrow is not guaranteed, and I want to have done as much as possible before I go. (edit to add 😭)
So I force myself to think about the story I’m going to try to write in July. Even tho the action is more GTA / The Transporter, the most direct inspiration is the Resident Evil IV remake that came out a few years ago. I didn’t play it. Frankly I’m no gamer and the play looked wearying to me. Too many shots to take out those zombies.
But watching other people play it was a good time. It probably helped that the action hero saving the girl was really nice to her, and their chaste relationship was kinda moving? I hear tell the original didn’t hit those notes as well. That’s not what inspired me the most, however.
RE4 Remake made the transition between main game play and segments with the merchant or the shooting gallery minigame seamless, which added a surreal element. One minute you’re saving the president’s daughter from endless armies of monsters, the next you’re trading loot with an amiable cockney, or shooting at wooden pirates while the first daughter cheers you on. How the hell did the merchant get to the secret island covered in machine gun turrets and lasers? Why is Ashley so chill with Leon taking time out to play games when they’re both dying from zombie worm infestation?
And for me, could this be used in a novel? What if a novel had minigames and cheerful NPCs in the depths of hell? There have been movies that incorporated video game ideas, the most notable being Hardcore Henry. Is a novel getting too far removed from the audio-visual media to make this work?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I’ll be trying to think through this venture in blog posts, like I did with Foothill Project. Goddamn that one had a lot of work for something without a single draft. This should be much simpler, but in a sense, more baroque things can get a pass for any one element being weak, so there’s more pressure for this to be tight as fuck, in its finished form. Right?
I’ll talk about characters here. It’s easy for me to get a visual of a character and just act out how I’d expect someone to act who looks like that. Inherently superficial. Or do one note characters, like almost everyone in Centennial Hills. There’s an idea characters should change over time, that this is essential for main characters. Tho I feel that’s not always needed – the maxim is overstated – it would probably make them more interesting to experience. How can I make my cardboard cutouts feel more deep? How can they evolve?
Leon Kennedy was fun, but completely unreasonable. Nobody is built like that without devoting their life to bodybuilding. That seems gay to me, which is cool, love the shirtless mod, but my mental image of an action hero is a lil more Bruce Willis than Jean-Claude. My guy has enough muscles to do some parkour and carry some bullets. Also less of a tool than Kennedy, who had that soldier fetish nonsense going on.
Thurston, no last name, because people remember their first names when they spawn in Hell but not the last. Doesn’t remember life but did show up with some talent for “extreme” sport, hinting at his carefree and casual former life. Learned quickly you have to be brave to help the people survive, and learned how to use guns and drive aggressively from his mentor Hard John. The other risk is getting too angry. If a heroic type gets genuinely furious during the endless violence, they might transform into a road rage demon. In this task – staying peaceful at heart – Thurston is a natural.
How can he change over time? The plot outline I had concludes (big spoiler) with him transcending the video game mechanics neo-style. Not 100% decided on what that means, but mostly there. But what about an emotional journey? Or is a spiritual journey enough? Nay. Should be some emotions in it all. I have him doing bisexual romantical stuff a lil bit… idk.
Dejah arrives in hell with panic, runs out into traffic. After respawning where she began that misadventure, she tries to play it cool, and learn how to live with this new circumstance. Would she have any thoughts on escaping to heaven? Returning to Earth? She might not be the main character, but she is the closest to the reader’s life experience. I should play that up, maybe.
I think in my original outline she only dies once. (I could double back on previous article to be sure but this is annoying enough to write as is.) Anyway, it would be more exciting if she gets close to three, but still feels the need to risk losing her last life. The culmination of a journey from total terror to total courage.
Ralph is my Luis stand-in, but how is he distinguished? I never watched Midnight Cowboy but clearly I picked up a lot of Ratso Rizzo from cultural osmosis, picturing that a lot. Young Hoffman and young Pacino had similar vibes going on, but of the two, Pacino was sexier. He aged worse, boy howdy, but that’s allowed in life. I’m just thinking about that young guy here…
Irrelevant sidebar here, I saw that Viggo Aragorn Mortensen was in Carlito’s Way, playing a pathetic loser who ends up wearing a wire and melting down in front of our mans. It’s funny to think, in storytelling conventions, main characters are allowed dignity, and anyone else can end up supremely humiliated. After he got to play the king, no more humiliations.
Thinking about movie humiliations, the king of that has to be Sean Bean in Ronin. U kno tf I’m talkin’ about, omg. In those yt compilations of times Sean Bean died in movies, they should include that one. He didn’t die, but his character was assassinated.
That got me considering that the embarrassing loser is a fun thing to have in a story. I don’t remember much of anything after that scene in Ronin. Jean Reno was acting subtly worshipful of a previous generation’s macho man, Natascha McElhone had some unfortunate make-out session to do, Jonathan Pryce was an unlikable creep. They wanted to make it look like a car was burning rubber and used an egregious fake smoke effect. I’m like, bring back Sean Bean, and slap him around some more!
I can’t see Thurston slapping Ralph around. Gotta be some other ways for him to look charmingly weak… As for how he can change over the story, still no strong ideas.
Ooh just had an idea. While Thurston is figuring a path out of hell toward heaven, Ralph is farther down the path of transcendence – but he’s going a different direction with it. Toward becoming like The Merchant? When they have their big scene late in the story, Ralph gives Thurston a hint that helps him along his path.
Realizing I’m going to have to drill down the plot more, with crisscrossing arcs of action, to keep the momentum going. (the first of july is upon me and i still haven’t)
Glossy the Doggo is inspired by video games, anime, etc. having cute animals sidekicks, and by the stock transgressive take on innocent material joke they did in a Venture Brothers episode penned by Ben Edlund – specifically the Shaggy stand-in hallucinating the Scooby stand-in talking to him like the Son of Sam. “You are the Sword of Michael, Sonny!” -that kinda shit.
So funky little dog hangs out with Thurston and occasionally says stuff like… I’d originally described it as non-sequitur blasphemy, but it would be good to come up with a pattern to it. Something better than “lolrandom.” Certainly this could be a static character, so I’ll focus on this for him. Her? Sure.
That would be funny if her voice was sultry succubus style, coming out of a homely dog. She shouldn’t make too much sense. I wonder… Asked my husband and he said maybe some legalistic attitude about rules of the road, like Mr. Eddy in Lost Highway, since we’re in vehicular hell. …Yeah, maybe that could work. Like, Glossy tells Thurston when he breaks the rules of the road, and the punishments the cops will mete out if he’s captured. “You crossed the double yellow line, Thurston. This is punishable by fifty years of evisceration.”
I also had an idea she talks about what’s going on in mechanical metaphors, something like, gigerish hell imagery… Not sure. Whatever.
Hard John transforms before the story begins. Guess I’ll have to include flashbacks. He was the original best hero of the nice hell-people, but raged too much and became a demon – specifically a traffic cop. All the demons instinctively know their job and place in the infernal hierarchy. Wake up in your newly assigned home. Was the home born when he was? Go to work. Clock in at the cop shop, then set out on your motorcycle to corral the ragers – guns blazing.
How did it happen? I think he had a not-quite-correct idea of what turns you into a demon, didn’t realize his anger was the issue, so he was teaching Thurston wrong. Let’s say John thought the problem was losing control of yourself, but he was allowing himself to be mad as hell on the inside. Over time Thurston figures out that he can never turn cop because it’s about anger, and he just isn’t an angry guy.
I had an idea that when you become a demon you get your surname back. John become Officer Suchnsuch. Maybe Thurston knows this, and when he starts to remember some things about his life, he fears he’s turning into a rage demon. Turns out this also happens when you’re on a path to transcendence.
The Merchant is some inconsequential trans representation. Hello. As an NPC, she’s inherently static. on the other hand, revelation she’s more than a list of exhaustible dialogue options could be a fun late stage surprise.
What does it mean to be an NPC in hell? Not a demon, not an angel, just trading hell money for guns and such? Maybe that’s what transcendence will look like for Ralph. Is there room for more than one merchant in hell? Will she get replaced by him? If anything I might raise the possibility, then pull back and say nvm. Usually in RPGs there’s more than one vendor, even if there wasn’t in RE.
Anyway, when I get this thing started, it’ll just be a day in a demon’s life. I have the rough plot outline of that but fucken zero particulars developed. This might not be pure pantsing, but it’s more close than I’m usually comfortable with. Excelsior!
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