I'm having trouble deciding on the best environment into which a story written by a character would fit. The book takes place in a near future (advanced AI and smart house tech, but not terribly far from current gen.) The bigger difference between there and here is the recent viral apocalypse. So far as they know, everyone but the two characters is dead (except for some zombie-mutants, of course.) Neither remembers anything from before the first moment of the book, having injected themselves with an amnesia drug to forget the pain and loss of everyone they knew, including an infant son. The MC, the wife, finds out that she published a book a few years ago, and I'll be inserting snippets throughout the main story. The story within a story will mirror the backstory that won't otherwise be revealed until very late in the book. It's the sort of thing that could be placed anywhere in almost any genre. Here's the story: Briefly put, a young woman becomes pregnant by her controlling, rich lover. He moves her into his mansion. She has a miscarriage and enters a depression. He commits her to a care facility after a suicide attempt. During the depression, the psychiatric stay and especially after the move home, the two grow apart irreconcilably. She moves out and finds health and happiness, including a new boyfriend. The ex goes stalker, and eventually murders the couple (probably. I haven't outlined the ending yet.) I don't want the mini story set in the same reality as the main story. I'm looking for complete contrast here. What would be interesting? I'm leaning toward 1930's Los Angeles (the Hollywood ritz and film noir version,) but I wonder if something even more fantastical than the near future world of the book would be better, something high sci-fi with aliens or swords-and-orcs fantasy (would require some adjustments) or maybe something wild, like steampunk elves. What do you think? Any ideas? Thanks! P.S.: According to what I have written, it wasn't a big seller, so it doesn't have to be something with mass appeal as a stand-alone, just something that would be fun to read in this context. P.P.S.: I've left the poll open with no deadline and multiple choices, so pick more than one, if you like, but comments would be super helpful. Thanks again!
Set the inner story in 2019, and create suspicion in the reader that this inner story might be reality and the zombie tale the fiction.
I was going to say something similar. Set the story near the time of the main story so the reader thinks the mini-story is what really happened/what had to be erased. Unless the mini-story is true and relevant to the main story, I don't see the purpose of it anyway.
It's her fictionalized account of some of what was erased, so I don't want it to be too obvious from the beginning of either story. If I write it correctly, it will be a clue, not exposition. The mere inclusion will make most readers wonder if it's telling a version of the truth. The fact that it's a clue will, I'm sure, be obvious, but the farther away from their current reality, the better, I think. I mean up to a point, at least.
Actually this reminds me of "The French Lieutenant's Woman". I only saw the movie I did not read the book. The time periods were different but the purpose of the two stories was to mirror the actor couples' relationship.
Always '30s L.A. noir for me...with the caveat that psychological treatment in the "care" facility in the '30s would be vastly different than what we think of as "care". I'm also not entirely convinced that "just" (Jesus...) a suicide attempt would get someone shipped off to a care facility in the 1930s. She'd probably have to have a stark raving breakdown in public or, say, attack him with a knife she was going to use to slit her wrists or something. Frances Farmer might be a good model for "care" during that time period. So, your decision may rest with how much research you want to put in for a character's writing project.
I suggest setting your story-in-a-story in the world of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, because it is: incredibly well known from movies, so the imagery will come easy to the reader, and in the public domain (except for eight stories IIRC) so you can use everything in it, even the characters of Holmes, Watson, Irene Adler, Inspector Lestrade, the Baker Street Irregulars, and so on, and there would have been a market for MC's book Of course, this would work best if you yourself are a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
Psychological torture labeled as medicine would be one of my major motivators in either using 1930's America or medieval fantasy (except that I don't care for medieval fantasy.) This would also work in a THX-style dystopian sci-fi story. What I had in mind though, was more of a Bell Jar homage. The dude's rich, so it would be a legit facility. It shouldn't be a total nightmare, but those things would still improve the drama and serve as an allegory for the internal pain of depression. I don't know about getting locked up on her own, but I think in the '30's, parents and husbands could still have a woman committed for virtually no reason, right? Maybe not. This would be voluntary though.
Cool. Yes, in those days, they absolutely could. Reading about Frances Farmer can help there, too. Depending on the source, there's even some dispute about whether or not she started out mentally ill or was a rebellious person who had breakdowns after being committed. Either way, her story is tragic.
Oddly enough, I have read that Wikipedia page. I was reading about lobotomies a few years ago and followed the link. Previously, I had only known the name from the title of the Nirvana song "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle," so I didn't even know the apparently false rumor about her having an unnecessary lobotomy.
It's been a while since I read up on her, but according to one of the books I read, the studio was on her parents' side in committing her because the studio felt it would make her more compliant. Ironically I've never seen any of her movies. Methinks I'll look for some.
*************off topic I think it's sad that she had an abortion in 1925 of her first pregnancy and wasn't able to have children after it.
Hi Rzero great idea. For me the more "normal" the story would be, the more it would increase the strangeness of the situation they've been thrown into. Like you said, you want the contrast. I think I would be put off if the two stories are too far apart in genre and in time.... Tell us how it goes!