I want to write several fictional vignettes about six or seven people and how they are all inter-related. Not family related, related otherwise. How do I create tension with this? I've really wanted to do this but can't seem to bring it together. It feels way over my head and extremely overwhelming project. How can people be related to each other outside of family? I can think of : co-worker, friend, internet, random meet, clubs, public meetings, coffee shops, ? I need a push or direction. Not sure how to even start. Do I develop 7 deep characters and give them all the same little thread or different threads that connect them? Thanks.
You could have them connected by an event - Like Enduring Love - the balloon accident, or Twin Peaks - the death of Laura Palmer. You could have them connected by setting - coffee shop - ala Seinfeld, or town - Peyton Place. You could have them connected by something peculiar - They all own pugs and go to a pug run, or they all have birthdays on the same day, or they all volunteer at a sperm bank. The tension could be in what you want to do with the story. Is it sci-fi, dramatic, a crime that must be solved? Maybe choose a genre first.
A lot of films do this, such as Love Actually or Babel. Maybe not exactly in the way you're thinking, but something related to it. Perhaps that's a way to start?
Something they've done? Either something good ...or something bad? Or something they're ashamed of? Maybe how each of them deals with it? Have you ever read Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey? It's a story about a bridge that collapses, killing everybody on it. And the story follows each person (there were 5 or 6, if memory serves me right) through their life, leading to the moment they are all on the bridge at the same time. And it all makes sense...
I don't write genre. I write fictional vignettes. Rather everyday slice of life, more on the side of the mundane. I want the story to be about discovering each other.
Good ideas. These ideas got me thinkin' a bit more... Maybe they have all been victims of human trafficking at one point in their lives.
Maybe they meet in church. Or there's a traffic accident and those involved are suing each other, and they meet in court (there's automatic tension there!). Maybe they're involved in political campaigns against each other (I'm thinking on a local level). Maybe they're parents of kids who got in a fight at school. Or they meet at their kids' basketball games. Maybe they meet at the local food bank, either as volunteers or as people in need. Many, many possibilities!
Hmmm - this is the only way I can think of to illustrate this: Me to Keanu Reeves in Six Degrees ... 1. Me 2. Jenny - this is my editor and very good friend. She's British but was brought up in Canada before moving back to the UK about 7 years ago. 3. Jenny has a sister called Georgina, Georgina still lives in Canada and has two grown up children, one of them is an actor called Kevin. 4. Kevin acted in a film alongside Stephen Amell. 5. Stephen Amell plays the character of Oliver Queen AKA The Arrow, AKA The Green Arrow on TV, the Green Arrow is originally a character from DC Comics. 6. Keanu Reeves played the character Constantine in the movie version, Constantine is a DC Comics characters. Apart from the names Jenny, Kevin and Georgina (changed because it's their private lives) every word above is true. Me to Keanu Reeves in six degrees of separation.
That sounds like an interesting book, but these days I am wary of dark themes and tragedies - somehow I feel these things hit me much harder these days and they leave me feeling rather disturbed Pity really cus it sounds like a book I'd like to read.
I bought the kindle of the book. Looks good. I do hear you about tragedies, etc. I too have to be careful. I like to write hopeful/happy stuff but it's so easy to go dark. I find that a rather disturbing insight about myself since I started to write. *** I like this example. I like how you spun off with #3 some questions though: Georgina is #3, then wouldn't her son Kevin be #4? and then in 5, you state that the Green Arrow is a character from the DC Comics. Wouldn't that be another number? Because the connection is through the DC Comics character in which Keanu Reeves played one of the characters. *** I'm starting to see the difficulty lies not really in the connection themselves but to fill in the connection with story/events that tie it all together. Otherwise we all could write it just like you did; in a list. I think it needs to start that way then I need to flesh each section out more and more. This could even work as a diary type of story or even twitter story. Little bits here and there.
Technically, I could have missed Georgina out and gone from me to my editor to her nephew to his co-star to the dc comics connection ...
But it just shows how you can have that connection to someone on the other side of the world. Jenny took a trip over to Canada over the Christmas holidays where she got together with her parents, Georgina, her two kids and their respective partners. Being a bit of a techie, she took her ipad and facetimed me late one night so that she could show me around the house they'd rented for the two week stay. I got to meet everyone (face to face on screen) which included a quick chat with Kevin. I couldn't help but think "OMG! I'm talking to Kevin who was in that film with Stephen Amell, I'm starstruck!" LOL
Reminds me of an accident I got "involved" in a few years back. I'm driving down a dual carriageway, minding my own. Up ahead, coming down the slip road to join us is a guy going like a bat out of hell. He goes straight on into the inside lane, and then straight across to the outside lane, shunting a small van into the central barrier. When I stop to give aid if required, the "bat out of hell" comes up to me and tries to persuade me he'd done nothing wrong. Fortunately, the van driver isn't seriously hurt, so I just give my details to the police. Next thing I know, I get a letter from the van driver's insurance holding me responsible for the accident!
