More story ideas
I need to record several story ideas that have been floating around in my head, and which I've mused on and developed from time to time.
Story about as-yet-unnamed young man (based on a true person I heard about from my cousins Mayer and Hellen Jeppson). He is in his early 20's, highly athletic, daring. Participates in extreme sporting events, and is an agressive snowboarder. He has competed in and won prizes at various sporting events. He is a pretty good student at a good university, but not too interested in academics -- more interested in campus life. His fiancee is by society's standards considered extremely attractive.
During a typical snowboarding (or possibly other extreme sport) outing, he attempts an extremely awkward jump/stunt and falls a great distance. He is knocked unconscious, and he obviously has broken bones -- his body is twisted oddly. He awakes in the hospital several days later having pulled out of a coma. He has a few broken bones, but worse, his brain suffered severe trauma and weakened bloodflow in some portions of it. As a result, although he is completely cognitive and retains perfect reasoning, thinking, and memory, he has nevertheless lost about 95% of his volutary motor skills. Heart, lung, and other organ functions are fine. The only motor skills that remain are mostly in his face and neck. However, he only has complete, unrestrictive control of his eyes and eyelids. With tremendous struggle, he can open and close his mouth, swallow food, move his neck and head from side to side. He cannot move his arms, hands, fingers, legs, toes -- nothing below the neck. He cannot speak much at all because he has such limited control of his vocal chords -- mostly all he can produce are odd sounds, like those that are typical of the severly mentally handicapped.
In lieu of speaking (which he is unable to do outside of moans and grunts, and unintelligible babble), he is fitted with an "eye-reading" system. If such a system exists, I don't know, but I'm sure it can be a reality with today's technology. Essentially, I imagine that it's a contraption that beams a low-power light which, when looking directly at it, can detect eye-blinking motions in either or both eyes. It then "translates" eye blinkings into letters and numbers, which become displayed in large text on a flatscreen monitor. He learns how to "type" on this contraption -- thus becoming adept at communicating at a relatively quick speed. He'll look into the beam, blink one eye, the other eye, or both eyes, and text will begin typing across the screen. If this is not a real device, I should patent this idea! :-)
I have the entire story arc in my head. I also have developed several critical characters in the story, and some smaller characters.
I want the story to begin after the accident occurs and when he first comes-to in the hospital. We learn of his athleticism and the life he no longer can enjoy through glimpses of videos he and his friends took of each other, through some flashback sequences (with a story about a guy stuck in a hospital, you better believe there's going to be many flashbacks), a few dream/daydream sequences, and through his interactions with other characters.
The theme of the story goes very deep. It will be a combination of challenge and redemption. One part of the "challenge" is obvious -- he must work hard at rehabilitation to regain function throughout his body. But the other part of his "challenge" comes first: the intense struggle of acceptance of his new state of being. This is probably the biggest challenge for him -- to stop wallowing in self-pity, to stop thinking about how great his life would be if the accident didn't happen, to stop blaming everyone but himself for his new condition, to stop lashing out at his loved ones (and everyone else for that matter) out of jealousy that they can move and be free, and, most important of all, to stop hating himself -- hating his imprisoned condition -- to stop seeing it as hopeless, and truly as what it really is: a new opportunity and a new challenge -- one that is potentially far more rewarding than any of the juvenile activities/stunts he was involved in before.
The other primary characters that are most relevant in the story are: mother, father, fiancee, and his afternoon caretaker. His afternoon caretaker is a sweet young woman about his age. She is naturally optimistic and funny. She is about 40 pounds over her frame's ideal weight. She is not ugly, but not great looking either -- it's her natually sunny and humoristically pragmatic personality that makes her attractive. She flirts and jokes with the main character often, but he never jokes back -- during the first stage of his challenge he finds her incredibly annoying, very unattractive, and "beneath" him, or "out-of-his-league", as compared to who he was before the accident (especially considering that both he and his fiancee are among what the Beatles refer to as "the beautiful people" in their song "Baby, You're a Rich Man.") He often lashes out at her in frustration, and attempts to ridicule her and bring her spirits down to build himself up, but it does not bother her most of the time -- she has a good amount of self-confidence despite that she is physically "under-par."
Over the first 6 months in this condition, most of his "friends" visit him less and less often. His fiancee is the only one who visits him regularly -- but that goes from daily, to three days a week, to weekly. By the six-month mark, it's painfully obvious that her visits are merely out of pity and not out of love nor devotion. Her mannerism and tone suggests that she's seeing someone else and keeping it secret from him. He's always so happy to see her (her visits being the only thing that lightens his gloomy mood), that he remains oblivious to these red flags. His caretaker, however, sees right through her facade of sweetness. After one visit, his caretaker watches her leave -- her new beau dutifully waits for her in the hospital lobby until her visit with her disabled "fiancee" is over, then they leave together, both feeling so generous, as if they're such wonderful saints and feeling like they're "doing good".
When the caretaker gently tries to inform our protagonist about this, he lashes out at her -- becomes more embittered towards her. On their next visit, the caretaker decides to go out and visit with this new beau out in the lobby. Afterwards, she sneaks a photo of him, and also a photo of the two of them leaving -- holding hands and laughing as they leave -- about to go out and have a great time. She shows the images to our protagonist -- not out of spite or revenge or to gleefully cause him further suffering, but because she feels it's time for him to face reality -- without which, he cannot accept his condition and get moving on the road to recovery.
Upon his fiancee's next visit, he questions her sincerity with him -- whether she's seeing someone else ("No -- how could you think that?"), whether she truly loves him ("Of course, sweety"), whether she accepts him in this new state ("I know you'll get better -- I have faith in you").
Then he confronts her with the caretaker's photos.
At first her body expressions are of anger, as in "Who the hell took these?!?" But then she melts in shame, hides her face from him. Their relationship ends abruptly, and badly, and sends the protagonist further into anger and self-pity.
The sentiments of the caretaker towards the protag are further supported by the protagonist's mother, who is loving, but pragmatic and sober and does not mince words. She is tough on her son, scolding him for wasting over 6 months with no progress in recovery. He retorts that he learned how to "type 30 wpm with his eyes" and that should be good enough -- is that not progress?? His mother was impressed with this feat 3 months ago -- her kudos have run out -- time to make better, more meaningful progress. He only engages in his therapy half-heartedly, thus making almost no progress. He wastes so much time watching TV, sports, listening to loud, nilihistic music.
......
I'll have to touch back on this story at another time. There's much more to get out -- what I've written above is pretty much Act I of the entire story. Acts II and III are in my head and I will write them out later.
Story about as-yet-unnamed young man (based on a true person I heard about from my cousins Mayer and Hellen Jeppson). He is in his early 20's, highly athletic, daring. Participates in extreme sporting events, and is an agressive snowboarder. He has competed in and won prizes at various sporting events. He is a pretty good student at a good university, but not too interested in academics -- more interested in campus life. His fiancee is by society's standards considered extremely attractive.
During a typical snowboarding (or possibly other extreme sport) outing, he attempts an extremely awkward jump/stunt and falls a great distance. He is knocked unconscious, and he obviously has broken bones -- his body is twisted oddly. He awakes in the hospital several days later having pulled out of a coma. He has a few broken bones, but worse, his brain suffered severe trauma and weakened bloodflow in some portions of it. As a result, although he is completely cognitive and retains perfect reasoning, thinking, and memory, he has nevertheless lost about 95% of his volutary motor skills. Heart, lung, and other organ functions are fine. The only motor skills that remain are mostly in his face and neck. However, he only has complete, unrestrictive control of his eyes and eyelids. With tremendous struggle, he can open and close his mouth, swallow food, move his neck and head from side to side. He cannot move his arms, hands, fingers, legs, toes -- nothing below the neck. He cannot speak much at all because he has such limited control of his vocal chords -- mostly all he can produce are odd sounds, like those that are typical of the severly mentally handicapped.
In lieu of speaking (which he is unable to do outside of moans and grunts, and unintelligible babble), he is fitted with an "eye-reading" system. If such a system exists, I don't know, but I'm sure it can be a reality with today's technology. Essentially, I imagine that it's a contraption that beams a low-power light which, when looking directly at it, can detect eye-blinking motions in either or both eyes. It then "translates" eye blinkings into letters and numbers, which become displayed in large text on a flatscreen monitor. He learns how to "type" on this contraption -- thus becoming adept at communicating at a relatively quick speed. He'll look into the beam, blink one eye, the other eye, or both eyes, and text will begin typing across the screen. If this is not a real device, I should patent this idea! :-)
I have the entire story arc in my head. I also have developed several critical characters in the story, and some smaller characters.
I want the story to begin after the accident occurs and when he first comes-to in the hospital. We learn of his athleticism and the life he no longer can enjoy through glimpses of videos he and his friends took of each other, through some flashback sequences (with a story about a guy stuck in a hospital, you better believe there's going to be many flashbacks), a few dream/daydream sequences, and through his interactions with other characters.
The theme of the story goes very deep. It will be a combination of challenge and redemption. One part of the "challenge" is obvious -- he must work hard at rehabilitation to regain function throughout his body. But the other part of his "challenge" comes first: the intense struggle of acceptance of his new state of being. This is probably the biggest challenge for him -- to stop wallowing in self-pity, to stop thinking about how great his life would be if the accident didn't happen, to stop blaming everyone but himself for his new condition, to stop lashing out at his loved ones (and everyone else for that matter) out of jealousy that they can move and be free, and, most important of all, to stop hating himself -- hating his imprisoned condition -- to stop seeing it as hopeless, and truly as what it really is: a new opportunity and a new challenge -- one that is potentially far more rewarding than any of the juvenile activities/stunts he was involved in before.
The other primary characters that are most relevant in the story are: mother, father, fiancee, and his afternoon caretaker. His afternoon caretaker is a sweet young woman about his age. She is naturally optimistic and funny. She is about 40 pounds over her frame's ideal weight. She is not ugly, but not great looking either -- it's her natually sunny and humoristically pragmatic personality that makes her attractive. She flirts and jokes with the main character often, but he never jokes back -- during the first stage of his challenge he finds her incredibly annoying, very unattractive, and "beneath" him, or "out-of-his-league", as compared to who he was before the accident (especially considering that both he and his fiancee are among what the Beatles refer to as "the beautiful people" in their song "Baby, You're a Rich Man.") He often lashes out at her in frustration, and attempts to ridicule her and bring her spirits down to build himself up, but it does not bother her most of the time -- she has a good amount of self-confidence despite that she is physically "under-par."
Over the first 6 months in this condition, most of his "friends" visit him less and less often. His fiancee is the only one who visits him regularly -- but that goes from daily, to three days a week, to weekly. By the six-month mark, it's painfully obvious that her visits are merely out of pity and not out of love nor devotion. Her mannerism and tone suggests that she's seeing someone else and keeping it secret from him. He's always so happy to see her (her visits being the only thing that lightens his gloomy mood), that he remains oblivious to these red flags. His caretaker, however, sees right through her facade of sweetness. After one visit, his caretaker watches her leave -- her new beau dutifully waits for her in the hospital lobby until her visit with her disabled "fiancee" is over, then they leave together, both feeling so generous, as if they're such wonderful saints and feeling like they're "doing good".
When the caretaker gently tries to inform our protagonist about this, he lashes out at her -- becomes more embittered towards her. On their next visit, the caretaker decides to go out and visit with this new beau out in the lobby. Afterwards, she sneaks a photo of him, and also a photo of the two of them leaving -- holding hands and laughing as they leave -- about to go out and have a great time. She shows the images to our protagonist -- not out of spite or revenge or to gleefully cause him further suffering, but because she feels it's time for him to face reality -- without which, he cannot accept his condition and get moving on the road to recovery.
Upon his fiancee's next visit, he questions her sincerity with him -- whether she's seeing someone else ("No -- how could you think that?"), whether she truly loves him ("Of course, sweety"), whether she accepts him in this new state ("I know you'll get better -- I have faith in you").
Then he confronts her with the caretaker's photos.
At first her body expressions are of anger, as in "Who the hell took these?!?" But then she melts in shame, hides her face from him. Their relationship ends abruptly, and badly, and sends the protagonist further into anger and self-pity.
The sentiments of the caretaker towards the protag are further supported by the protagonist's mother, who is loving, but pragmatic and sober and does not mince words. She is tough on her son, scolding him for wasting over 6 months with no progress in recovery. He retorts that he learned how to "type 30 wpm with his eyes" and that should be good enough -- is that not progress?? His mother was impressed with this feat 3 months ago -- her kudos have run out -- time to make better, more meaningful progress. He only engages in his therapy half-heartedly, thus making almost no progress. He wastes so much time watching TV, sports, listening to loud, nilihistic music.
......
I'll have to touch back on this story at another time. There's much more to get out -- what I've written above is pretty much Act I of the entire story. Acts II and III are in my head and I will write them out later.
posted by Christian at 8:00 AM
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