Story Philosophies

Backstory is overlooked way too often in fiction writing. For Aleria, the alternate reality cartoon series I’m developing, it has been a major challenge to provide a reasonable foundation for every character, action, setting and plot arc. Its more than just coming up with interesting backstories for characters and places. When you’re writing fiction, you’ve got to thoroughly understand the philosophical point of view of your characters and settings. And if your fiction invents new creatures, places or things, the word to really do this justice is PURPOSE. Here is where I went today as I thought about the reality of the universe Aleria is a part of. This is entirely off-the-cuff and is merely a brainstorming tool to develop deeper plots and settings.

Who is God to these people? Who is God to the ‘gods’ of Aleria, who have created all living things on the planet Gaul? Would these gods need or seek a God? Eventually it will all perish and there should be something else. That’s what the Aquitani sought out. There should be a supreme creator. Because that’s what honest and reasoning beings seek. Why live forever though? How can I understand this perspective? There needs to be some great resting place where all living things exist forever. Doing what though? Am I restricting my understanding to a human perspective? The idea of time is crucial to this problem. What I need to do is ‘feel’ the eternal in order to understand it.

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When you’ve got writer’s block…be stupid.

Prompt: Time

Clock, watch, time telling device, waiting, rushing, stressed, wasting, watching, holding, feeling, unleashing, tracking, stopping, understanding, managing…

Can one wash time? Does it get old? Does it get dirty? Is time a person, being, condition or setting? Is time a physical place? Is it an object? Is it quantifiable? Is time a beast? If time were a beast, would it be a carnivore or herbivore? Would it hunt or forage? What would be the effects of its hunting? Would time need to hibernate? What happens when it sleeps? Can time travel through space? Does it use mass transit? Is it eco-friendly? Where else does time go?

Time goes to the sports bars on Thursday nights because that’s the new Friday and Friday’s the new Saturday and Saturdays the new day of rest. But he takes the bus because he doesn’t have money for carbon credits. Time likes to hang out with his pals on Thursday because his beatches won’t bother him when he’s with the crew and they’re all beasts anyways who eat whatever is around when they get hungry. So the beatches don’t bother him on Thursdays and he like Killians because its red. And on Friday he knits to get action from the gorgons.

Does time have a girlfriend? Some being who is in the same time gentrificus classification? No, after-all, have you ever heard of a beast that was a girl? Of course not, wooly mammoths are the only girls around here and they died millions of years ago along with the cockroaches and the faeries. So, time is an eco-friendly boy without a girlfriend because all the wooly mammoths died a long time ago and there’s no use lingering on the past. Time has to live in the present. Didn’t you hear, there’s no time like the present? And it’s Valentine’s Day and Time won’t get a present from his girlfriend because she died shivering in her massive knickers a long time ago. Poor girl.

Imagine the possibilities

Staring back when we stare up,
Stars store hope that the truly great things
Have yet to come.

NOTE: pretty words from a pretty boy are positively pointless