Some useful things along the way.

While researching into how to write fictional stories, and the idea generation, I thought to myself there has to be ‘an app for that’. So I checked on my phone to see what I could find, and not to my surprise there were loads! The apps range from aids to help you store your ideas and write and produce your novel, apps that would help generate ideas for stories by starting you with a random image, sentence or any similar triggers that would help the initial spark of writing a story. And one of my favourite ones I tried myself was a chain story, were someone would start you off with a snippet of a story, you got to see the last persons entry and the title plus genre of the story but nothing more. Each person is limited to 50 words per entry and in each entry you are given a random word that you have to fit into your addition to the chain. This was a really fun way to get some practice in to story writing, and also sparked ideas for new stories. The brilliant thing about is was that anyone around the world could participate no matter what their skill level. This is one example from a story I participated in:

Story Idea 1

While reading through some of the tales I researched I wrote down some story ideas I had for my own story. The first idea came from the tales of ‘Superstitious Mountain’, I thought the place itself would make an interesting setting for a fictional story.

My idea in short was to have a wanted criminal who is on the run because of his crimes, he comes across Superstition Mountain and makes his way into the jagged winding paths to find a safe place to settle. As he gets deeper into the maze-like paths of the mountain he encounters strange and inexpiable events. Eventually things become dangerous and life threatening and just as he is about to meet his fate, he realizes that he is no longer of the living realm and he has been reliving his final moments over and over again. Then the story will end as it began, a wanted criminal on the run, making his way into the ‘Superstition Mountain’.

As this is only a draft of the idea, aspects of the story need to be filled out in detail and the style of the animation considered still. Which I would like to experiment using some of the story writing methods I had researched earlier to do this.

Using aspects of the method from the ‘soviet structural folkloristics’ first I need to identify what the task/ problems my main character could possibly face on his journey before properly developing my main character. Considering his want and aim has already been identified as wanting to secure his future of freedom by finding a safe place to hide and possibly settle while he is being hunted by members of the law for his actions. I will need to create possible situations/ hindrances he could encounter which will lead him to his fate while trying to achieve his goal. I based all of the situations on the already known myths surrounding the mountain so it would not just be a random story.

Possible situations:

• Spirits of past criminals guide the character into dangerous territory.
• The spirit of the devil tempts the character with different things such as treasures, lowering him to his death.
• The mountain has the ability to change its paths and aspects, driving the character to insanity and eventually consumes him.
• The Pima Indians control the character and anyone who enters their territory using ancient magic, manipulating them to assist their own death so the Indians can protect their home.

The next thing would be to decide on which one of these options would be best, for this I asked numerous people to choose which options they thought were best, the two top answers were bullet point 3 and 4. As a personal preference I chose to go with bullet point 3.
Now this would make v= the mountain itself. And I can build on this theory the problems that my character will face.
• Changing paths.
• Optical illusions.
• Voices.
• Water supplies disappearing and re-appearing.
• Cracks in the mountain/ doorways appearing and then disappearing in no particular order.

Considering in my story, the ‘hero’ does not necessarily win or come out on top in his situation, I would need to reverse the equation. Pv= Ph+0.1 just this time.
Now I need to decide at what point in my story I could reveal certain information and what information needs to be hidden from the audience. If I was to write a basic list of events happening in order it should look like this:

• Character running through desert being chased by sheriff. (showing he is in trouble for something so is trying to escape).
• Finds entrance into mountains.
• Searches for settlement.
• See’s markings on wall.
• Spots a nearby water pool.
• Heads towards pool.
• On way notices same wall paintings from before and water pool is the same distance away. (Suggesting the paths change or he has been walking in circles).
• Decides to settle.
• Time passes and lack of food and water takes its affects. (to show the madness his mind is going through).
• Wakes beside cave entrance wonders into the cave.
• Finds skeleton of previous explorer.
• Cave opening closes.
• Realises the remains are his own and that he is actually dead. (Revealing plot).
• Story starts over again (man running through dessert. To show he is living his moments in repeat, like torture).