Happy Christmas

Or should I say Happy Kevmas?

(No I shouldn't really, I'm sorry)

I'm going to spending this week working the day job until Thursday. finishing off Christmas shopping, podcast editing and writing. I finished my medical drama short last Thursday so now I get to work on a "Whodunit" short which just seems very fun to create. I am trying to figure out if I should center the question around a murder, which is often the reason the question is asked, or should I do something different Maybe the question is "someone just bought Santa an extra gift....whodunit?" (This would be an elf focused short)

So that is what I'm working on over Christmas.

I also hope to get to watching Dune and the new Spiderman movie. Finish Hawkeye which I have finally gotten into after not really getting too invested during the first 2 episodes. Now I get why everyone has been pleased with it. Isn't Yelena very good? We might get started on The Witcher too. A friend loaned me The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt so I might start playing that. I liked season one of the show but as someone who had no prior knowledge of the story it was a little bit of a struggle at times following along. Still worth continuing to watch though.

For this blog, I might ramble on about thoughts of the medical drama short.

I think I created a potentially interesting world. It feels to me like the short is a little vague. I'm not sure would a reader think the same. I also am not really digging the title "Intrusive".

The story slightly deals with Intrusive Thoughts and how people suffer from them. I think it's such an interesting problem to suffer from. I think it's because it tricks the sufferer from believing only they have these awful thoughts (which must mean they are awful) when the truth is lots and lots and lots of people have the same awful thoughts but pass by them without attaching meaning to them. It's a pity for people who do suffer Intrusive Thoughts then because it's like a self inflicted wound on your own self-belief. (I say self inflicted but I actually believe it's not the person doing it to themselves)

So I started with the idea of centering the story around Intrusive Thoughts. Trying to cure someone of this. I thought it would be interesting (and scary) if someone who had the same telepathic abilities would suffer from this condition. As someone who might have these Intrusive Thoughts it must be extra scary if you have these popping into your head when your head is capable of causing damage and destruction.

With that, I created a character, Liz, who had telepathic abilities. I decided to place her in the early 20th century where this condition might not be understood so well. I originally thought about locating the short inside some sort of lunatic asylum and having the antagonists be the "carers" for Liz. I started looking up the Magdalene Laundries (which were/are/will always be a shame on Ireland).

I was happy to have "carers" for Liz to be the antagonists and I even liked the idea that they would be feeding her the WRONG information on treating the condition. "Information" like:

Pushing the thoughts away (That's not helpful)

A person wants to act on these thoughts (The opposite is true)

Engaging with the thoughts (they are involuntary and irrelevant to daily life)

My issue with making the carers the antagonists dishing out wrong advice though is that I had no clear idea how to get the right advice across. How do I help Liz. If she is a character stuck in this place then I don't think it would create much interest if she just disregarded their advice as stupid. Why then would she even be in there? She doesn't have any obstacle to overcome. She is a powerful telepath and is mentally stronger than them. I decided I needed another character to act as a protagonist. If you see the link above regarding the Magdalene Laundries you might notice a part which talks about the writer Halliday Sutherland.

I'm going to copy and paste here for all of our benefit

In 1955, while the abuse of inmates was still occurring, the English writer Halliday Sutherland was touring Ireland to collect material for his book Irish Journey. When he applied for permission to visit the Galway asylum, Michael Browne, the local bishop, reluctantly granted him access only on condition that he allow his account to be censored by the Mother Superior. The uncensored manuscript was discovered by Sutherland's grandson in 2013 and published in 2014.

I liked this idea of the writer getting inside the facility but having this anchor tied to them of being censored. So I created my writer character "Nelly" and sent her to the facility. I originally started in a drab grey room with Liz and her carers watching over her. I thought of images like Shutter Island or A Cure For Wellness but then I thought it might be more visually interesting to get out of these grey old buildings. They are good for the claustrophobic type of atmosphere but I thought, to show that Liz is stuck like a captive, I would try a different look.

I started the scene with her in a wide open field of long grass. She's outside. No bars or locked doors. But she does have her wrists tied together with rope. She has a sack over her head. She sits in the middle of the field on a wooden chair. Her two carers Andrew and Mary watching her and talking to her about the worrying thoughts that they had her write down.

The open field and later the office for Andrew make the setting seem like it's some Institute with a lot of land. It's not just an old building with narrow corridors. Nelly showed up and got her way into the institute but has Mary along to watch over her time there. This led to Mary and Nelly going on a walk with Liz who walked ahead of them on a lonely road.

Because I had set the location at the field it led to the walk on the road and the world became more detailed. Liz's feet were sore, injured. I had figured the cruel carers had forced her (and probably others) to walk torturous distances each day to "rid themselves of these thoughts". Every day up and down this lonely road for hours on end. With Mary Cotton the carer cycling.

This all ends with the story returning to the opening scene's location....that field. With Liz sat again with her wrists tied with rope and sack covering her head. Nelly now with Mary. Nelly counters the wrong advice by telling Liz that yes Intrusive Thoughts can give you worrying thoughts but evil thoughts doesn't equal evil actions and it is very normal for everyone to have these thoughts. You can accept them as irrelevant and try to move on.

The story ends with Nelly outsmarting Mary, knocking her out and helping Liz to escape. It is Christmas after all, I wasn't ending it on a downer.

I think the institute with it's vast open countryside property might be cool to revisit. It was set before World War One and I think it might be a nice medical drama / psychological thriller.

But for now...it's Whodunit and more importantly Christmas!

Thanks a lot for reading

Have a good holidays!

Festive Kevin