David Bowie released a single from his Earthling record called "I'm Afraid Of Americans". He made a video for it, which was amazing. Poor David was getting chased by a menacing Trent Reznor in the streets of New York in a 300-style slow motion. The song was merely about a perception issue from a British fellow of the exhuberence of the American people, distorted into a nightmare that would have made Philip K. Dick proud. In his quiet and amusing way, Dom and Nic, the directors extraordinaire (which also made the great Setting Sun for The Chemical Brothers) heightened the inner fears of an individual to the point of swallowing his reality. Hell, it takes skills to do that. I use to enjoy watching that video. Now, every time I see it I get jealous.
The thing about problems and perceptions is that no one cares about them if it's not their own. Isolation, alienation and suicide rate are pertinent issues as common folk get walled up in their common problems and then despair becomes common. Isn't it horrible? There's no way of being desperate to the eye of the other without yelling it to the top of your lungs when you're about to throw yourself off a roof? That's the piece of engineering I didn't put up yet. I understand its importance in a well-oiled storytelling machine, but I'm still hesitating in two ways of application. Here's my dilemma:
1) Sprawling Issues
That's the technique I used to inject life into Solace. The issues that gnaw away at Charles' inner self are the same that turn his small town into a suffocating and paranoid hellhole. Everybody is scared and doubtful of his neighbor. Charles is the focal center of the issue (like in a photo or a painting), but the problem is the complete picture, not him.
I call that "sprawling issue" because it starts around the character and it leaks around like the water, filling a bath tub. It starts small, but it's sprawling, creeping, leaking into every hole it can and therefore creates the suffocating atmosphere. This technique works pretty well and to some extent you can't escape it. With Solace, I played this card to a maximum.
2. Universal Issues
This is a multifaceted techniques. There are as much facets that there are problems and people in the world. The trick lies in linking them together. That's how guys like F. Scott Fitzgerald processed and it's ultimately what I want to do. Before I turn Solace in for query, I want to give it a little more universality.
How does a situation affects someone? It's personal to every people I agree, but to give a realistic/gut-wrenching portrait, you need a lively character. You need someone with experiences and issue whom everybody can relate with. Then, when lightning will strike over his life, you'll feel it. The most skilled writers make the sound of their voices resonate within their readers. Therein lies the difference in between gifted storytellers and gifted writers.
People say happiness isn't a place, but a journey. I guess I found the longest journey I could. And it's a thousand feet in the air, walking on a wooden beam over an ocean filled with sharks. When I told you I was a complex guys and that growing daisies didn't entertain me, I didn't lie.
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