Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration
(quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind.
These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat,
irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if
anything comes of them. Regarding
Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an
ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows
the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity.
Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of
ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa
McPhail.
Fantasy Trope:
Chupacabra http://hannahheath-writer.blogspot.com/2017/01/epic-underused-mythical-creatures-for-fantasy-stories.html
Mary
Olson-Kensington squatted down beside the spot, examining the gravel and
asphalt with a large magnifying glass.
“You look like a
fool,” said Abbas Farah, “and a living cliché.”
Mary looked up at
him and made a face, “Just because something’s cliché doesn’t mean it’s not
legitimate.”
Abbas grunted and
squatted beside her. “Fine then, what do you see?”
“Residue.”
Abbas spit into
the ditch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Without moving the
glass, she turned to him. “You think this is a Sherlock Holmes toy?” He leaned
back, suddenly wary, nodding slowly. “Like with you, I don’t just see that zit
to the left side of your nose you’re trying to hide, I see…not what you’re
thinking exactly, or even what you’re feeling…I can see something both more and
less…”
“You’re talking like
you’re crazy! There’s nothing outside of reality! I’m real, and that dead thing
in the road was real, too!”
She nodded then
swung the lens back around, looking at the road. “I can see strangeness here.
Something natural and unnatural as well.” She looked up at him. “You ever hear
about a Chupacabra showed up as roadkill in Mankato about twenty years ago?”
“I couldn’t – I was
wasn’t born yet. Neither were you!”
“I know, but Dad
told me about it when I was doing a science report on cryptids. It was killed
near here.”
“That was twenty years ago! There won’t be anything left of it!”
“That was twenty years ago! There won’t be anything left of it!”
“Not of its body,
but DNA traces can remain, and anything supernatural leaves a resonance echo.
That’s what the magnifying glass does. I can see resonances.”
Abbas shrugged, “How’s
that help?”
“We need a
Chupacabra on our side!”
“This one was
dead! How’s that…”
“Where’s there
one, there will be another. We need a Chupacabra.”
“What’s so
important about them? They’re just one more weird animal…”
“Chupacabras have
the ability to…sniff out? That’s a good way to describe it…the animals have a
gift for sniffing out inter-dimensional portals.”
“And the
importance of that to you?”
“I’m going to jump
this dimension to do some research in a parallel line.”
“What are you planning…”
“What are you planning…”
“Here it is!”
Names: ♀
Minnesota ; ♂ Somalia
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