Cory Swanson
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 19, 2016
- Messages
- 453
Since I'm still buzzing about doing well on this, I'll give some of the origin of my story.
For days, the only thing that came to mind was the fact that there was this weird horse head constellation near Pegasus named Equulus. Still, though, no story was coming out of that.
Then, I read Ted Chiang's short story Tower of Babylon where miners are climbing the tower to break into the vault of heaven. The imagery in that story is mind blowing. They climb above the sun and into the stars. At one point, a star hits the tower and gets stuck. I used to be all about sci-fi, but this opened up a whole new way of thinking. How can we look at the world in a way that is wrong, yet consistent?
So, I wrote a story that had largely the same events as Dear Edna. I hated it, though. Too folklore-ish, all gods and monsters and stuff. Wasn't clicking.
The next day, I picked it back up and re-wrote it, but with a regular old fart farmer guy as the voice. It instantly clicked up a notch. I think what was kind of magical about it was the strange and mystical things that were happening to him, but he reacts just like you would expect him to, dry and Minnesota. Also, it could pass off as a bs excuse letter that goes a little too far, so you don't really know whether to take him seriously or not, which gives him tremendous license. In the end, he is climbing into the stars, but he's still trying to get that darn thing off his head.
For days, the only thing that came to mind was the fact that there was this weird horse head constellation near Pegasus named Equulus. Still, though, no story was coming out of that.
Then, I read Ted Chiang's short story Tower of Babylon where miners are climbing the tower to break into the vault of heaven. The imagery in that story is mind blowing. They climb above the sun and into the stars. At one point, a star hits the tower and gets stuck. I used to be all about sci-fi, but this opened up a whole new way of thinking. How can we look at the world in a way that is wrong, yet consistent?
So, I wrote a story that had largely the same events as Dear Edna. I hated it, though. Too folklore-ish, all gods and monsters and stuff. Wasn't clicking.
The next day, I picked it back up and re-wrote it, but with a regular old fart farmer guy as the voice. It instantly clicked up a notch. I think what was kind of magical about it was the strange and mystical things that were happening to him, but he reacts just like you would expect him to, dry and Minnesota. Also, it could pass off as a bs excuse letter that goes a little too far, so you don't really know whether to take him seriously or not, which gives him tremendous license. In the end, he is climbing into the stars, but he's still trying to get that darn thing off his head.
