Sublime. Where to start? At the beginning, right? After lifeless, I spent time revisiting old works and wondering at the things I left out due to timidity. This so possessed me that I took the time to put into writing a biography of sorts for what I considered my most thoroughly depraved villain. I rather enjoyed the process, as it justified going as far down the course as possible, and seeing where I ended up.
What I wasn’t ready for, was my sudden desire for just a little more complexity. It’s all well and good to experience the horrors and terrors of a grisly concept, but without levity to contrast, you end up muddling your way through the dark, not sure if you’re getting anywhere. So, the biography went from a place of depravity, to one of moral hand-wringing.
But I digress, heavily. With Sublime, I had a few requirements for myself. First, first person perspective. I wanted to increase the immersion a little, and even made an effort to keep the narrator very ambiguous. Every time the reader passes over “I”, hopefully they impose a little more of themself onto the story.
Second, I wanted to be both shocking and meaningful. A splash of blood loses its meaning when it’s already raining type AB+ from the heavens. To this end, I took pains to create contrast, to have serenity and violence as bedfellows.
Finally, I wanted to have mystery. It’s common to hear that “good storytelling doesn’t tell, it shows.” I like this idea a lot. I like movies where you have to think for yourself just a bit, to put things together and feel engaged. I am still guilty of running to the internet and searching “movie ending meaning” from time to time. That’s probably what drives me to write these. Understanding and certainty are comforting feelings.
I made choices in writing this story that reflect my feelings and interests at the time. I wrote from the belief that characters do just as much guessing as I do, and get the wrong idea a lot. I had also begun to embrace the idea of an open ended question, a rhetorical scenario. I, of course, had my exact understanding of the back story I imagined for what I wrote, but I also made space for the possibility of other interpretations. A sudden twist at the end of a movie could just as easily be a fan theory to explain a bit of withheld plot.
I could go on for a while, but I’d be contradicting my point about not giving everything away. Instead, I’ll let you imagine how to end it succinctly, like so:
Seeds of Fear 