Tuesday 16 August 2005

Pic of the day: Screenshot from the anime Aa Megami-sama (Oh My Goddess). This anime served as my starting point: It is about a young boy who suddenly becomes bonded to a woman from heaven, an angel or goddess. And I started to think: What if no one else ever could see your "goddess"? Then you'd have an...

Invisible girlfriend

I had this idea months ago. It was inspired by the anime Aa Megami-sama! (Oh my Goddess!) but except for a few ideas in the first chapter it has played out very differently. Recently, when I found a good writing song again, I decided to reboot the idea into an even more different story. I've been plotting and outlining it these days; more about that later, I hope. (Yeah, I know I said that yesterday too.) But here is the unique concept.

(As you may know, each year I enter the NaNoWriMo, a creative stampede in which people from all over the world try to write 50 000 words of novel during the month of November. It doesn't need to be good, it is certainly not expected to be complete. It is simply an exercise in basic writing skills. I fail every year, although usually because of my wrist. I can write, although I cannot complete a book. But 50 000 words, sure. If my wrist miraculously recovers. Babbling like this won't help, I guess. But in each attempt I have the same approach: Writing about ordinary people where one among them is not ordinary.)

***

In this story, indeed in the entire fictional world as far as I am concerned, all people are utterly human. No angels, demons or catgirls. However, one guy has an invisible girlfriend, and she is not quite human. Oh, she certainly looks human, and very nice too, but only to this one college student. Nobody else can see her or hear her, no matter what she does. Even he cannot touch her, which he would otherwise have been tempted to do. She is quite good-looking, and she is always around: They are bound together by the invisible strings of fate, which are surprisingly short: She is never more than a few steps away. Oh, and she comes from a higher-level universe with two time dimensions, in which the human universe is just one of countless bubbles floating around. She is as old as the stars and more beautiful. She has waited for him for 8 billion years and she is not going to let anyone else have him.

That's right: There is absolutely no way for him to prove that she actually exists. Nobody can see her, and although she does a lot of stuff around the house, nobody ever sees her do anything when they are not alone. When she follows him to college, she materializes her own chair rather than moving one of the existing ones, as she would do at home. As far as anyone is concerned, if he ever told about her he would be headed straight for the padded room. So all everyone ever sees is a surprisingly successful and talented young man who seems to prefer his own company most of the time, and who sometimes says really weird things out of the blue.

No, it is not exactly autobiographical. Or at least I sincerely think so.

There is really no resolution intended as to whether this guy really has an invisible girlfriend or is just crazy. As far as I am concerned, she is as real as any of the other characters. Which doesn't say much, since they all exist only in my head ...

***

My first story, which I've written a few chapters of, is all about this boy and his mysterious soulmate from far outer space. This reboot, however, is different. The main viewpoint character is supposed to be a girl. (This does not bode well for the completion of the story, I admit. Girls are notoriously tricky to write.)

Of course there are other things to keep track of as well. I have to create a whole college from scratch. I won't do so in great detail, but I ought to have some idea of what goes on there, what kind of people study there, the general layout etc. I ought to know more than the reader about the place, after all. Then the places where the characters live. Do they live alone? They are old enough for it. Or in a dorm? Living with parents? One parent? How much do the parent(s) interfere with their social life? Siblings? Pets? There are so many things. Normally the muses in my head pull these things out of thin air, but I still ought to keep track of them just to make absolutely sure orphans don't suddenly acquire intrusive parents and bedrooms don't randomly move up or down stairs.

This is where certain tools of the trade come in handy. More about them soon, if all goes well.