My Story Synopsis

Alright so yesterday I introduced the driving force of my character which is producing this story that I want to be my capstone. Now I think it's time to actually introduce the story. This will probably be even longer than the last post... sorry :/

Then next time I get a chance to post, I will introduce the ideas I have for actually delivering this story. I honestly don't know which I'm more excited about :)

So first off, the purpose of this story will be as a vehicle for my own personal journey. I think this kind of approach always produces the best art. I want to put all the ideals I outlined before through a merciless gauntlet.

I'm not going to be out of control, though. I am going to be very ambitious, but I am trying to reign myself in to a few core themes.

The core of this story is I want to explore the idea of suffering as a form of learning. I personally don't believe that there is any good excuse for one human being to cause another suffering, but I can easily see how I could be wrong. I do think that suffering is an important part of the experience of life, I just cannot justify the willful act of inflicting it on another human being. Then there's another element. If we do not see suffering in the world, how do we learn to avoid it? Don't we recognize good when we see bad? If I never experience wrongful treatment at the hands of another, how likely am I to recognize when I wrong another? Even if it isn't consciously recognized, could this be the reason people hurt eachother?

I will introduce some other minor themes as I get to them in my synopsis.

The story begins in an eastern monastery. I'm not tying myself down to any specific geographic or religious setting, as I do not claim enough knowledge to do any true justice. I'm pretty sure I can pull off something vanilla, though, and suiting to the story. Just think eastern and zen-like. The main character (let's just call him Hero for now) is a spiritual student here. He is a quiet, peaceful, enlightened person. He's talented but humble. He's intelligent but has little desire for anything other than spiritual wisdom. You wouldn't know it watching him, but he's very passionate about life and soaks up every moment. He cannot fathom harming another person under any circumstances. When he is not busy developing himself in mind, body and spirit, he is seeking new and positive experiences with as varied a crowd as he can find, and engaging in charitable activities.

After introducing this Hero, Villain steps into the scene. Villain is a young westerner (yes I am also thinking of exploring the clash of east & west as a minor theme) who comes to reside here for reasons I haven't decided yet. Perhaps his parents are anthropologists or something. Villain is richly enladen with talent and genius. Hero is really interested in Villain and they hit it off at first. They have alot to learn from eachother, they're both very open in sharing their different ideas, they spend alot of time together.

However, Villain is a little more complex and a little more broken inside than Hero. Villain lacks emotional depth, especially compassion. He's not a psycho or a sadist or anything. He's not a cold, calculating killer or anything like that. Villain sees the world as a stage. As long as he has the power to make it happen, he's the director. All he needs to do is set the right forces in motion and enjoy the show. He's obsessed with extremes of human emotion. He recognizes a depth in others that he lacks in himself, so he strives to bring these things out in people whenever possible. Despite not being able to relate intimately, he does understand people, and is terrifyingly adept at pulling strings.

Something tragic will happen, which will bring all the passion out of Hero, right before Villain's eyes. Right here, Villain will fall in love with Hero as a subject for play. There is no greater performer for his stage. Villain begins pulling strings, coercing the naive and innocent Hero into more and more passionate performances. Hero is not dense, and will recognize this fairly quickly.

Of course, a confrontation follows. Hero cannot understand Villain or the events unfolding around him. He doesn't know how to approach this, but he knows he needs to do something. His peaceful nature still won't allow him to act violently. At a loss, all he can conjure is an intense verbal attack/inquiry.

"Don't you feel the pain you're bringing here?! Why did you come here?! Things used to be peaceful! Things used to be happy! You're ruining lives and it's senseless! Nobody deserves this!"

Villain serenely soaks up the spectacle, unhurt. He's a little lost and recognizes how close he is to breaking his favorite toy and losing the director's seat. At the same time, he's loving every minute of it. Eventually he will calmly interrupt the tirade with a couple smug lines.

"Ruining? Deserving? Dear Hero, I've come to understand something. You need me. The WORLD needs me! I will prove it to you."

At this point, Villain will deal Hero a swift and efficient death. End of first issue (tentitavely). What a cliffhanger, eh?

Here I am not sure if I will incorporate a mystical element to the story or not. I could keep it pure sci-fi or I could mix genres. I love defying genres, so I will probably incorporate some mysticism here and portray Hero passing on to an afterlife. I'm tempted to even incorporate a divine encounter where Hero is cryptically informed that his role in this life is not fulfilled, and that Villain still serves a purpose as well.

However, this will only be a fun, artistic scene. This will be me stretching my creative legs and preparing the audience for a wild ride.

The finality of Hero's rest is broken. He's summoned back into a new physical shell. He wakes up to find an old and barely human Villain watching over him in a very futuristic setting. His new body is that of an android.

Villain will explain that this new body is an extremely powerful weapon. It's decked out with weapons and extremely difficult to destroy, but its main function is the constant gathering of energy from its environment. This energy can only be stored up to a certain point, at which point the body will detonate in a global scale catastrophe.

There are also certain rules hard-coded into this machine body which take precedence over Hero's own control. First, the energy stored by this android can only be released through its built in weapons. Second, the android body's built-in functions must recognize a physical threat in order to trigger release of these weapons. Third, the body will block any action with self-destructive intent. This means that Hero is physically unable to cause himself direct physical harm, or to initiate a conflict with no intention to defend himself, and the machine will automatically flee on its own if it somehow ends up facing a danger Hiro fails to take action against. Somebody even proposed to me that there be a mechanism in place where if Hero dies, he is summoned again into another machine body.

At the end of this scene, Villain will say something smug and die. I haven't yet decided how, but this whole thing has been carefully orchestrated by Villain over many years. The goal of the whole thing (besides being a great show which will of course be recorded in its entirety), is to prove to Hero that Villain is a necessary component of the world and of Hero's own life. So just to be thorough, Villain temporarily ends himself here.

Hero doesn't have alot of time to contemplate his situation here. The only possible course of action he can come up with as a compassionate person is to direct his energies towards people who cause suffering. So Hero begins wandering the world in search of a powerful, wicked person capable of destroying him.

Hero faces many such people. They all fail. Hero begins to recognize that he has no equal in martial prowess, and he is becoming an unbalancing force in the world. In the absence of evil (using the term evil only for its convenience) he recognizes good people seemingly growing confused and performing evil acts. I imagine symbolizing this with the yin-yang. Imagine the black side shrinking and white spilling over and turning black to fill the void, the whole thing spinning more and more out of control.

People seem to forget the meaning of right and wrong when they're no longer presented with examples of wrong. He becomes ever more aware of a cultural pattern where people grow ignorant of eachother's suffering. Waves of seemingly innocent cruelty, almost like bullies at a playground, sweep through society and then subside as understanding returns. Of course, this stretches out over a long period of time -- generations.

Hero grows ever more desperate for a solution. There needs to be an equal opposite. The world needs a cruel influence just as strong as Hero's compassion. Hero returns to the place where he first awoke in his android shell. There he discovers a body just like his own, and the means to summon an occupant for it. He summons the most terrible and decadent spirit he can reach.

It turns out to be Villain, who tritely offers a well-recited "I told you so" and flees. They remain locked in conflict as perfect equals, with Villain always hiding and pulling strings from the shadows, stepping in directly only at the last second to keep Hero and himself from exploding and getting all the emotional performance from him that he can.

I have some more ideas, but this is the core of the story. I'd love any comments and criticisms I can get from anybody. Most of the reason I took this class is to launch this project with a brainstorm like this.

Also, I don't have much confidence in my writing skills. I'm actively seeking a co-writer. Somebody to help me with sound production would be fantastic as well. If anybody is interested, please tell me! I have 4 or 5 more classes left before I graduate, and all of them are lined up towards production of this project. My plan is to have the first issue, at least, of this story all planned and my storytelling methods well hammered out by the end of summer. Fall and Spring will be straightforward production. I want to release my first issue as a free download and as my capstone project about a year from now, and then I would love to continue the story in some commercial form if at all possible.