By Stephen Volk
“Aha!” moments are
rare, but they happen. And when they do they’re the most weird and rewarding of
writing experiences, because the truth seems to come not from figuring out
stuff, or even from something deep within the writer, but something palpably outside.
Case in point.
I was writing a
screenplay called “Natural Father” about an estranged daughter seeking out her
biological dad. The daughter, late teens, is fairly disturbed and pretty
volatile. In the course of my story – a psycho thriller – she goes from nice
‘n’ needy to Glenn Close.
But here’s the
thing. I had a scene where she goes to the school of her dad’s little boy. Her
step-brother, if you will. And I had her walk in and confront the kid in class.
So she walks in and the teacher tells her to leave. He politely asks her to go,
and touches her arm. And she explodes. She tells him to fucking get off her.
Shit! Where did
that come from? I had no idea…
I kept writing.
What does she do next? She goes to the bathroom and starts washing herself,
really scrubbing herself hard. And I had no idea why she was doing that. I was
describing it and it felt real, but I didn’t have any answers why that was her
behaviour in that moment.
Then I did. Oh
God. Did I ever. She was telling me what had happened, and my heart was beating
a little faster at the revelation.
Why the hell
didn’t I see the signs? She was desperate to find her real Dad. She hero
worships him. He’s perfect. She’s desperate for his affection, but the minute
she thinks she’ll be rejected by him, she mouths off and runs. What’s more,
she’s more than just sexually active for an eighteen-year old, she’s absolutely
promiscuous in the script I’d written so far. And now I knew why.
She was telling me
she’d been abused by her stepfather, the useless guy her Mom had shacked up
with. A guy in a scene I’d already written twenty pages earlier. It was all so
blindingly obvious now. That’s why she’d left her home on this quest. It was
why she had such an explosive relationship with her mother. It all made sense.
Not pleasant
sense, but sense nevertheless. And one thing I do know – when you touch upon
something that feels like the core of your character’s motivation, cling to it
like a drowning man to driftwood.
Because somehow
those “Aha!” moments that come from “elsewhere” are always the things that
click, that gel. The mysterious components of the story that become so
essential, you wonder how you could have embarked upon the thing without
knowing them.
Or maybe on one
level, you did all along.
Stephen Volk is best known as the creator of the paranormal drama series
Afterlife, the notorious
BBCTV "Halloween hoax" Ghostwatch and
the recent feature film The Awakening. His other
screenplays include Ken Russell's Gothic and The
Guardian directed by William Friedkin.
His short stories have appeared in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror,
Mammoth Book of Best New Horror and Best British Mysteries, and he has been a
finalist for the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Awards. His latest novella is Whitstable from Spectral
Press. More information, go here or here.
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