3 February 2015
When I started thinking about this story, I originally planned on a sports event. I started writing about a hockey game, specifically the last three minutes of one. I realized though that there were not many options and the story line was dull. So I completely scrapped the idea and I had no idea what to write about. An adventure idea was too boring, too plain. I wanted to do more. So I decided to start in a room. I played an interactive online game called Shade last week and the author made a comment that all first time simulation games start in an apartment, because that’s were the writer was. I however was in a cubicle, and that did not have much inspiration either. So the room it was.
As I was writing my story, I realized a similarity between my theme and the Saw movies. I did use death as a theme, but I tried not to have any gruesome endings. Just implied deaths. I covered falling to death, drowning, burning, poison, and dying in one’s sleep. Each thread though ends in a simulation lab and a woman running the whole operation. In many of the endings she talks to you, but it varies and you also do not get a clear image of her in any ending. She does not have much importance in the story, but I did not like the idea of a person just dying. I liked the idea that it was just a game.
My story did not have much planning to it. The story seemed to write itself, I just made boxes and options for what could be done. I decided that it would be a person starting in a room and they would eventually die. I thought maybe there would be an ending where they would live, but then I decided that was unfair. Everyone dies, and so in the simulation they must die also. However the woman in the lab provided a nice ending instead of just dying. What a sad thought, to die with nothing left for you after.
The idea for death seems so simple. So primal, something we could not escape, and humans have tried. There are so many ways too. By water, fire, earth, gravity, lack of air, poison, sleep, old age, and of course all the gruesome ways which usually involves a lack of blood. There are endless possibilities of ways to die. The movie A Million Ways to Die in the West tried to prove that statement, and it’s true.
What I liked to focus on though in the deaths was the color. At least for a few of them. Colors can be very distinct. Each has it’s own multiple meanings and ways to be interpreted. I guess more than just color though I focused on light and darkness. The dark of the water and the cavern the person fell into. The search for light in the hole, and the sterile too white look of the hallway. Good and bad, both light and dark.
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Aimee Bushnell
