Saturday night with scotch and Beth Orton

I re-read a story I wrote some years ago recently. Sometimes makes you wonder what goes on in your head when you do things like that. The story begins with a girl being raped by a couple of low-level military stooges. They then transfer her to a facility in which she is poked and prodded by a doctor who wants to cut open her head and take her brain. After all, she's a telepath. And consider for a second what governments would do if people with telepathic powers suddenly started popping up. So there she is having her head sliced when her powers kick in at full force, her mind becoming one with the doctor that is "operating" on her. The two converse for some time, the line between their two minds becoming more blurred as the conversation goes on, before she eventually pulls herself out. She awakens a bleeding mess, tied to an operating table with a dead doctor beside her. Nothing especially unique in terms of the background, I was more just interested in writing a scene which takes place using telepathy, a topic which I just never seem to be able to get enough of.

Strange thing is that this story was originally intended to be a vehicle for a strong-willed and positive female role-model. Upon re-read, it would seem the message got lost in a sea of misogynistic violence. Best laid plans and all that huh? The most annoying part is that the story becomes overly long because so much time is spent setting up her encounter with the doctor. Characters needed motivation, personality, the world a context and all those other neat writerly tricks that authors use. The whole point of it was the conversation that takes place between the girl and the doctor in their minds. She discovers her true power, the distinction between individual and group-mind becomes blurred and she is able to escape the immediate threat. I do like the way that scene flows but it feels like time for a re-write. The set-up is fine but the story's money shot, if you wil, needs fleshing out. For all that set-up I think I tried to wrap up the climax with an economy that was to the story's detriment.

This also means I'm confronted with the horrible question that haunted me at the time of first writing : what the hell happens to the poor girl once she escapes the military facility? I had managed to leave that unanswered by leaving her in the room tied to a bench. I always saw her running off barefoot in a hospital gown into a desert environ. The sun at about 4.30pm Aussie time. It all felt very much like a comic to me. Yes, I even saw it with the desired panel layout. In a comic the initial set-up could be handled with a brevity that prose didn't allow me. Fusion of image and word, it's a beautiful thing. I really do need to find an artist to work with on some of these things. At this point I don't have that luxury so I really should get back to the rewrite...