Another development

I've decided that perhaps the twin plot idea of bombing of the kaba and a guy wanting to kill the devil is too much, and this could easily be two different short stories.

And so, I think I'll do exactly that.

I'll write the bombing of the kaaba first - with it's own agenda. This will be a complete introduction to Islam and the world of Muslims and the way the world is and a muslims current place in the world etc.

Then the one lunar month storyline can be a nice, neat novel on its own, without the need to tackle big issues - just a love story between a man and a jinn, set in the backdrop of the man wanting to kill the devil because he's fed up. I want in one way the story to be extremelty serious - very dark, with loneliness and anger as the main emotions running through the story. But I hope it won't attempt to take itself too seriously - as I stated before - this is simply a short story - not literature - and I want it to simply deliver the story in an exciting way - I don't want to use too many fake techniques in delivering the plot - although I am very tempted.

Things like having a plot twist or event every six pages, having the idea of conflict, and resolution with a time limit, hinting at mysterious ideas, and then divulging them at the end, when it would be very simple to just let the reader know these things at the beginning. The thing is all the advice I've read and the format of most good stories do rely on these techniques, and it seems to keep the reader reading, or keeps someone watching a film. I suppose the point is don't make it too obvious - like paint like numbers way of writing the storyline.

I want to just write from the heart. To keep things flowing and twisting and turning I suppose naturally without too much manufacturing.

Lets see what happens.

Another plot development

For the purpose of the book I decided that the main character may not actually convert to Islam, but he decides to pretend to convert to Islam so that he has better access to Saudi Arabia and going to the three pillars etc.

I'll have to explore this idea a bit more, and when the plot develops see where it leads.

I figured out how he gets to hell

His research leads him to the conclusion that the physical presence of the devil is best represented in the three pillars in saudi arabia which during the holy pilgrimage Hajj muslims have to throw stones at several times.

He will also have tried other cultural representations of the devil in this world as well - which will lead to several chapters.

With the help of his jinn friends he gets to the pillars - however he has to do this on the sunset of the first day of ramadhan - the month of fasting - this is because the devil will be at this point taken to hell and chained to the gates. He either gets his jinn friends to follow so he can go later - or a major plot twist would be he becomes a jinn - or jinn-like in terms of his physical presence, and he exists as fire and light and therefore able to follow the devil to hell directly.

Outline02

Start with a psychiatric patient who is sectioned for his delusional belief in having contact with 'jinn' and them telling him to do certain things which are extremely dangerous to 'himself and others'

In reality this will be our character who essentially is actually in contact with jinn and needs to get out to kill the devil.

Then the rest of the story like in outline 01

Outline01

Bombing of Kaba
Man loses wife and family, sinks into deep depression
Comes out of it and wages war on evil, concludes that all evil in the world = devil
Researches how to kill the devil, concludes needs help of jinn.
Embarks on a mission to find jinn to help him
Manages to find them, and falls in love with a female jinn (who may or may not be married)
Manages to find a way to get to hell
Finds the devil chained to the gates
Kills the devil
Returns home

Plot Development

This was the inital plot idea:

04/07/09

1.Non-muslim converts to Islam because of a girl to get married
2.She dies – has to be something evil (maybe in the 7/7 bombings)
3.He decides all evil is because of the devil and decides to 'find and kill the devil' – he needs to go to the gates of hell and chain the devil
1.before this he goes out to get revenge generally to attack any 'dodgy' person in a dark alley and gets himself into ITU in a coma – this could be useful in the plot as he manages to do all the stuff with jinn and the devil whilst in a coma, but it won't be apparent until the end.
4.To kill the devil he researches and decides to get the help of jinn
5.He somehow finds the jinn – falls in love with a female jinn
6.He makes it to the gates of hell

This lead to the chapter outline:

Chapter outline/Scenes/Themes:

[The conversion to Islam]
[Background of his meeting the girl and wanting to convert]
[The death of the girl]
[Goes out to get revenge]
[Gets beaten up badly]
[Ends up in ITU] {we're made to believe he's out, but he's not}
[Overwhelmed by evil in the world decides to find and kill the devil]
[goes to a psych unit to try and get ideas – actually does get ideas about going to Bangladesh to find a Pir]
[Begins his research: mainly talking to and finding scholars/holy men, – e.g. a 'Pir' type person in Bangladesh – make it mystical yet realistic somehow]
[Begins Zikir and fasting to try and see Jinn]
[Goes in search of Jinn in abandoned bari's in londoni villages]
[He's bemused by the reaction of the local people when they hear of what he's doing]
[Panchait want him out]
[Meets a girl in one of the villages who says she'll help him,
[he falls in love with her – but doesn't take it further initially]
[she also falls for him, but for the purpose of the book we only know that she is in constant conflict and also does not take it further – however made to believe its cultural or something]
[She constantly evades people however, and keeps disappearing, and hard to contact and he becomes suspicious that something is wrong]
[ends up she's a jinn – can't think of how to break this just yet]
[she agrees to 'let him in' he discovers their entire world – parallel to ours, he gets back to London because he's told by them to get to the devil he'll need to go where her (his fiance) grave is??]
[somehow he gets to the gates of hell with the help of the jinn]


Then I decided to toy with idea of a more comercial 'hollywood' version:

19/8/9

I'm torn between should this be a hollywood style movie/book or should it be whatever I want it to be, because the two are not the same.

Example: hollywood version:

probably no conversion to Islam etc. no Bangladesh connection.

[start with excorism of jinn from a person]

[move to opening sequence]

[man's wife dies in 911]
he's on the phone to her she's in the other tower while the other one is burning, then the plane smashes into the tower and the line goes dead.

[he decides to kill the devil]
finds out that in Islam it says in Ramadan the devil is chained to the gates of hell, he investigates and decides he needs help of jinn.

[meets female jinn]

[adventures in jinn world]

[locating a map to hell]

[journey to hell]

[the gates of hell]

[the devil] etc.

Basic storyline

There are several storylines overlapping and eventually I've got to pick one and go with it, if it doesn't work it will mean major re-writes, but that's just the way it is.

The first over-riding theme or plot is that the main character wants to kill the devil.
Along-side this is the backdrop to the story which is the bombing of the Kaaba.
Along-side this is the love story element between the main character and the next sub-plot which is the introduction of Jinn.

For those who don't know:
Kaaba is the cuboid building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia which is the central point which determines the direction in which muslims pray, and forms the focal point of the once in a life-time pilgrimage. If it was actually bombed in real life - well I imagine it'd be like '9-11' multiplied by infinity.
Jinn are a little trickier. They are a parallel lifeform in this universe who are semi-invisible to humans and semi-dangerous for our health. They have a society of their own and worship God and everything - generally seen as responsible for possessing people, or causing evil/bad things to happen if you get involved with them.


A general outline is as follows:

[bombing of Kaba]
[main character looses wife - whole family]
[decides to kill the devil]
[enlists help of jinn]
[falls in love with female jinn]
[decides to kill the devil during ramadhan when the devil is chained to the gates of hell - hence has 'one lunar month' to acheive this]
[travels to hell]
[finds and fights the devil]

There's a lot of unanswered questions in my mind and I don't really know how or where to start with the writing. This storyline has a lot more detail, which I will add to and flesh out - the main unanswered questions are however: how will my main character journey or find hell and then when he does how will he fight and kill - or not - the devil?
Remember all the basic elements of this book exist in the Islamic faith, so it does have to have some element of 'realism' - not too fantastical. I'm sure I'll figure something out eventually. As the storyline develops I'll show the development in subsequent blogs called 'storyline01, 02, 03 etc.' I won't delete any or edit them afterwards.

But soon I have to get actual writing - and I'm really not sure where to start.

Introduction

This blog is going to consist of a development of a short-story or novelette which I have decided to try and write in this format because I think it works well in the way my mind works - giving me the ability to lay out the chapters and storyline in order as different blogs and then write bits and pieces as it suits me, and then return and edit as necessary. It may make it quite confusing and slightly odd to anyone reading it in real time, with entire chunks of the story going missing and other bits reappearing - but there's no other way to do it. This way I get to write where ever I am, as long I have net access - which is almost everywhere. I wonder if there's actually software or a website where you can do this already? Anyway...

...It started with the concept of perhaps a graphic novel format for the story - but I can't draw, so I thought perhaps a screenplay. After reading about how to write a screenplay I thought it a little too technical and there's people out there who get paid to do that, so what I needed was the story itself first. So the idea of a basic short story/novel format struck me as being perfect - except that I am no 'author' - I know where my talents lie, and writing is just not one of them. So I read up on how to write a novel and I'm going to try to stick to a few of the 'rules' with regards to writing - the main tactic I'll employ I think is 'show don't tell' i.e I'm going to try and avoid telling you, the reader about what's going on. I'm going to try and make the characters actually do the stuff that will let you know what's going on and how they are feeling etc.

It'll be pretty basic language - I just want to get the story out there and then see what happens. I can't write like Michael Ondaajte (English Patient) or Ursula le Guinn, so I won't try to write 'literature' but I want to get this story out of my head and onto paper and so if I forget about what the 'critics' make of it then I can just get on with it. But it's tough, because I always think of what the critics make of stuff I do. Nevermind, better just get on with it.