The Office of Letters and Light (Which runs NaNoWrimo) also runs Script Frenzy.
(Cross-posted to my personal journal)
I was just wondering if any of this group's WriMos were thinking of signing up; it runs from April 1-30, and the goal is to write 100 pages of a finished script (roughly the length of a full-length movie or play).
Link to the Script Frenzy! homepage: http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/
Comic Book and graphic novel scripts are also welcome, and I've had this plotbunny for a disabled superhero for almost two years.
It started with my frustration over disabled superheroes as they're currently written in comic books:
So I started thinking about what I'd like to see in a disabled superhero:
And, just as I was thinking about this, I heard a science report on chimerism, and I got the idea of fiddling with a feotus whose legs aren't growing properly, so scientists try to trigger limb growth by implanting cells from a lizard that can regrow limbs -- only when the baby is finally born, his legs are still withered, and instead, he has a pair of dinosaur-like proto-wings growing out of his back (Hey -- this is comic book science! If a spider-bite can transfer special powers, than this isn't too far-fetched...).
The tangle I'm trying to work through, plot-wise, before April arrives, is two-fold:
In a society with science advanced enough to attempt this tricky genetic cure, how can it be that the baby's condition is a surprise when it's born?
And in a society with illusions of utopian perfection, that doesn't publicly admit the existance of "flawed" people, what's to prevent the doctors from simply surgically removing the wings as soon as the baby is born?
Any ideas?
Also: although this is a comic book style hero, there's no rule that says I have to write it as a comic book. A couple of people have actually suggested I write it as a stage play. But I'm not sure how that would work.
I was just wondering if any of this group's WriMos were thinking of signing up; it runs from April 1-30, and the goal is to write 100 pages of a finished script (roughly the length of a full-length movie or play).
Link to the Script Frenzy! homepage: http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/
Comic Book and graphic novel scripts are also welcome, and I've had this plotbunny for a disabled superhero for almost two years.
It started with my frustration over disabled superheroes as they're currently written in comic books:
- The "special power" usually trumps the disability so much that the disability is more cosmetic than something that provides real depth to the character: (E.g.: Professor X, of the X-men's psychic power that gives him a flying wheelchair).
- The disability only exists as a story arc for character angst and ultimate cure (hello, Batman and Superman), and, most of all:
- The disabled superhero is the only disabled character in that entire fictional universe; you never even see curb cuts or blue wheelchair parking signs in the background illustrations.
So I started thinking about what I'd like to see in a disabled superhero:
- To overcome the angst of OMG!-what-a-tragedy!, the character would be born with the disability.
- To overcome the cultural meme in Comic Book logic that says the high-tech, future, world, science will be able to cure all disabilities (a cultural meme that, unfortunately, is also held in the real world), I'd have the hero's freakish-otherness be the result of an attempt to cure his disability -- an attempt that goes awry, leaving him still disabled, but with some special other power, instead.
- To overcome the disability-without-consequences trope, I'd have the character be from one of the lower classes -- no butler, or nanny to help raise him. This would also put him in the social circle of other disabled people, who don't have the cushion of privilege to protect them.
And, just as I was thinking about this, I heard a science report on chimerism, and I got the idea of fiddling with a feotus whose legs aren't growing properly, so scientists try to trigger limb growth by implanting cells from a lizard that can regrow limbs -- only when the baby is finally born, his legs are still withered, and instead, he has a pair of dinosaur-like proto-wings growing out of his back (Hey -- this is comic book science! If a spider-bite can transfer special powers, than this isn't too far-fetched...).
The tangle I'm trying to work through, plot-wise, before April arrives, is two-fold:
In a society with science advanced enough to attempt this tricky genetic cure, how can it be that the baby's condition is a surprise when it's born?
And in a society with illusions of utopian perfection, that doesn't publicly admit the existance of "flawed" people, what's to prevent the doctors from simply surgically removing the wings as soon as the baby is born?
Any ideas?
Also: although this is a comic book style hero, there's no rule that says I have to write it as a comic book. A couple of people have actually suggested I write it as a stage play. But I'm not sure how that would work.