Voices in my head
I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about this idea I have for a book. The theme is about reality vs. fiction and how the line is a helluva a lot blurrier than people think. This is especially true lately because of the web.
On the one hand, things like blogs. youtube, facebook, myspace and such give tons of access to the personal and public lives of millions of regular individuals.
On the other hand, how do we know those are actual people, not just made up fictional characters?
Or even fuzzier, how much is person X in every day non-online life similar to person X online? Does person X even know?
And when fiction, reality, and psuedo-reality combine, what's up and down? Black or white? Doesn't the rules for everything go haywire?
There are a few examples of this kind of clash actually occurring. Most recently with Lonleygrl15 on youtube. It was a fake yes. But to the viewer who's not paying hyper-attention to things, it's believable to a degree. After the fakery was revealed, quite a few viewers said who cares that it's fake? It seems real and that's the important part.
::whoa::
Then there's JenniCam. Probably the first 24/hr webcam. Not porn either or at least if that's what people went there for, they would be really bored. It was just some girl and a webcam. On. All the time. Kinda like the Truman Show but without actors. Or was it? Her stated aim for the cam was to just let it run and ignore that it exists. But is that possible? Really? What about everyone who wasn't her that crossed paths with one of her cams? If they knew, can you really forget about it? I dunno. I really don't. I suppose it's possible. Maybe it's like absolute zero. The act of measuring it causes too much heat and makes absolute zero go away.
So what if a group of people decided to create fictional characters but instead of doing a traditional story, movie or tv show, they BECOME the characters. They blog as them. They make video blogs as them. They eat and breathe and sleep as them.
Maybe they have a set period of time every day/week/month where they get together and work on shaping a story. But if the goal is realism within a dramatic construct, it couldn't be too dramatic. At least not for a while otherwise people would see through it. There would have to be some direction to it though. Maybe not though.
Anyway...
What happens to who they were before? What happens to who they are in the act? Could people tell the difference? Could they tell the difference? When do the lives start merging? Or would they always remain separate? And what about shaping of the story? The person/persons doing that would have a lot of power. And they might have to throw in events that some members of the "cast" wouldn't be aware of to maintain spontaneity or fresh, real reactions.
I'm just musing... I need to start writing something. The actual story itself. I want to have a general direction for it though. hmm...ponders....
No tags for this entry until I think some more.
3 comments:
like, whoa.
My...I'm confused. You're mostly explaining in abstract which really isn't my forte.
Do you have a main character that better illustrates your idea that you're planning on using on your story? If you have something specific I'll be able to follow you better. I just have too many obvious questions that I don't know will fit your world and it's laws.
Plot is easy. If you just think that its your bitch, that's what it'll be. You'll have no problems. Plot is my bitch the way Word is my bitch. I own both.
You're right. I suppose I was describing the concept/theme more than the story itself.
There's four characters who are in a film class. The professor gets them talking one day about how film doesn't always have to be fictional or non-fictional and the internet is stretching these boundries even further.
The discussion gives one of the four characters the idea to make the most believable story they can. One that would be practically impossible to tell was fiction.
The story would go through what it would take to blur the lines. How far would they be willing to go? Then as their work grows in popularity, the pressure of keeping up the facade increases as does the need to satisfy an audience that doesn't realize it's not all real.
That's the rough sketch in my head.
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