Event Horizon, Draft 2

If I'm going to spend any time this winter on my creative writing, then I suppose it wouldn't hurt to begin with Event Horizon. As my most-developed story in my portfolio, it holds the most promise for immediate publication. Even though I have worked on it for a few years now and have finished a first draft, I still have many places that I would like to take the story, and I'm going to now spend some time introducing the story, its history, and where I intend to take it in the future.

History of the Horizon

The idea for Event Horizon began with my interests in dreams. Dreams are, as most anyone knows, a rather powerful yet mysterious element of the human mind. For a period of about a year (probably 2004/2005ish), I had a long series of dreams that were always vivid, easy to recall, frequently reoccurring, and more than anything, usually ended up being disturbing or insightful twists on events in my life at that time. On occasion, I would find that some of my dreams began to interfere with reality. That is, I would have a dream that seemed so grounded in reality that I mistook it for a memory later in the day, rather than a dream. Thus Event Horizon was born. I wanted to explore the idea that dreams can substitute as memories, and all the power/frustration that such an idea can bring to a person's life.

I've written very few stories where my characters are 100% fictional. More than not, I usually base my characters on real people - friends, family, or quirky coworkers. In the case of this new story I was writing, I decided to create everything from scratch, including my characters. I was quick to formulate a unique cast, although I would later have trouble fleshing them all out as much as I desired. Once I was underway with my draft, I needed a name. "Blocchi" (pronounced 'blah-chee') is the Italian word for "the blocks," and I wanted that translation to invoke a the idea of a prison (you'll see...).

Suffice to say, as time went on and I wound into the final third of my first draft, I felt that "Blocchi" was too limiting and a bit awkward for the scope of my story, so I altered the title to invoke the scientific idea that matter is able to fall off the edge of the universe (literally be destroyed) with "Event Horizon."

In September of 2007 I finished an 82-page draft of the story, and was intent on publishing it as-is at the time. As my school semester progressed that year, however, I realized that there were so many other things that I wanted to include in the story, and so many other things that I wanted to take out. All in all, my decision not to publish came down to one simple idea: the finished first draft was not the story I wanted to tell, and a rewrite was necessary. Hence, here I am today.

The Story I Want To Tell

Above all else, Event Horizon is a love story. I did not set out to write a love story (see above), but that's really what the first draft turned into. I've since aligned my goals for the story to be as such, and I'm pressing on with the 'love story' concept in my second draft. My original idea of exploring how dreams substitute as memories is now a mechanic of my narrative, not the focus. This has allowed me to base the second draft on character, not plot. Thus far, I'm loving the idea of a more character-driven narrative, and I'm having quite a blast developing my cast of characters (Kale, Shaylee, Colby, Spike, and Stacey).

I was hoping to write up a small section that would detail the main characters of Event Horizon, but I'm not quite sure of where each of the characters stands in the second draft yet, so I'm going to hold off on that for a bit. I hope to be talking about Event Horizon again by the middle of next semester. See you then.