Why?
goldatamera commented :
I love hearing how a story came about, so. Why this particular one? What started it? Why this particular time in the band's story? And why McFly?
Hmm. It's always the simple questions that get you. The hard ones are much easier (he said, hopefully.)
Let's pretend we've answered the more basic question, why write at all? and established that I got the urge to write something - though I'm mindful of the story of the would-be author whose dream was to write things that would move people to rage and to tears, and ended up in a job writing error messages for Microsoft.
I've actually done a fair amount of writing and editing in my time, mostly technical stuff, and I wanted to try a bit of fiction for a change. I'm also the sort who believes you're a fool if you don't sort out how to put up a new tent in your back garden before you go camping with it.
So I wanted to practise writing fiction, and especially, writing characters, which isn't something that crops up a lot in techie stuff. By writing characters, I mean a number of things: how they act, how they sound, what motivates them, how they react to situations and to other characters, and so on (more about those things some other time). I didn't want to have to come up with some from scratch - not yet, anyway - so I was on the lookout for some I could borrow.
Why McFly?
Cross-fade to McFly. You may have heard of them. :-P In the McFly takeover of British media that some people called 2005, it seemed easier to watch what they were doing than not. I was impressed by their musicianship, especially on Wonderland, and here were also four intriguing characters in a pretty strange situation.
It might help if you know that I'm something of an introvert and I've played a little bass now and again. So I could relate to one character a little, which helps. He's also a little... unusual. Bizarre, even. As Dr. Gregory House would say, "Bizarre is good."
So far, so good. We've got four very strong distinct, very engaging characters, a lot of interaction between them including some obviously close friendships, and a situation. We don't quite have a story yet.
(I'm not big on My life is a black abyss. Me too. Cos I love you. Me too. Oh. Oh. Grunt grunt oooh! or OMG It's X. He sees me. Grunt grunt oooh! stories. It floats some peoples' boats, but leaves mine stranded. I need something to explain, or solve, or… no, I am not going to say get my teeth into.)
Coming back to portraying the characters - I doubt they're much like their real-world counterparts, but I wanted them to behave plausibly like the real ones in particular circumstances. I hope the interviews, for example, "feel" like they might be transcribed from ones that really happened. (Again, I'll try to deal with the character-building stuff later.)
Why this particular story? What started it?
Look through the photos and videos from 2004/2005, you quickly notice some trends. The bassist tends to stick in the background and/or be the lowest or smallest in the picture, doesn't say much and is pretty cryptic when he does, seems uncomfortable in crowds. There's a lot of visible affection mixed with winding each other up, and there's a couple more things as well. I'm sure you've noticed them.
One in particular: try to find a group interview or photoshoot from late 2004-2005 where one of the others isn't making some kind of physical contact with Dougie. Not caressing, necessarily; just an arm over the shoulder or an elbow or knee pressed against his. Could be a lot of reasons for that. What if… what if he needs it in some way?
I mentioned the close friendships, which are close enough for some to start pointing and snickering, or going "ooh!" So there was something to explore: when did it go from conventional friend to friends-that-attract-comments? why? what do they feel? But I didn't want a "one true pairing". Four people gives you six two-way relationships, four three-way, and one four-way. Much more fun to explore some of that space.
The ultimate trigger, though, was really the set of photos from the 2004 Capital FM awards, some of which people have captioned things like Where Are We and I Think I'm Going To Be Sick, and there was one picture in particular where... well. (It's probably either flu or a hangover in real life, but this is about what if...)
AtST really came from trying to provide a vaguely plausible (cough!) back story for those photos. One character - we're not talking about real people any more - is having trouble dealing with public appearances, leading to stress, leading to insomnia, upset digestion, leading to more stress. He doesn't want to let on, so tries a number of ways to deal with it himself, and so it goes. And because he's the sort to keep himself to himself, the others have to figure out what's going on and how to deal with it.
And… If you're going to explore characters and relationships, you have to stress them a little, which means that each character needs to have a little something in their background, and that the author needs to throw spaghetti at them from time to time to see what sticks. [Spaghetti, master? Yes, Igor Not hot irons. No, Igor. … Hot spaghetti, master? (sighs) If you like, Igor. Good…]
Why that particular time?
The photos and setting pretty much fixed when the story would take place. The group had to be new enough for Doug still to be a relative stranger to the other characters, and they had to be at a point in their career when the situation would produce a new set of stresses, not just on Doug but on the others as well, and particularly, as it happened, on Tom. The first scene practically fell out of that, and the photos dictated when and where the story would end, along with a pretty good idea of how. Restricting it to a weekend and mostly to the house was pretty natural.
Plotting the story, the individual characters' tales and where they came from, is probably best left for another ramble. :-)
Were there particular things I was trying to say? Sure. But that's another topic, too, I guess… Actually, it might be a lot more interesting if you tell me what you think I was trying to say. :-)