Here's a couple of projects I dabble at a little from time to time.
The Journal of the Whills – This is an ongoing project that I re-visit and dabble with. There’s been a cheap printed version, but I’ve started adding stuff again. It is not meant to be a declaration of dislike for the Star
Wars prequel, but a non-hostile acknowledgement of how people have different ideas.
The Journal of the Whills started partly from the idea that George Lucas acknowledged that he has his own SW canon, the tie-in SW
books and comic books are a different canon, and every fan also has their own internal SW canon. Also, that other writers took inspiration from SW. A major example is the writer of the comic series Saga, Brian K. Vaughan, took the attitude of rather than get frustrated when Star Wars goes in storytelling directions that aren’t the way we hope, he channeled that potential disappointment into writing out his own idea of the way he thought Star Wars would go.
My own project, The Journal of the Whills, is at heart an attempt to excavate my own memories of what I thought the Clone Wars and general backstory would be like when I was a child. I had vague memories and images that Obi-Wan’s hints and outlining of historical
events; what he described created images in my mind. And even though I like aspects of the prequel Star Wars movies, I felt like there would be good value in writing down the visions that I had in my head from watching the original movies.
This covers ground such as an alternative way that the Empire emerges from galactic politics and warfare, the reign of a couple of Emperors who usurp each other, the career of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, alternative circumstances in which they first meet, a different shape to the Jedi religion and it’s organization. It also details how there were a couple of wars; in the sense that there was the First Clone War, and a Second and Third. And Anakin and Obi-Wan fought in the Second and Third.
Because it tries to capture a child’s image of how I thought the backstory era would be like, it has a child’s logic. So things such as the passage of time being different in other parts of the Galaxy duplicate the effect that Vader’s career as an Imperial enforcer means that he has had a busy life that encompasses more years of work than the years of Luke’s life growing up on a farm (it is born from the logic that as kids we think our parents and grandparents are much older than we actually are, and also that the original actor playing Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker is older than we might have expected. I liked the idea that time passes slowly on a boring planet like Tatooine (it takes forever to grow up) while time passes more rapidly on busy
city/urban planets, where more work is needed to maintain a Imperial occupational presence.
Also, since the SW galaxy has slightly different physical laws, there is sound in space and you can survive in space with an oxygen mask (see Han and Leia go outside the Millennium Falcon into a cave that we might expect to be exposed to vacuum in our own galaxy. My logic is that Star Wars is a science-fantasy or space-fantasy setting; pulpy and with fuzzy logic.
Narnia Streaming-series bible/treatment. This is a test of my creativity to adapting the Narnia books to a hypothetical streaming series; based on a friend and other fan’s stating that it can’t be done. I wanted to see what I could do in terms of developing a backstory and
cosmology from the books that would serves as a springboard for expanding a narrative that the Narnia books contain. I did a little research into Jewish mythology, to try and outline a hidden history that
places children from Earth as Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve in opposition to a dynasty that descends from Lilith. The backstory hints about where the Garden of Eden might and might not be, how the lineage of Lilith ends up on different worlds, the role of Atlantis as a
realm that might have had access to the other worlds. Also how the dynasties of Lilith intersect and diverge with that of
giants. This led to ideas of what kind of long-game mischief
The White Witch got up to between The Magician’s Nephew and TL, TW, and TW; and how she inserted herself into the laws of the Stone Table, which isn’t touched on in The Magician’s Nephew and something I felt could be a separate incident in the intervening time.
Once I settled on a backstory, I outlined the episodic breakdown of the Narnia books. The present-day focus starts with TL, TW, and TW; but with a more engaged and aware version of Diggory Kirk. The idea is that the adaptation of TL, TW, and TW would be expanded by extensive flashbacks of The Magician’s Nephew. So the flashbacks would kind of adapt The Magicians Nephew in flashback form, in tandem with TL, TW, and TW. This resulted in the idea of expanded Diggory’s role, he starts off as a mentor figure, but we get a sense that he has more adventures that the original books show; have him involved in the incident where The Witch ritually insinuates herself into the laws of the Stone Table.
This led to the idea of having Professor Kirke re-enter Narnia and de-age into childhood. His guilt over his involvement with bringing the Witch to Narnia is a motivation for helping the Pevensies to understand Narnia a bit better.
Then I thought this hypothetical series could transition from the end of TLTWaTW into the Pevensies reign, and cover the events of The
Horse and His Boy, but with the Pevensies’s side of events made larger.
Then of course, the Pevensies go home, and deal with the psychology of returning to their younger age. A couple episodes of how they struggle with that transition, which I thought I could connect thematically with Narnia’s history after the Pevensie’s mysteriously disappear. Maybe a joined theme of losing a sense of direction, or feeling oppressed (the children having to accept being children under adult authority; while Narnia struggles with a Golden Age abruptly transitioning to being an occupied country).
Vignettes – This is hard to explain. A couple of circumstance-images sprang up in my mind, three different ones; two of greater substance. One is about a man who dwells in peace in a home in the eye of a perpetual storm. Perhaps this character will take on a larger role in other works of fiction I might write. The other is about a being who manifests into existence, and my mind is mulling over the different things he does in the primordial environment he finds himself in; and the raw power of creation he has access to. The second vignette seems like a version of a creation story; I’m not sure where it will go. The remaining, less substantial vignette I haven’t even written down because it’s just so insane and defies any kind of consistent setting logic; it’s more of a metaphor for my feelings about certain life circumstances.
