June 2, 2006

These notes are extracted from my May 21, 2006 morning pages.

Let's explore the idea that Kuno's parents left the village because they believed there was other life outside the village. You see, people in the village have never encountered any other people.Animals yes, but not people. Perhaps Migua was considered a radical for his beliefs - somewhat like Dreamer is considered an oddball because of his.

Did Migua have an earned name? Probably, but he probably rejected it in favour of his childhood name. His unearned name. So what would have been his earned name? His earned name was likely something agriculturally oriented like Harvester or something.

So let's go with the idea that the backstory is that Migua left the village to look for "others" - the word they use for people outside the village.

Something else I want to introduce a little later in the story. The idea that in this spin-off community, a child is born that has gender. Perhaps it is a mutation, perhaps the beginning of an evolution.

Does Migua find any "others"? No. But at some point I want to have Dreamer encounter some "others" in the woods, but mistakes them for members of the spin-off community. The "others" are otherwise unaware of the existence of the village, but their discovery of the village can lead to some dramatic consequences. They won't be too friendly to the villagers. Aggressive.

So there's a couple of ideas there that I want to write into the story, but the question is, will all of those ideas fit together, or will I have to choose and develop one and discard the other? For example, will I still keep the idea of the newling born with gender?

How about if the "others" naturally have children that are born with gender? Yeah, okay, but so what, unless I get them into inter-breeding. Yowzer, that could get interesting. But how do I get them from villagers-are-intimidated-by-others and others-are-aggressive-to-villagers, from there to inter-breeding? And does this explain the birth of a gendered newling in the spin-off community?

If Migua left Planir in search of "others" then how does he come to create the spin-off community? Perhaps he doesn't. Perhaps he fails to find any evidence of "others" and out of necessity is forced to plant himself and his family in the area where Dreamer finds them. It goes back to that Migua would need more people around him than just his family in order to create a community so where do these people come from?

Maybe the newling who is born with gender is born to Kuno. It's a girl. Kuno's daughter. Fine - then who is the girl's mother?

I think no one from the village truly understood why Migua left. Various people had differing ideas. Dreamer will find out the truth only when he stumbles upon Kuno after leaving the village himself. Perhaps Teacher will dream that she meets Storyteller again in the spin-off community.