Yes. That's what I've decided to call this thing even though it has a title(which I will tell you later in this post). It's pretty sick. I've been thinking about this off and on for about a month, and while I still haven't begun writing, I have got to the point where I have a specific playlist on my iPhone that I listen to at least once a day, and tons of ideas in my head every time I listen to it--AND I stayed up til 3 am writing the beginnings of the treatment. And to make it even more entertaining--this is probably turning into a tv series. So that's something. And I figured out the best way to describe it--it's Once Upon A Time meets Star Crossed meets Firefly. Which I am totally ok with.
See, as I said before, I've always had this fascination with bits of Shakespeare stories that aren't told in full, but are essential to the plot. Example: Oberon and Titania's fight over the Changeling Boy. So we know that this kid is the son of one of Titania's close friends, all well and good, and we know that she eventually gives him to Oberon, but what happens after this? So here's a thought--Oberon isn't a proud arrogant something-or-other who wants what he can't have. What if both he and Titania are protecting this kid from the same thing, they just have different ways of doing it. AND what if this quarrel thing also has ties to the great Tempest conjured up by Pospero and Ariel AND what if all the goodies and the badies are not the goodies and the badies we think they are? The answer to this question was AWESOME!
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Picture this: instead of fantasy airy-fairy world, it's set in an Anywhere, USA in 20something(still vague on deets, see?) post-apocalypse/steampunk kind of world, with dark alleys, and shadows, and lots of potential night shoots(which has very little to do with the fact that I was in a production with the concept fairly recently...ok, I'm a terrible liar, it totally does! Because, yes. Thank you Cherie and Hailey and Echo for this one.). And what if this changeling kid was the cause of the apocalypse, only he is totally unaware of it(as all heroes inevitably are), and is now being tracked by both the goodies and the badies. And yes, there will be several salutes to the original work--such as names, and the love potion(poison!!!) and stuff. First tidbit worth sharing--the names. I took a leaf out of BBC's Shakespeare Retold so far as the names went. Below, for your reading pleasure are the main cast, recurring cast(marked with a #) and the guest star cast(so far; marked with *) with the Shakespare name first and the name I've given him/her after that, as follows:
Theseus/Changeling Boy=Ethan
Demetrius=Deacon
Hippolyta=Piper
Puck/Robin Goodfellow=Rob
Caliban=Cal/Caliban
Ariel=Ariel
Oberon/Theseus=Brock#
Titania=Anya#
Helena=Lena#
Lysander=Xander#
Cobweb=Connor#
Peaseblossom= Sola#
Hermia=Mia*
Moth=Moth*
Mustardseed=Moira*
Ceres=Ceres*
Cool, right? So, next tidbit is the actual character and plot bits:
The Hero is the Changeling Boy--Ethan--and the villain is....PUCK!!!! I know, right? Ok, fine, so Caliban from Tempest is there there too, but yeah, Puck is on the dark side. He double crossed Oberon and is after the kid, and Oberon and Titania are back on the same side, and working with Demetrius, Helena, Hermia, Lysander, and Ariel(from Tempest fame) to keep Caliban and Puck away from the kid--who's name is Ethan and who also has a chip thing inside him that is actually a piece of the witch Sycorax's soul(again, a character from Tempest), and the only thing preventing her from rising again. Also, that love potion business? It wasn't just a love potion. It was hallucinogenic poison(aka small doses cause hallucinations--like the love spell in the original story--leading to death; large doses cause death...in like six hours.)--which will be all kinds of juicy since Puck and Caliban can trigger this at will and Lysander was "cured" and Demetrius wasn't. And Demetrius has a-complicated-dark-shadowy-past-Hawkeye/Joss Whedon/Spike-thing going on. And Ariel and Puck have a thing for each other. And the fairies from both plays(Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed, Ceres, Juno, and the other one whatshername) are creepy demon-y things that Puck and Caliban control and can morph from human to demon-y creeps and attack things--and people--and Cobweb/Connor is the lead assassin-thing(and also posing as Ethan's best friend!).
Third tidbit: Visuals--as I have always done and will probably do for the rest of my life, I need visuals to draw my characters out--at least in the early drafts--and to spur myself on in case this gets producer somewhere, sometime, in some place(a girl can dream, right?).
Here's my thought so far: Caliban and Puck will have the steampunk thing going on vs say, Demetrius and Xander and Ethan(the Changeling Boy), who will have a more post apocalyptic style(see photos below). Oh yes, and there will probably be cameos from Prospero, and Miranda, and Ferdinand and Antonio and other characters from this plays along the way. Yes, still having much to much fun developing the thing. And yes, it's now a tv series. Or just a forty-five minute pilot/short film whatever.
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| Top Row, Left to Right: Visual Ideas for Xander, Demetrius, Mia/Anya, Oberon(Brock), and Ethan Bottom Row, Left to Right: Visual Ideas for Connor, Rob, Caliban, Lena, and Ariel/Piper |
Finally, the fourth tidbit: like every writing project, you have to have a title, right? Or at least a working one. So here's the WT I have settled on, and I'm rather excited about it. Obvious, yes. Cliche, possibly. But it certainly coveys the idea of the story I want to tell least for now. And it'll be nice to give rather than explain the whole thing and then say I don't now what to call it, don't you think? So the title I have come up with is this:
Changeling
And if/when it ever gets to the screen, that's how I want the title card to look. Pretty good, right? Can you say possible pipe dream and I don't care? Cause I can! Am I excited about this newest piece of bubble gum writing? Oh yes. A little bit.
