After writing that post about Jirale I started thinking about how I wrote it, specifically just how much the idea changed before I actually started writing anything.
People like to ask writers where their ideas come from, and I know most writers have a hard time answering. I think it’s quite rare that writer’s actually remember when and how they get an idea. I don’t remember when and how I thought of Jirale, but I do remember where I got it from. I got it from this:
Gundam fucking Wing.
And those of you who are familiar with this wonderful example of 90s homoerotic mecha anime, and with Jirale which is a fantasy dealing with religion, racial segregation and vengeance, might be wondering wtf this:
has to do with this:
Jirale began its life as an idea for a mecha anime. A lot of what I had in mind has long since been forgotten, but the basic plot involved a young mech-unit pilot (this evolved into Ichitake) crash-landing, meeting what I had envisioned as a blonde huntress (who became the Asian Cheng-I) to guide the pilot to safety. There were a few other plot points that have survived in some form in the current novel, but basically where Jirale ends is the halfway point of this original story.
By the time the idea had changed time periods, the second half of the plot (which involved a clone of the Ichitake character – which is where that one on her forehead originally came from, by the by) no longer fit, and so it was completely cut. On a side note, I actually took this second half of the story and used it to plot out a completely different comic idea, though I only ever wrote an outline for it.
Some of what I just wrote remained in the plot of Jirale, like the crash-landing (now from a flying ship), Cheng-I does sort of play the role as guide through most of the novel, and the main antagonist and the search for the armour remained. And of course, the braid…
Duo Maxwell from Gundam Wing and Geiru Mizuno From Jirale. Magic!
How did the idea change so drastically? I have no bloody idea. Keep in mind this thought process took place in 2000. I think I wrote this post not in an attempt to figure that out, but just to share how ideas can form for a writer, and how sometimes the idea you sit down to write has nothing to do with the novel you end up producing.
Horometry 