I do, actually, have a plot.
The story on the whole centers around Antoine and Christina as the male/female leads, Haley as a foil for Christina, a character not mentioned here foils Antoine, and a LARGE cast of secondary, tertiary, and incidental characters.
This is meant to be something of a travel piece and a commentary on different matters (I've already mentioned a few) under one big umbrella of what people and scoiety says and what they actually are.
This is done as the characters in question go through both the phases of putting on
that opera, "Carmen"--which is itself chosen for a reason--and travel from place to place, speaking to people and trying to develop and build up their own imgaes as they want, which varies from person to person based on who that character is and who they've met in the plot; we have an immigrant who's trying to be a Mexican, an American, a Mexican-American, and dominate whatever room she's in, because she feels if she doesn't dominate, she slips through the cracks. We have a guy with a lot of ideas and absolutely no direction, and so meeting these people are his way of trying to find that direction and apply those ideas.
Both are trying to define and redefine themselves, and both find something of what they want in that definition in the other, Antoine feeds off of the sort of fire and determination Christina has and he ultimately lacks, and in Antoine Christina has the sort of passive listener of a person with whom she feels she can confide in; she's trying to juggle all these masks and appear perfect and on top to everyone, and she doesn't need to do that with Antoine.
So they try and find solace in one another.
But they're at odds here; again, she's an immigrant, and she lives in that near-squalor fifth-rate condo I mentioned on the Skid Row side of that Theatre/Movies District of LA, and Antoine lives on the other side (hence the reason for putting the Cafe de Don Juan where it is, in the middle, and building it up as a place for discussion, this is ultimately intended to be the moment those things above out about one another) and so that plays into this too--
They're going to first meet, as this story opens, on the one place where I KNOW I can describe the atmosphere and feeling to a T--
The city bus.
(Hey, you write what you know, and I've been writing here for two years about the people I meet and the experiences I have on those busses...that's some of the best stuff I have to go on, and some of those people really were characters...)
But they're going to meet there, near the start, bussing to a college (I haven't decided whether I'm going to make that UCLA, Northridge, or make one up...I haven't been to UCLA, but it makes sense, Northridge I will go to soon, but it's out of the immediate LA metro area, so its less plausible, it's still relatively-close, but I don't think it's close enough, so I'm thinking since I made the cafe up anyway I might as well try and make up a college, another place I can describe, I guess, as I spend 12 hours a day there or bussing to and from there.)
She's doing this because her family's poor, but she's an exceptional, perfect-perfect student and a minorty, so she got in via financial aid.
He's doing this because he's an idealist who's anti-oil and emmitions and all that, and so does it as a form of "protest," thinking it's a larger action than it is (and ignoring the fact that public transportation still emits, but, like I said, he's the idealist with no grounding, she's the realist with no levity.)
So they're going to meet for a while just on the bus, and then go their seperate ways each day, as she's a Poly-Sci and Music major, and he's a (wait for it) Philosophy major (oh, come on, like you didn't see that coming...I said he's inspired by Eugene Onegin a lot, which is true, but I'd be lying if I didn't say this isn't also a charicature of my most idealist, unrealistic points and other folks I know who are, believe it or not, even more idealist and nuts about philosophy and all that Obi stuff than I am.) :p
So they do this and split up each day, but this being the age of social networking that it is, they do a lot of initial talking texting, on a social network site, through friends, on the bus, and, in keeping with the defining oneself/image theme, they each try and put their best virtual--see, false--face foward.
Those friends are the aforementioned Haley, who's also a Ms. Perfect, like Christina, but a lot more sure of herself as she's generally gotten what she's wanted her entire life, and knows how to get what she wants...she's warm and outgoing, but knows how to use that to her advantage, she's not above being Machiavellian with a smile on her face and playing dumb while all the while pulling strings. She has a double major as well, Poly Sci, with Christina, and Philosophy, with Antoine, so she's the go-between for the two for the while. Christina and Haley both sing in the production, as does Lance, who's ALSO rather accomplished, in singing in that production and being a track star as well, and Antoine's friend.
So, just like "Women In Love," we have two men, two women, and two relationships about to develop, with the whole thing really being a relationship of four, as, agkin, the theme being defining onself and others, the plot is essentially a series of who's-with-who-at-what-time events, as information and perceptions about one another in that group change and grow and sour and so on and so forth with every passing day of the performance and every new encounter these people share with strangers.
Which is why I picked "Carmen" as the backdrop of all of this--that, like "Eugene Onegin" and "Women In Love," ultimately boils down to a cast of three or four mains that have different perceptions of one another and what's fair and what's love and so on, and that changes based on who's been with who lately and what some of those extra characters they meet say.
EVERYONE has a tie to everyone else.
Christina and Antoine have a thing.
Lance is going to be bi (this is a group that NEEDS literary representation that's not slanderous...maybe I'll fail and maybe I shouldn't try, but I think I can, I feel strongly about this, and I'm going to give it my best shot.); Haley's going to have a thing for him, and he'll have a secret thing for Antoine.
Christina, Lance, and Haley are in "Carmen" together.
Christina and Haley share a class.
Antoine and Haley share a class.
Christina and Antoine share the bus.
And so on and so forth.
As far as an A-B-C-D-E-Finish plot, this isn't like that; this is more episodic, the way my all-time favorite Dickens works, "Great Expectations" and "David Copperfield" are...
This just isn't going to take place over ten or twenty years.
But like those, it's a story more driven by the characters' interactions and evolutions than a single, over-arching story arc; I prefer authors and works, generally, that have a few excellent character-driven story arcs than one massive plot-driven arc that tries to be the masterpiece story of the century.
It happens so rarely in literary history, you can arguably count on one hand how many authors have REALLY had that kind of a story live up to it...
And you can be assured they've all been dead for hundreds of years.
A lot of this story is about the characters' interactions, not just what they say but how they say it--there are so many communicative differences and foibles in our modern day with the Internet and text messaging and e-mail and forums--like this one--and so on, that who you are, I'd argue, ultimately is a contingent and not a concrete point, it changes dramatically based on who you're talking to and how you're talking to them, as you try and define them and yourself.
And that's the story, really.
It's a mess of things, some of which I'm sure to screw up royally, and some of which are probably bad ideas, and some which might not mesh, and some I might cut.
But they're all their to start with and try with...
And I'd be a fool and a hypocrite and, worst of all, a miserable waste if I didn't at least try and take my shot with all of that.
Ever seen a 17/17 finish in a gunboat?
Wouldn't the more experienced spend more time talking?
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