Literary Immortality

Hey there again guys!

I know this isn't an answer to any question in general, but I feel that this is something I wanted to share, especially to the creative ones among us.

It's a literary technique I made up.

I'll give a brief introduction:

I've been making stories ever since I was able to draw, as said before. But it was inevitable; I realized that those stories were just Frankenstein-esque messes from trying to combine various aspects of my favorite movies and books into just some big ideas. They stunk and I proceeded to drop them one by one. I stopped thinking about them and tried making up new ideas instead.

But the characters never died. I kept putting them into new stories, giving them new identities and looks. They quite literally grew up with me, even until today, coming full circle from their original roles to newer ones.

Then came the Newtown shootings and the Boston bombing. I, along with many others, got feelings of helplessness. I'm not such a man of action, one of those people with the connections and the passion to start a huge project to build a playground in their name or something like that. But I HAD to do something.

Soon I realized what my writing technique could do. It was drastic but it was the only thing I really felt like I could do that would make me feel the loss while making a lasting memory for the deceased.

I made up a literary tool to give the people/children that were killed a chance to live on in a literary work. I took their names and put them in as new characters in my future stories, a tool I call literary immortality.

It felt good the first time I put down some of the names as characters, but I needed to keep the tool in check. So here are a few rules to help not only you but the family of the dead in remembering them

1) Ask permission from the parents/family- I don't have to do this yet  since my work is still not even close to publication/production. But if you guys are going to put someone into a story, make sure the family knows beforehand if you want to tell others who the character is based on.

If they say no, please do not go against the family's wishes. There are many more names out there.

2) They cannot die in vain, or not at all- They must live for something valuable and meaningful. Being part of a death count is not one of them. But if you need the character to go, they should in a valiant way, in an unavoidable way to advance the plot or deepen the story. If you're looking for characters to kill,

3) They are the essence of the person- Try to find out more about the person and how they might act in various situations. If there's no name, then the essence sometimes is all that's needed.

What do you think? Let me know. More posts on the way!

-Zach