Before I jump in, some content warnings. The following entry will touch on the topics of isolation, gaslighting, abuse, animated Victorian dolls, “but I’m a nice guy,” and related areas. There will also be spoilers here for any short story which comes out of this process.
Spoiler Space:
The Bob Ross image isn’t gratuitous. It’s one of the ways I’ll try and describe the process of noodling out a short story. If you’ve read through some of my ‘study horror’ suggestions, you’ll know that Ramsey Campbell has done this – brilliantly – with his process. But Campbell is the Bob Ross of this extended metaphor. I’m just a person at home who’s learned a few tricks, and trying to spread the joy of painting to my friends.
But to that end, a lot of folks look at the shows and think, “How does he do that? I can’t be that easy.” Well, it both is and isn’t. There’s a lot of process that doesn’t get caught in a 30-minute show. For example, he made 3 versions of every painting: A test version before the show, the version during taping, and one afterwards (which he often gave to PBS stations for their pledge drives). Bob practiced. He had more happy accidents than we could ever know. And sometimes, things didn’t work out the way he wanted. So, he’d try again.
Doing that in general is hard. His gift was doing it in front of everyone, talking them through the process, and still having it make sense.
Which is where my crazy process comes in. Which is less background to foreground, filling with happy trees, than, well…
First thing, though, is the seed idea. I was stumbling around on Twitter when someone showed a picture of a very creepy looking porcelain doll. Not this one below, but close:
And I thought to myself, “That doll’s seen things.” And I heard it talking in hard, bitter words. “Yeah, kid. I’ve seen things. I’ve seen people do horrible things to each other. Seen things that would peel your skin.”
I played the question game – interrogating the thought. Who’s the doll talking to? What has it seen? Is it trying to warn someone? What if it was dangerous, but not malevolent?
This creates the kernel of short story: A porcelain doll, the kind you see in all sorts of horror movies, comes alive. But it’s not here to kill our main character. It’s trying to warn them. To save them.
That leads to other questions: Who’s the doll trying to save? Answer – Someone who restores dolls.
I’ve been watching a lot of videos on YouTube and Twitch of people who paint miniatures & build Gundam kids (two hobbies of mine) and they lead me to videos on toy restoration, woodworking, and wood turning. Much like some YouTubers and Twitch streamers make their living, or supplement their living, with their broadcasts, the same is true for craftsfolk.
The toy restoration people film their process, make a YouTube video, and use it to promote the toy they restored on eBay or in their physical stores. Woodwrights and turners from Maine to Ontario create how-to videos and show people how they carve travel mugs from blanks of cherry wood & resin. The products then go on Etsy stores, or get sold via local antique shops, etc. The wood turners in specific fascinated me. They were often way out in the world – two I watch are up in Petawawa, Ontario, Canada and another is in the middle of Michigan, between Flint and Ann Arbor – so it also got me thinking about small towns. Especially ones that relied on the tourism or antiquing/B&B trade.
I went to college up in Penn State. I’d take the bus to and from State College to DC for spring and winter break. We stopped in places like Altoona, for example, or Hershey. Later in life, I’d be visiting those places with my wife as part of small getaways. I’d think about the people who lived there. What did they do for a living? How did they handle it when things closed for the winter? Were they lucky enough to be near big tourist areas, where they could get good bandwidth? Did they ever feel isolated? Struggling?
From here, a picture of my protagonist built up, as did her situation. The last touchstone was a personal experience. I’d gone to visit a friend who’d bought a farm up in rural PA, near Lebanon. It was a literal one stoplight town. One of the dairy farmers held a massive open house/party to show off their new $30k milking rigs for the barn. A bunch of us went up to visit this friend and got caught in a huge snowstorm. I got some great photos there, but also imagined how isolating it could be. I imagined a less horrific version of The Shining but instead of being trapped and going insane, you were trapped and had to realize you didn’t love your partner anymore?
Now I’ve got the shell-shocked Doll, a crafter/toy restorationist, a small tourist and antiquing town by Hershey, PA (because I know the area and know people there), and a dissolving relationship with a snowstorm to boot. How do I string this all together into a plot?
Well…
Biomechanoid Blues 