Take one-hundred-fifty-seven.
For starters, we have another ye olden Tumblr intro to share with you. From April 22, 2017:
Welcome to the wonderfully skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where crap is king (just ask a typical Democrat), resistance is futile (just ask any college student who happens to be a Republican) and nanny government is the new 1984.
A few posts ago, I feather touched the hot-button topic that is religion, with my focus being on a particular throwaway scene between the MC and a one-off character. For the next two posts, I thought I would elaborate on that particular hot button issue, thus giving you good readers an small insight on what makes G.B. tick at a writer.
I've always had a healthy, albeit seriously skewered, outlook on religion, organized or otherwise. I'm not really sure why or how that came about. I never really went to church much as an adult, and only went as a child when I was required to do so by the parental units (now that's a dated phrase, eh). I never became skeptical about religion (I do believe there is a higher deity) nor did I questioned the tenets closely. For me, it was just one small slice of my character development that I never really gave any thought to.
I think that because of my relatively blase attitude towards religion, it never became an issue of conscience when I started using a few religious concepts as background scenery for my stories. To me, they were simply places to set a story in, which in turn allowed me to customize/tweak to my twisted heart's content for modern audiences.
For example, for a novel that ultimately became a yummy slushy (this was my first attempt at taking a mediocre 24 page short story and turning it into a full length novel. 75% completed before I completely and utterly lost the plot thread), I took the concept from this Albert Brooks movie and tweaked it just a shade.
I made both Heaven and Purgatory symbiotic corporate entities and went to town with it: a bus making its daily journey around the world to pick up the recently deceased, bringing them to Purgatory, which became something of a transfer station, and then having them relive their life up to the point of death. I never really got beyond that, as it eventually petered out and got shelved.
However, the one thing I did takeaway from that decent slushy (besides not wanting to copy a movie concept too closely again), was that I didn't want to make my Purgatory sterile like that again. You noticed that I didn't include either Heaven or Hell, and there is a good reason for that. I've always found the concept of Purgatory (or Limbo if prefer) completely and utterly fascinating.
I've always thought that Purgatory never got its proper due, unlike Heaven and Hell. So the bulk of my stories going forward that had any religious concepts always focused on Purgatory. Heaven sometimes got hinted at as well as Hell, but the main focus was always on Purgatory.
There was the occasional exception to that rule, with the most glaring one being this particular novella.
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What makes this more unique is that this entire novella was a based on a blog post. You read correctly, a blog post. I had written a piece of mini flash fiction as a blog post one day and ultimately decided to turn it into a story.
While one of the protagonists was from Purgatory, two others were from Heaven. Purgatory was mentioned infrequently as I decided to tighten my focus on Heaven and Hell-on-Earth.
While I did manage to introduce/flesh out some the traditionally nasty elements of Hell, the main focus was a modern battle between Heaven (in the form of Gabriel and Michael) and Hell (the evil boyfriend), with just a tiny bit of Purgatory being used as a conduit for both Heaven and Hell.
Overall, I did a respectable job of fleshing out and telling a modern version of the age old battle of who was to get a possession of a soul: Heaven or Hell. But I knew, that deep down with a little more practice, I could up the ante and go hog wild in creating another story using the triad of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory that would blow everyone away.
Next week: The Friendship Trilogy.
As always, you can follow me on FB and check out my writings via the covers on the front page.
{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved
My parents dumped my brother and I off a Sunday school when I was a kid. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I finally found Christ on my own.
ReplyDeletePurgatory and Limbo were done away with when Christ was resurrected, but it's still an interesting concept. And it was a real place.
Kudos for you in the finding what you really wanted for your spiritual side in order to become the person you are today.
DeleteI've always found all three places to be utterly fascinating, which I why try to treat them with the respect that they deserve and I've tried to write them with the same way. Real or conceptual, I will probably continue to use them in a manner that will let me explore my beliefs at my own pace.