Flip or Flop

 By Kelly Bridgewater

 Have you watched Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland or Enchanted?

 In both movies, both heroines fall down into a tree or a well and end up in a different world. They hit rock bottom, and then the world flips upside down for them to land another hard surface. Once this happens, Alice sees through a door into this strange world, which we know is Wonderland; whereas, in comparison, Gesell looks through a manhole and sees the lights and glitter of Times Square in New York City.

 In order for Alice or Gesell to accept their new reality, they have to see the world they know in a completely different perspective. I know this works in a fantasy story, since they are both fantasy stories, but would this work for a writer when she is trying to beat writer’s block?

www.puzzlewarehouse.com

Since I like to dive into historical suspense, sometimes, I can’t think of where to go from here. How do I make my characters squirm more? What would have happen if this was a historical story that is true to the time period?

What if I wrote the scene, in another document, of course, since I don’t want to mess up what I have originally been working on, in a different genre?

So for instance, what if I was in the middle of a battle scene in my setting, which is World War II, and I take the character out and place her, for the moment, in a modern setting. How would she react? Would it allow me to find the ways to make my characters squirm?

Sometimes I found it helpful to jump into another character’s setting or time period and allow my characters to roam around in this world to make it easier for them to squirm. It also helps me to think of ways to make them stronger as a character.

Have you tried to flip your characters on their head by putting them into a completely different time period or setting? How about taking a historical western story and place it in a space opera? That would be interesting.

What do you think?