NaNoWriMo 2021: The Idea

This book is mostly the fault of James Gunn. 

In 2014, like so so many others, I was enamored by Guardians of the Galaxy. I left the theater in that glorious excitement from a great movie, which I miss oh so much. I loved every bit of that movie and spent the night gushing with my friends. Soon after, I went to see it again. 

But this time...something bothered me. More than bothered me. One scene, just a few seconds, had me angry. The motley crew of heroes has brought the Power Stone to the collector, who explains how dangerous the Infinity Stones are. Then his slave Carina (whose name I had to look up on IMDb just to verify since it's only used once) approaches the stone. She claims it for herself, to free herself from his cruelty. But the stone rips her apart with its power. She's then immediately forgotten for the rest of the movie since the Guardians have other villains to deal with. 

Carina is sacrificed purely to show the audience how dangerous the stones are, and how much of a big deal it is that Quill can hold it without dying. There's been an issuing with "fridging" women for years, especially in superhero movies. But this scene really stuck with me. I wanted more of Carina, more of her rebellion and desire for power. I wanted to her to rise up and fight back. So I tried to tell that story. 

I tried quite a few times. I wrote multiple versions of my heroine claiming items of power, being consumed by their power, ravaging chaos in their wake. But these stories just weren't working. They were filled with nothing much anger and death, violence and hate. My heroine kept becoming a victim or a villain. It wasn't ever really HER story. But like any good writer, I saved those rough ideas and turned them into something else. But I still wanted to tell that story. 

Then, this August, I watched The Suicide Squad. Again, I was enamored by it. The movie managed to blend violence and anger, but with so much fun and heart. James Gunn did it again. However, I will make an important note that he built off the amazing work Cathy Yan did with Birds of Prey, which I watched right before The Suicide Squad. By watching these two movies, something just clicked in my head. All the disjoined pieces of the story that had been living in my head for years finally came together.

I had her story.