Stories To Be

Sara said:
Really tired but...

Maybe it should be made clear at some point that Death looks different to different people. (though this would mean that normal people can see Death at some point right before dying, as opposed to BoD, who can see Death at all times.) This could either be something Death does consciously (So maybe Death is in disguise when he/she/it first encounters BoD) or based on people's perceptions and ideas about death. Though judging from the scene you have, BoD's idea of Death is the traditional skeleton with a scythe. But maybe her deeper ideas about Death are more complex and that goes into how she sees Death. Or it could be a combination of the two. I'd imagine tha popular images of death like scythe weilding skeleton are just something that really hit a nerve with people and just kind of self perpetuated. Or maybe common perceptions of Death are based on how earlier BoD's saw Death. (I try to be ambivalent when presenting my ideas to you, but I must say that strikes me as pretty cool.) Also don't forget that Death is universal, so Death will have other common forms in other parts of the world.

Death should in fact be genderless, but BoD picks a gender to call (it) based on how (it) first appears to her. BoD may even from time to time refer to Death as "it" during times when she feels particularly like Death is a force (either neutral or malevolent) and not at all human.

First scene? Well, one element you have to work with is that Death probably only shows up when someone is dying. (That raises another question which I'll get to in a moment.) So that sets some of your scene. Now you have to figure out who's dying, why BoD is around when it happens, and whether or not she stops Death from taking the person. After we get a little further in, then you can start gong back and mayne showing how BoD unknowingly saw Death in the past and sometimes unwittingly stopped Death from taking people, like her Mom during childbirth if that turns out to happen in your story, though I doubt she'd directly remeber that.

OK, so here's another question to answer. Can Death be in several places at once? I'd thinking the answer would have to be "yes" given the number of people dying around the world at any given time. I'm not saying that there should be many Deaths who each cater po a particular part of the world or even that it should be some Borg conept where there are many Deaths with a single hive mind. Death is one entity, but Death can be many places at once. Death is equally present to take a man in London and a woman in Beijing even if they die in the exact same instant. This realization could also strengthen BoD's notion that Death is something way beyond human and total human understanding. Perhaps this is something that makes her start to feel out of her league, like there's no way she can "fight" Death and win when it comes to col hard statistics. (Death: "Just in the time that we've been talking, I've already taken 17 people."

More questions:

-Does Death come for everything? Animals and plants as well as humans? If so, is BoD aware of Death when (it) comes for something other than a person?

-Does BoD ever ask Death about what happens after you die? Does Death even know?
 

Jennifer Michelle said:
Some of the things to talk and ask about I've already thought of. Though reminding me that Death is indeed genderless is very helpful, I had forgotten. A lot of things about Death are going to be based on BoD's perception and biases. Perhaps it should be part of the story as BoD learns about Death the entity for her to understand how her own views shape Death.

No, BoD wouldn't remember her birth, but Death would if D had shown up expecting to take BoD's mother and then wasn't able to. Death would also know every time BoD had stopped D, even when BoD wasn't aware. That's the reason why I'm considering having Death be the narrator. However, that might take away the idea from the above paragraph.

I like the out of her league feeling idea. Which reminds me of a scene I had forgotten about, where BoD is questioning her purpose and saying how she can't really make a different because there are so many people and just one of her. The Starfish story comes in to play here.

I have questioned if there were previous BoD's or not. At first I has said yes, 'cause I'm starting to hear these characters inside my head and in one place D was saying something like "it's not like this hasn't happened before. I wasn't confused, I was curious about her. Another one." But then that started me thinking who could have been a previous BoD? Eventually my thoughts landed on Jesus, as he had healed the sick and even brought a girl back from death. But I do not want to slant the story towards the religious implications that would bring, though it would be bad to ignore them. So now I'm leaning towards no, there have been no previous BoDs.


Does Death come for everything? Animals and plants as well as humans?

I've been thinking on this one as well. My first few passes through were yes, of course. But that potentially poses the problem of overwhemance for BoD, for when you add everything that is alive to the mix then there is constantly something dying. I am still answering yes for this, with two solutions in mind. One being your next question, and the answer being BoD is only aware of Death when it come for a person. The other solution being that since BoD's presence is what prevents death - BoD can't actually control it - then she doesn't notice because they are not dying when she is around.


Does BoD ever ask Death about what happens after you die? Does Death even know?

Yes, she does.

I have toyed with the idea that Death does know, but will not say. Or that the answer is based on what the person believed in life, which goes back to the strength of human will thing. *shrugs* But for now I'm saying no, it doesn't.
 

Sara said:
More thoughts:

-I'm not to keen on the the idea of Death being the narrator. The character whose experience is going to be closer to what the reader is familiar with is BoD. Having Death tell the story could cause Death to come off as a little more familiar and human, which probably isn't a good thing. Plus it's tough to make revelations feel like revelations when they come from the narrator. You just end up with a narrator who has tons of knowledge that the audience isn't privy to until BoD hears it.

I think you can still get in some background story about BoD unknowingly using her powers without making Death the narrator. Once BoD figures out what she is, she'd naturally start looking for exmaples where she inadvertantly saced lives in the past. Maybe she's always known that her birth was a difficult one, but in light of what she knows now, she starts asking more questions and viewing the event differently. And then she eventually asks Death about it, and Death confirms that the first person BoD saved was her own mother.

-Other BoDs. I think it would be possible to bring them up without making them specific people or religious figures. I sincerely doubt Death remembers names that well and who knows how many past BoDs there have been? Just a line like "Some were worshipped as gods, others were hunted as monsters" or something of the sort could hint at the types of people who might have been previous BoD without having to list all the major figures of every world religion.

-It might be interesting to see how BoD's personal life is affected by being who she is. Does she talk to people who are close to her about her experiences? Do they believe her? How does she deal with the temptation to just stay around her loved ones to prevent them from dying as opposed to going out and helping those who may really need her? Do her calling and her lifestyle (assuming she travels a lot) make it hard for her to get close to people. Does the fact that she's constantly being reminded that anyone can die at any time also make getting attached to other people hard? Or does it make her appreciate all the more the time she has with the people she cares about?

-Death's powers. Death has a list of those whose time has come. Where does the list come from? A higher power? Death itself? Just fate? Does Death have anything to do with determining who dies and when, or is Death merely an agent of some greater force? (I kind of prefer the former, as the latter makes Death seem less powerful and less of something worthy of fighting.) What happens when BoD is able to save someone from Death? If her powers are only valid when she's near a dying person, could Death just come back after she leaves and take the person anyway? Or does a person have a specific time to die (something more abstract than "3:27 PM this Tuesday") and once that's past and Death doesn't collect, Death has to wait until a new time to take that person? Or is every encounter between Death and BoD a matter of debate and the person only lives if BoD can convince Death to leave, for the time being at least?