When Ideas Strike by Neil McGowan

 

It’s funny where ideas come from, and how they can take hold of you.

Just before Christmas, I was listening to a broadcast of Verdi’s Rigoletto, from New York’s Met Opera. It’s an opera that never fails to intrigue me, and every time I hear it I’m struck by just how dark it is thematically (and I learned something new, namely that the opera was based on a story by Victor Hugo).

Anyway, there I was sitting with my headphones on and enjoying the performance when that ‘what if?’ moment struck me.

What, I wondered, might have happened after the opera finishes.

If you’re not familiar with the story, Rigoletto is a court jester, serving the Duke of Mantua. The Duke is a serial womaniser (and possibly guilty of multiple cases of sexual assault). Despite Rigoletto trying to protect his daughter, Gilda, from the Duke (and the world in general, really), she falls for the Duke, for whom she is merely another conquest.

Other courtiers, jealous of Rigoletto’s position, kidnap Gilda, thinking she’s his mistress, and deliver her to the Duke, with predictable results.

Rigoletto, half-mad with grief, engages an assassin to kill the Duke in revenge, whilst plotting to leave the country. Meanwhile, the Duke has moved onto the assassin’s sister. She begs the assassin not to kill the Duke; Rigoletto’s daughter overhears the murder plot and resolves to sacrifice herself in place of the Duke.

The assassin stabs Gilda and delivers her body in a sack to Rigoletto before making his escape. Rigoletto gloats over the body until he hears the Duke singing in the distance. Opening the sack, he finds his daughter, dying of her wounds, and the opera ends with her death.

Very dramatic, and just the sort of story to power an opera. But I started to wonder: one of the themes explores the nature of revenge, and I wanted to know what happened afterwards.

For a week or so, I played with the idea, not writing much about it but turning it over and over. It was like a locked box – I knew there was a story in there, somewhere, but I needed to find the key to get to it.

The other part of the ‘what if?’ fell in place when I read a short story about the American Wild West. That was the key in the lock for me. The time period worked, and I quickly had several scenes in mind as well as a sketchy outline of a plot.

It doesn’t matter that I have two books on the go at the moment – an adult thriller and a YA action adventure – this one won’t leave me alone. I’ve started a notebook to jot down all the different ideas, and will be starting writing it as soon as I have the plot mapped out.

I’ve also got a section for things that I’ll need to research which is growing rather full. Lots of research to do, which is something I always enjoy. (One of the hardest tasks when editing, for me, is working out how much of my research is needed for the story – it’s usually no more than 10-20%, I find).

Ah well, at least I don’t need to worry about what I’m going to write next, I suppose!