This isn't exactly romantasy based and by no means in my area of expertise. This is merely an idea.
Every now and then, I experience this phenomenon. I listen to an album and either based on stuff I'm going through or just daydreaming, pictures pop in my head.
I might have addressed this with my Lindsay Lohan inspired album fic, which will probably be called "Nobody 'till you" when I finally get my act together on it. I didn't connect with the album "Speak" quite until my mind started revolving around this guy I had a crush on during my senior year of high school. Almost every song reminded me of him, so ideas came to mind of what I could do. Its kinda like a cross between wish fulfillment and realistic fiction, taking situations I faced and explored the "what if's"... except for the fact that a lot of it seemed very manufactured and biased, despite it being in 3rd person POV.
Like I said, a lot of stuff to work on.
Then one day I was listening to Prince's "Come" album and during the 2nd track, "Space"... my mind went off to another world... not quite to outer space, but I was transported somewhere else. I followed the rabbit hole, listening through the album a few times within the same week to try to get pictures and images together to put each song to a scene and vice versa.
The only unfortunate part now is when it comes time to write about that particular album for my project is I might be rendered unable to review the album. Ever since I got my album fic together, I haven't been able to think of it any other way. The same scenes always came back.
Now it's happened with Nelly Furtado's "Loose" album, which evolved into one of my most unexpected pleasures as far as my music collection goes. I didn't quite get into it at first. The hip-hop flavor, I wasn't necessarily accustomed to and it was so far and behind her first single "I'm like a bird," which I never really liked to begin with.
You could say that "Say it right" and "Promiscious" guided me on my way through the album.
My mind just wandered off a couple Saturdays ago and boy was I surprised to see what came out.
Albeit, a little unorthodox and definitely not my area of expertise or even covering subject matter I'm entirely comfortable with.
I looked up the translation of the title of one song on the album and it translates to "I searched for you"
until I find a better title, that'll be temporary.
There are a lot of temporary things that I need to sort through before I even type the words "chapter 1."
I know I have at least three key players, one of them is my heroine, the girl I see in my mind whenever I listen to the vocals on the album.
One of them will be her secret lover that she eventually ends up together with in a happy ending.
And the third is probably the most mysterious of them all because I don't know anything about him.
The only thing I do know: he is VERY protective of her.
Under the impression that she's his property. To say they're romantically linked would be a stretch... because I don't know quite what it is yet. I think the majority of it is based on the physical aspects rather than knowing each other's personalities.
I don't know if I'm very content in saying that the entire relationship is based on sex and that's all she is to him, his own whore for all intensive purposes.
Because just thinking about typing the word "whore" or having that particular state of mind coming from him... I mean, ultimately this is something that's going to empower women rather than making them out to be objects.
You never really know sometimes in 3rd world countries like this what kind of things go on. But I don't know just how much I'm willing to push the issue.
In fact, some of the ideas floating in my head about my approach almost make me feel ill... I mean, the mere idea of a man believing he owns a woman so much that despite the line of business she's in, he can tell her "I want to have you in my bed tonight, so tell everyone that they won't be able to hire you for the night"...
man, that disgusts me... not to mention the fact that I don't know just how much sex I plan to put in this... I only wrote my first ever sex scene a couple months ago, so the idea of approaching that is a bit nerve-wrecking. Plus this one morale I have that has kinda gone out the window along with that.... I don't feel the need to really put a physical relationship into my works because that's not what I believe relationships should be strictly based on... that's something that really makes me ill, the idea of that being all there is.
All sorts of ideas are coming to mind about the kind of story I want to write... but I really want it to be something of value, but also something that people will want to read, rather than it being some experiment for my own personal needs. I've written maybe 3 sex scenes, going into a little detail, but not too far into it because it's still a touchy issue for me.
One of them was a very selfless gesture... the girl doing a favor for this guy that's been down and out and it kinda affirms that he has value...
another was very emotional, because they hadn't been together in a long time and their relationship was never about that, but she figured in their time apart that he'd be the person she'd like to lost her virginity to... it was the kind of thing where he supported her and wouldn't let her steer wrong...
The third was, eh... not exactly pure, but it was one of the strangest things I'd experimented with... the girl has been in a relationship with her girlfriend for a week, like maybe 3-6 months... the physical hasn't been satisfying or it just plain hasn't been there... she kinda decides that she wants to be with a man and kinda realizes that it's better with a man... I haven't gotten too far into it, but what I kinda figured is that she ended in a lesbian relationship because maybe of an encounter with a man that temporarily scared her away from thinking of the opposite sex in that way
Then there was a 4th time where it was hinted at and pretty much said that it happened, but I didn't go into any real details about the actual act.
All of this coming a virgin, who you might believe is sexually deprieved... it was pretty insane for a while between a number of sex scenes in movies putting ideas in my head, but also assuring me that it was okay to explore that in my writing cuz I hadn't before.
What's even crazier is the fact that I didn't feel anywhere near up for writing this kind of stuff or exploring it 5 years ago... I mean, I got a book from Comic-Con from a series written by Sherrilyn Kenyon, and when I read it, it was so hard to get through because every couple chapters there was a very graphic sex scenes. I wanted to almost throw the book across the room because it freaked me out.
And no, this doesn't mean I'm eager to pick that back up or buy into "50 shades of gray"... which had become such a sensation that SNL wrote a very uncomfortable sketch about it last Saturday... kinda like a mother's day commerical for Amazon, but every time the husband and/or kids came into the room with kids, the mom was using "50 shades of gray" for the same purposes as a guy does with Playboy & Penthouse
Don't you give me that crap "I read it just for the articles"
... back to the story ideas I'm trying to put together.
I have ideas for the three main characters in my "love" triangle
Don't know how the jealous b/f feels about the heroine, but I don't know how much of it is love and how much is lust...
something tells me that he has a very Italian New Yorker type personality... like a gang/mafia mentality... his attitude is that he doesn't like it when other guys get to oogle his girl.
I still don't know what kind of venue this is. It's not a striptease joint because there's no stripping and there're no poles. It has a bar. It could be something of a club, but the act that brings people in each time are the dancing sirens.
Part of the establishment is a prostitution ring, but the details still have yet to come together. I see a lot of lap dances happening, private rooms and all that... so maybe stripping does happen behind closed doors, but only the high rollers get the utmost "pleasure" of taking a girl home with them to spend the night with.
There's a certain cameraderie between these women because there's only maybe 4-5 of them including my heroine. What they do in the public setting involves a song and dance act. The dancing is sexy, but not dirty or provactive with obscene gestures and stuff like that. Listening to this album, the majority of it has a lot of belly-dancing and elements from Bollywood. With some of it, I can even imagine there being some Salsa dancing.
Even though I know that the majority of the record is Nelly Furtado singing her own back-up, the group setting is just more visually appealing. Naturally as my heroine, she's at the center of the group, the star that a lot of people come out to see.
Maybe even, she'd just become the star because the girl originally in her place fell ill or... stuff happened... quite possibly that's where things could get very intense.
Which brings forth the biggest variable that I need to iron out and determine:
where in South America does this take place?
I kinda see it being a hot spot in an otherwise run down neighbor that has a lot of poverty, or rather it's on the outskirts of that. She and the girls were plucked from the situation, likely because they had no families or their families wanted to give them a better life.
I'm not quite sure how their dancing talents were found out about to where the "plucking" could happen... and for the record, recruitment doesn't happen unless they're of 18. In some South American countries, that might even be 17 instead of 18... but I just feel more comfortable with it being 18.
Eh... something tells me that the girls that end up working there have had no other opportunity aside from selling themselves in that way... it's very troubling and sad, but it happens a lot, even to this day.
Therefore I need to do a little research on these types of establishments, which could lead to some unpleasant looks into sex trafficking (not a very age-objectionable trade either), looking into which South American countries where this happens most often to help narrow down the list.
Most likely I'll be restricted to the detail that Nelly Furtado is of Pourtuguese ethnicity so the countries where those routes are more prominent is where I'd start
Of course I still need a leg to stand on so if the other details don't match up with Pourtgal relations, then I'll drop that particular detail.
Right now, I'm prematurely aiming for Brazil or one of the countries north of it like Venuzula or Bolivia... Chile and Argentina don't quite feel right to me, but then again, I'll do my research before deciding.
As for the playlist, I'm flexible in not necessarily strictly sticking to this one Nelly Furtado album... it was the activating incident that started all of this, but I'm open for other ideas. Pretty much anything that kinda sounds exotic is fair game.
Because of the similarities, I listened to Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi"... then I decided to check out "Alejandro" from her 2nd album.
It sounds like it could work really well in the mix to the point I might even be inspired to call the jealous boyfriend Alejandro...
actually, the activating incident might be "Sex Shooter," that song Apollonia 6 did in Purple Rain... the choreography for that particular number inspired a few of the things that became to mind while listening to the album
When it comes to my heroine, something that's important is her initial mindset. She'd been doing this for a while, since she was 18, but she only became the lead girl of the group for less than a year.
Eh, when it comes to thinking about possibly a troubling truth, that scares me a little bit... especially when I'm thinking of a "Dirty Dancing" situation... where the loser that knocked up Penny was moving on to the next defenseless girl...
like it would be outrageous... if the jealous boyfriend was in a relationship with her before he moved on to my heroine and later on, she finds out that he's not as good as he claims to be...
wow, that scares me, but I might have to go there for a selling point... I dunno...
nah, I don't think it would be the jealous boyfriend, but maybe an older brother or cousin and she later receives a warning to be careful of who she trusts...
Then there's the detail that when it comes to selling herself, she has a similiar attitude about that Julia Roberts did in "Pretty Woman"... she keeps emotions out of it and she does what she has to do to make that extra cash... which suggests that her relationship with the jealous boyfriend doesn't have a lot of emotions in it, but maybe overtime it changes...
The newcomer that she ultimately ends up with might change her mind about how she thinks about things in relationships...
I'm still fishing around for ideas for names, origin stories, logistics, clearly...
here's what I have as far as ideas for scenes per the songs from the album and then some...
1) Human- the opening number where the girls are introduced
2) Maneater- maybe a flashback to the previous leader's usual routine
3) Promiscious- the 1st time she and the newcomer meet, they duet and she flirts with him like its part of the act, but instead he ends up falling for her
5) Showtime- a slow scene either before or after curtains, getting ready to get on stage of leave... kind of a moment of reflection
6) No Hay Igual... ?
7) Te Busque- another duet between her and the newcomer... like that medley between Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor in "Moulin Rouge"... or like a duet between Tony & Maria in "West Side Story" (which I'll have to see again to check my references, lol)... might also be something that comes back at the very end just before the credits roll
8) Say It Right- her declaration of love/feelings for him
9) Do It- ?
12) All Good things come to an end- maybe her ending things with the newcomer, saying "who are we kidding, we can't do this, run away together, my life is here"... something like that...
"Sex Shooter" might be another number in there somewhere that helps set up the story with "Human" (I know the real name of the song is "Afraid", but I don't really care... the main hook "so afraid of what people might say, that's okay cuz we're only human")
"Alejandro" could be a farewell song she sings to the jealous boyfriend... though I'm not sure if he necessarily buys into her breaking things up with him...
whatever happens, there has to be a moment where she feels betrayed by the newcomer and has to give him 12)...
and at some point, not sure how in the world he's going to say this, the jealous boyfriend has to say to her "you really do love him, huh?" and tells her that she can go with him and he won't try to stop her
Ultimately, the two of them leave the country for brighter prospects where he'll take care of her so she doesn't need to go through that particular business trade again... giving her back her humanity as it was.
All I have so far with names...
her temporary namesake will be Talia and that may or may not change...
the jealous boyfriend may or may not be called Alejandro
and the newcomer, I'm thinking Paulo, but I'm not sure as of yet...
After I decide what country I'm in, I can start going through common names, all of which will be ethnically related. Research is going to be important here because I can't make this stuff up as I go. And naturally I'll keep my eyes and ears open for songs and maybe movies to help bring my vision closer and closer to becoming a reality.
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