Shorehouse Brainstorming

Well, for the most part, I'd say I did what I set out to do at the shore... get some brainstorming started and maybe get the chance to do character sketches or write the words "chapter 1"... not quite there yet...

I unearthed so much stuff while brainstorming... a lot of interesting stuff, but not quite what I had in mind. Although it's part of the direction I wanted to go in.

I figured that "Suckerpunch" would inspire my writing in some way, but I didn't think it'd be limited to inspiring some character names. I've got a few characters in place that are somewhat similiar to others in the film.

I'd already explained Emilia's connection as the new girl, but upped the ante in changing her last name to De La Rosa instead of just Rose... Rose would be a little too American for this particular setting... unless of course one of my crazy, outlandish ideas make the cut.
Interesting how it keeps coming up when I'm PMSing, not that things are terrible in that department so far this month (fingers crossed)... I keep toying around with the idea that in her ultimately destructive relationship with her stepfather, Talia got knocked up and all kinds of falling out happened as a result. The easy route would be that the baby was sent away to America to be adopted... possibly something that her mother arranged and that she never forgave her for... played around with the idea that the baby died at the result of some recklessness by her stepfather...

I played around with ages just to get a grasp of how old the girls are, what they were when they first entered the business... technically, age limits are not an issue, but I kinda want to keep things clean so my conscience will have less to regret later on...
Emilia is easily the youngest, I figured that there'd be a 5 year gap between her and the next youngest girl... therefore its a big deal that she's the first girl invited to join the group in 5 years... I figure Talia's in her early 30's and playing around with the ages a bit, there's always the off-chance that Emilia could be this long-lost daughter that Talia had when she was a teenager... I could easily go that route and I have with some other side-project that is more or less for my own experimentation and benefits...

Considering a few other possible ideas of where to go with her character, I don't think I'd want Emilia to have that touchy role... I mean, sure, it happens, but what I do want to be that person who writes about a girl who enters a business that her mom was in against choice... that's just all kinds of complicated I don't want to mess around with.

I'm still considering the idea that future love interest JP is related to someone that is close to Talia... whether its a family friend of her mom's in America... whether he's some distant relation to the Montiels (the family that runs the business... but that's kinda out considering that Alejandro is the nephew of one of the co-owners)... whether he's Emilia's cousin or brother... either way, I've still got a lot to figure out

Aside from familial relations and such, I have JP figured out pretty well... he's American (have yet to figure out what brings him to South America in the first place)... he came from a proper family that's well-put together (may/may not be super rich, I don't think he's THAT rich)... he's enchanted by her immediately, but when he learns about the life she leads, he keeps telling her that she's better than that and tries to make her fall in love with him... to which she'd probably say that she doesn't need to be rescued

I don't want it to be too cliche where he's over the top or she comes off as weak.

Alejandro, I know one thing about... he and Talia are in a relationship based around sex... that makes it so that there's nothing personal going on between them... her terms, more or less, because there's no room for emotions in her line of work
One possibility for a conversation between the two points of the love triangle... which would prove very interesting... JP asking Alejandro about their relationship, if he's waiting for her to leave the business so they can be together... she's so into it and about it that the only reason she'd leave is because her body started to go (therefore she could be until halfway through her 40's because she's in that good of shape)... to which he adds "would you still love her if she didn't have her looks"... their relationship being purely physical, that's the main flaw... and I don't know what his answer to that would be... he still does care for her in his way, but I'm thinking that he's into it as an executive priviledge and its kinda hard for him to be a one-woman man... something tells me he could never settle.

I went so far as to draft a schedule for the girls... who'd go on every night... even started assigning songs (but more on that another time)...

Here's the trick:
this establishment is like a bar, but it only serves drinks and appetizer-like meals, nothing fancy... the girls are the source of entertainment obviously....
on most nights, half the girls dance and the other half are waitresses...
on VIP nights, the VIP girls waitress first and go on stage after everyone's taken care of... its part of their getting bids at the end of the night to go home with the lucky man
Talia is the only girl who doesn't waitress at all, but she gets weekends off... priviledge from being there as long as she has... her downtime is spent working on/perfecting routines as well as trying out new things...
VIP nights are generally MWF... Talia is featured excluvisely on Wednesdays, when she decides to show up... if she doesn't, she's always with Alejandro... if she's not there that night, anyone dance for bids

The clencher is that Emilia is hired as a waitress, responding to an ad, but she asks later to audition as a dancer... she doesn't know about the risque part of the business and as long as its up to Talia, its going to stay that way... she finds her very naive, doesn't want her to be changed too much by what else is out there... protective of her as if she's the sister she never had... there's a very special relationship here I plan to go into more detail about, probably more than any of the other girls...

I knew straight off that Talia has to be backed by, at minimum, two other girls...
who I figured would be her two best friends, the ones she's closest with...

from that, I got Scarlet Rasmusan (her personality will shadow Jena Malone's character, Rocket... she's a redhead, very flirtatous and fun-loving, as a dancer very technical... the last name, I got from American Idol alum Carmen Rasmusan)
Vanessa Zappola (she's a full bodied blonde... very secure with herself and really embodies her sensuality... the name... Vanessa Hudgens who was in "Suckerpunch"... her character was named Blondie so I thought to make her blonde for this case... the last name is mostly made up, but there was a college gymnast named Vanessa Zamaripa that I grew fond of last season... I needed a last name that was a little closer to the Latin culture)

I'll call them Talia's wingmen... wing-girls... both have their different personalities but they get along as well as sisters... both have different POV's and have their own takes on Alejandro and their complicated relationship

That small number wasn't going to quite do it, so I came up with two more...
Ruby, who's Scarlet's twin sister... her hair is more strawberry blonde than red... she gets into the business a couple years after Scarlet... not quite sure what the differences are between them, they're close but have their different interests... Vanessa gets along with her just as easily...
Amber Garcia... who's a little more exotic looking and probably as good as belly-dancer as Talia... I can already tell she'll be a little bit of a bitch, but neither of these two will get a lot of "screen" time... either will have a couple lines here and there or just get mentioned in context, but never seen... still working on that (Amber was another "Suckerpunch" character and Garcia comes from Prince's ex, Mayte, who's a very accomplished belly-dancer that I need to do more video research on... she's bound to inspire some choreography in my mind for these numbers)

Another cool thing I came up with for an idea...
to keep dodging the authorities (since prostitution is illegal), the venue for the VIP nights change almost every time, they get passed by word of mouth and there're "password protected"... as in, you can only gain access to see the exclusive girls... part of it might be that you need to reveal who you got the password from...
I highly doubt that the cops are going to play any role in the story, but just in case, it's good to have.

It was ultimately Talia's idea for this kind of business to stimulate earnings for the Montiels, to make up for her stepfather losing a lot of money for them... after she pays off her debt, she decides to hire other dancers to (hopefully) take her place so she can move on... a few things happen where she decides she can't leave, there's no other place for her...
firstly cuz it takes a while for the girls to stick around for more than a month or two...
secondly cuz she meets Vanessa and gets really close with her and Scarlet and doesn't want to leave
thirdly... she has nowhere else to go... this is all she can do to support herself

I sympathize completely... I mean, I just realized that nothing has really stuck for me because I don't have the commitment for anything... like I'll give 50% because I'm afraid of losing time for myself or part of who I am... ultimately that's been killing any chance I have at a career in the real world... the only thing I can commit to is writing and over the past couple days, this is the most effort I put into anything constructive... I don't want to leave that...
ideas come to mind like I'd like to go on a writing retreat so I can continue to distance myself from civilization... to living in some remote place where I can be alone wtih my work... none are realistic, obviously and my folks would never go for any of it... even if I get some things published, I'll never be rich enough where I can easily retire and never work another day in my life towards anything but writing...

One of the following things will happen...
either myself the writer will cease to exist because my new career will beat it out of me...
or, quite simply, I'm backed into a corner where I have no choice... I live as a writer or... well, not live at all...

But the darkest alternative is miles away... no matter how stressful things get sometimes... I need to see this last idea through to the end... at least try to get the word out to see if anything comes of it...
Anything's worth a shot and it really would be something if success comes to me out of something to really challenges me... and kinda goes to prove that sex really does sell...

I want to be sure that what I end up writing for this, I do it with class so its not entirely about the risque aspects... it's about female empowerment and other rarely touched on issues...
I'm just hoping that I can get away with setting it in Rio without actually going there :-P certainly couldn't write a story like this and set it in America... and that Nelly Furtado makes me think about exotic dancers and exotic dancing (mostly the non-risque part of it... just really exotic looking Latianas dancing their butts off)