Hopes and the Damned
Jim Brown
1999.01.23 Sat 11:47 AM Other than Clive and the movies, this was chiefly inspired by a story in one of the Hellraiser comics. It was in Clive Barker's Book of the Damned - A Hellraiser Companion. It was two pages long and described a woman who solves the box and faces Pinhead, and falls in love with him.
I had bought the entire series in the summer of '94, just having moved out on my own as I was ending a mess of a marriage. It was during that marriage that I decided something I regret to this day. I was trying to push all dark stuff away, as childhood stuff was coming to the surface and it was quite overwhelming. I decided to not go see Hellbound: Hellraiser II in the theater. I still wonder what that would have been like, to see Leviathan for the first time up on the big screen, rather than on a 20 inch TV years later. Oh well. I can vividly imagine it and that'll will have to do until I get that huge wall-sized digital screen in a few years.
Anyway, I devoured the comics that summer (and also bought tons of other stuff, as that is how I coped with the stress at the time).
After reading that story, I wondered 'What would happen if she had become pregnant?'. Well, I had one of my usual flashes of idea and I saw the story, nothing like what you just finished reading however. In its original form, it was to be the story of a guy who's a doctor who suddenly discovers one day he can heal people by touch. He ends up traveling across the country and finds himself in a South America, in a severely diseased village. As he is healing everyone, one of the people hands him a box. He later solves the box and meets his father and discovers who he really is. He gets in a fight with Pinhead and it is a stalemate. Pinhead says one line at the end "You may survived the battle... but what of the war?" ... and the wall behind Pinhead falls out to reveal Leviathan spinning in the distance. Andrew ends up getting made into a Cenobite and becomes the AntiChrist.
Not very uplifting, but then Hellraiser isn't supposed to be. A couple years later (after having met and fallen in love with DiAnn, who I can whole-heartedly say is my soul mate, and I've got the scars to appreciate it), I decided for the millionth time that this was it, I'm going to be a writer and its time to get cracking. I decided to start out with something a little easier. Fan fiction was something I had just discovered on the net and thought 'Hey! What a perfect way to teach yourself!" I could write something in an already established universe and instead of getting mired in whys and hows, I could just concentrate on how I told it. Perfect excercise. I had a three fan fiction ideas to choose from, the Hellraiser story, a Star Wars one, and a Star Trek as well. I started all three but decided to only concentrate on one. I thought the Hellraiser one would be the easiest because the scope of it was so much smaller and it would be nice to have one done, so I started on Part I.
The first scene was very different from what it is now. I wrote a beginning that was basically a calm night in a quiet rural town. The air is suddenly shattered by screams, so intense that it makes nearby animals go crazy, and people wet themselves, as Joleen's siblings are taken to Hell. Then we go to Andrew getting the call from the sheriff.
DiAnn read it and didn't think the first part fit with the first movie. She explained her take on it and how just didn't fell right. I remember getting really angry about that comment and felt quite depressed... because I agreed with her. So I went back to the drawing board. Something sparked and the dream came out. I figured I might as well tell the whole thing in the dream, but hopefully in a way that won't make it too obvious.
She liked that much better, and so did I. So along with being my girlfriend, she became my number one idea-bouncer-offer. Lucky, lucky, person I am.
I showed it to a couple of friends. I got back some awesome feedback. One of my friends commented that he thought the quality of my writing was to the level of books off the shelf. Wow! DiAnn also liked it a lot. I posted it. I remember sitting there waiting for e-mails to come in, scared to death. This was a big deal since it would be the first time people who I hadn't even met or seen would be reading my stuff. The e-mails I got back were great. People seemed to really like what I was doing. Cool! I was told that I had done a great job of being consistent with the first movie and how refreshing that was. All I had to do was follow my initial idea and it would have turned out fine. A nice little story that didn't push into anybody but Clive's directions.
But the damn story wouldn't cooperate. It started to change. I'm not sure when, but at some point I decided to let Andrew win in his quest. That was a big deal right there. "KILL LEVIATHAN! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?! Everyone who said they like your story and couldn't wait for more are going to hunt you down and 'solve your puzzle' buddy!"
I realized that this would be an even better test for myself, take something people like and take it in a new direction. One of the biggest complaints I've read from those who have 'made it' is that people want something different, and cool, and wild, and inventive, but once it starts, it can't change. Well, I love that change. I love Clive's books because you never know who is going to die on the next page, or where the story is going to go. I love that its overwhelmingly sappy one page and deep dark and disturbing the next. ... and the times he mixes it together are priceless. I want to be like that and oh, so very badly. So I said 'to hell with it' and told it my way. I basically tried to keep one foot in what I feel is the core of Hellraiser, people dealing with the consequences of getting their deep, dark wishes made real, and one foot off in my own direction. Hopefully, I could start off with something genuinely Hellraiser and gradually end up with something genuinely 'me'.
Back to Andrew winning...
That was a problem. We saw in the fourth movie that Hell is alive and well, a part of it takes place hundreds of years down the road. Great. How was I going to pull this off? Well, I realized it would be cool if Andrew started as a human with these cool powers in this time and over the course of hundreds of years, grows in powers and allies until one day, way down the road, he takes Leviathan on, pratically a god himself. That does sound really, really cool doesn't it? Well, I didn't want to write hundreds of years of struggle (I'm saving that kind of epic story for one of my own characters in my own 'universe' of which Indian Summer is a tiny little piece, but not any of those characters).
It hit me that Leviathan should have some old enemies that Andrew could ally himself with. So the story changed again to where he would be the instigator of it all. ... and the Wolves of the Water were born! I still had the mess of hundreds of years though. That's when I decided to do an outline. In the outline, I figured it all out with the water sphere. It was do-able. So I set out.
I had one major hesitation. The Wolves of the Water are not Hellraiser. Not even close. But they are mine, and I liked them, and they readily fit the purpose they were created for.
It's been sporadic, as I'm a person of endless obsessions and tend to bounce back and forth quickly. It was three weeks ago that I realized it had been over two years. Now it is done. It feels weird. Dreaming up stuff for this story and trying to decide which of the many ways to take it has occupied a lot of thought over these last couple years. Hmm... I'm going to miss that. Telling DiAnn, as we sat in our favorite Chinese restaurant, my latest 'guess what I came up with for the Hellraiser story'. Life goes on.
Well, I've actually got something way bigger in the works and have spent most of our chats on that, but the Hellraiser stuff was simpler and more fun, since... well, it was for fun, and an excercise.
Oh all right. What's the 'something way bigger'? Let's see if I can sum it up... I've basically created a series of story arcs, past, present and future, that all intertwine, but can stand alone, and will allow me to tell any kind of story I want with every kind of hero and monster out there. It includes wizards, werewolves, demons, angels, gods, dragons, immortals, ghosts, vampires, aliens, and many more and anything in between. It's quite cool and DiAnn is very excited about it all. It can also be told in many formats which will allow me to pursue all my talents. One thread would is planned out as a concept album/movie/book/live show and I've got the songs in my head already.
So there it is. For Andrew anyway. Yesterday I was walking to my car on my way to work and something hit me about Thomas. It would be cool to tell his story. That fateful night his sister and brothers worked on their box, him tagging along, and his impending struggle with Copulas (who was my fave of all the characters I created).
Favorite moments. I was surprised as anybody with what happened when Copulas and Andrew met. That was not planned. As a matter of fact, I wanted the battle to be long and drawn out, with lots of details. As I looked out over it through Andrew's eyes and described what we saw, I suddenly noticed Copulas below looking up at him. The woman slammed into her, she did what she did, and I felt Andrew's rage. I had every intention of Andrew sending her back to Earth again or destroying her. I can't believe how powerful she got... Then when she shoved Andrew into the creation chamber 'that had risen up behind him', I felt my hair on the back of neck stand on end.
I almost left him like that, but couldn't.
The part with his death was not mapped at all, I had something else in mind. When that didn't work and didn't give me the sense of closure I wanted, I decided to have the Serpent lunge at him and the rest you know.
I like my ending. It's not depressing. It's not Hellraiser. It's me. Damn writers anyway. Gotta do it 'their' way. Guess I'm like all the rest.
Anyway, hope you liked it, and can forgive my choices. I've discovered I can tell a decent story during the writing of this, and it is my first complete story. I could have played it safe and not tread on Clive's stuff. ...letting Leviathan go on turning in Hell's sky. But what's life without risk. In a way, I guess Andrew was me.
Hellraiser © 1998 Miramax Films.