Turning My Stressful Work Life Into A Fun Coming Of Age Story

Over the last year I worked a job in the city that would give me a three hour commute each day for five or six days a week. I recently left that job even though I really liked some aspects of it. One of those things were my coworkers. Most of them have become friends now but if there's one thing I'll keep from that job forever it's the characters. 

Since I was a teenager I've had this idea for a story set in a cinema. I knew I wanted it to be a love letter to the multiplex itself, a fun and intimate adventure with charming characters, and possibly a Scooby Doo-esque mystery. The idea has bounced around in my head for so long, with very little narrative actually forming and just this sweet thought of a wholesome and nostalgic friendship blossoming in a cinema. That was until a few months ago, when I'd established some interesting relationships and dynamics at work. My writing has always tried to incorporate people or aspects of people from my daily life and this will be no different. 

My fictional cinema and my all too real former workplace share similarities. Both once loved by the community but worn down by time and company neglect to the point that they are actual safety hazards despite what they still have to offer, I'm pretty sure they're both haunted as well. They're both managed by an odd but lovely middle aged man who only still works there because he wants to protect his younger co workers from the nightmarish middle management guy who is always complaining and clearly wishes the entire place was demolished. The overly ambitious assistant manager who often finds himself way in over his head. A supervisor who's always either exercising or sleeping (or complaining that someone has interrupted his exercise or sleep). Then of course there's the regular staff, they both have a slightly too laid back messer who's lucky that most people appreciate his sense of humour, and that character is definitely not the stand in for myself. There's the sweet cashier who doesn't take crap from customers. And of course there's the new guy who's kinda hopeless but far too adorable for anyone to get mad at him.

There's obviously a few more side characters and I'm really seeing now where all the relationships and character dynamics are working. Having good characters for this story is really important for me because they really need to be memorable for it to work as I have planned.

Having all these characters worked out allowed me to finally nail down a proper narrative. Normally I'm able to come up with at least a rough narrative pretty quickly but for some reason I struggled with this one for so long. This story basically spawned eventually through me daydreaming scenarios while at work. Shortly before Halloween, I finished a good outline of the entire plot and I'm really happy where it is at the moment. I'm working away now on all the little bits like dialogue and more set pieces. I'm using this post as some kind of word vomit to... I guess explain to myself that progress is being made on this story.

Soon I'm really gonna start going hard, locking in to get as much of it written as I can. If anyone out there in the void is interested maybe I could post some excerpts soon and get people's thoughts. Let me know :)

So that's my first blog post here, I guess. Thanks for reading ~Ian