Inspiration for NaNoWriMo 2010

In a previous post I had promised to write down some of the thoughts and ideas that made Towards Cacophony the way it was.

Since this is a loose sequel for A Slice of Life with a Twist of Lemon, we see a return of some very familiar characters. The two protagonists of the previous novel are back, but this time they are about ten years older than they were, and are joining the university. As always, information here comes from my idea file as well as the novel proper---I have been rather slack in keeping tabs on my story development towards the end.

Heng Kar

The protagonist's protagonist. Just like last time, he is the ``true'' main character, the one whose mental processes are most visible to the reader. He is one half of the interweaving storylines, with an emphasis of the first person perspective. The Heng Kar of this novel is a little more reserved than before, and has gotten into Computer Science in a big way (doing it as a major in the university). He is still friends with Siew Wah, and often sees he latter as some form of mentor in all matters. At the conclusion of the last novel, Heng Kar and Kah Hao are good friends playing at the Chinese Orchestra at the community club. Things happened and they lost contact with each other in between, and an early part of the story was about how they went back to visit their old haunt and meet up with their old friends, most of whom are still there.

Kah Hao

Kah Hao is the third person protagonist with his own storyline. He studies in the same university as Heng Kar, but unlike the latter, he lives in the dormitories on campus and makes friends with some rather... odd characters. University Kah Hao draws upon my freshman year experience in CMU, exaggerated much of course for literary effect. In the last novel, Kah Hao was very music oriented, but in this loose sequel, I've chosen to make him less into music, as a form of reflecting on the loosely hidden aspect of National Service---I made him a health nut of sorts, the kind of person who has taken in the mythos of the soldier completely and axiomatically, yet without having that airheadedness that many seem to associate with the soldiering profession.

Tiffany

She had a small role back in A Slice of Life simply because I didn't want to confuse the already long storyline with a romantic love triangle angle (urgh, bad expression). But in this story, her sexuality and raw physical attraction gradually becomes the centrepoint of the story---we find that both protagonists are interested in her more overtly than before. No gratuous sex scene, obviously, but she does seem to have a preference for one of the two protagonists...

Moe and Linda

These two are easily my most favourite characters of the list. Moe is a reversed caricature of my old freshman roommate conflated with my own experience, while Linda is... well, Linda, the other third of our strange trio of crazies in the story. Based on the real-life adventures of two of my friends (part of a group of four crazies), this is a rather novellised version of some of the antics that have occurred. So, did all that I write in here really happen? That's up to those who know what happened to decide... (hint: this is fiction after all)

There are a variety of other minor characters, but they are probably too minor to be of any purpose. Siew Wah is still a part of the cast of course, and I actually planned a big side story involving him and his girl Melanie, but juggling three parallel storylines proved too much for my time-restricted mind to bear, and thus he ended up being relegated to a minor role as mentor to Heng Kar.

As for locations, there is hardly any connection to anything in real life, though to be honest, the universities that everyone of them hail from is a mash-up of places that I know; generally speaking, the universities are based on those that are in Singapore, with obvious tip offs in the form of distance (NTU), location (SMU), and quality (NUS). Of course, all these locations themselves are fictional, since each has an infusion of some of the things that I have seen back in my old alma mater. The bars and restaurants are really figments of my imagination based on some of the places that I had visited, so there's no real-life counterpart to compare with.

There is also a subtle thing about the chapter names chosen with regards to the roles/story---Heng Kar's chapters are titled with very mundane and practical terms, which roughly describe what is going on in that chapter, while the chapters involving Kah Hao are ironically named after musical terms, with the content reflective of the general feel of each musical term used. The naming convention is ironic because in this novel, it is Heng Kar who ends up being more musically inclined while Kah Hao becomes more involved with school life as opposed to music as a whole. The collision course between Kah Hao and Heng Kar had been planned a long time ago, and served as a nice place to form an ending. The voice in Heng Kar's head was unintentional---I was looking for something that could give him more inner dialogue and thus suggest that perhaps his interest in Tiffany was bordering upon that of the obsession, what with the talking voice in the head that is intrusive and unwanted.

The title itself is almost coincidental: my initial idea was to have the collision course between Heng Kar and Kah Hao to end with a big argument/fight (hence the cacophony), but when I started introducing the voice in Heng Kar's head, it seemed most natural to end it the way it did (and lead to the cacophony that we have been referring to all throughout the novel). While most definitely not the best way to end the novel, I'm quite satisfied at the overall effect that I have gotten.

So there you have it, the spoilers/inspirations that are behind Towards Cacophony. What are you waiting for, go download it from here and start reading! =D