h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Brilliant One - A87749860
Author: GregPius - U13648184

This is the intro chapter to a series of stories about a gifted Football player. It is based on my observations about great players from a number of Football codes.

This is one where the truth is at least as strange as the fiction. Have you seen the story of Fabrice Muamba? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17418796

No I must admit that I am more of a Rugby follower than a Football fanatic. In Australia I can think of three people, from different codes,
who were my inspiration. Mark Ella for Rugby Union, Arthur Beetson for Rugby League and Jim Stynes for Aussie Rules. In Football I was also thinking of Maradonna and a few others. But I will check out the one you mention to make sure I don't trod on a cherished memory.
Thanks for the information.

If I was telling this story, I would start with the accident, fill in the back story and then chart the player's fight to get back to the top. Because stories need conflict and his effortless rise to fame and fortune doesn't provide it.

Yeah that is a good dramatic effect. I just have a dread of flashbacks.
My stories do tend to be sequential. I remember that, in a episode of Star Trek (I think) the plot was based around the humans who were shown as "linear beings". This episode had the main character "stuck" emotionally back in one point of time.
Maybe I could use this and have the Brilliant One trapped in the moment of his accident. His team mates, friends and family are there to give their reminiscences of his great career, perhaps to a TV reporter. This TV reporter is doing a retrospective on the disaster that stalled the career of the Brilliant One. So the first scene (there I go pretending I am a half competent play-write)could have the TV reporter doing a voice over, as the disaster is replayed for the viewers. The reporter then interviews the Brilliant One's nearest and dearest. Never do you see the reporter (real piece of fiction there). The viewers just see the various individuals giving their memories. If these relate to a particular game, then highlights of that game are shown.
Finally the interviewer confronts the Brilliant One. In a pushy and intrusive manner, the TV interviewer prods the painful memories of the Brilliant One. He turns out to be a tortured soul, a bit like Hamlet.
But the Brilliant One does, at the end of his interview, show a determination to return to the game he loves.

There you are! You've got the bones of a good drama. You've got the story and two key characters.

The Brilliant One, who is tortured by memories of his terrible accident, doubts about whether he'll ever be able to play again, and a feeling that he owes so much to his friends and family that he's got to go back to playing even if he's not fit.
The TV reporter, who is determined to get a good story,and doesn't care if he causes pain to the people he interviews.

Write it. Don't tell yourself you're not a good playwright. Most of us wouldn't get past our first paragraph if we let that stop us. Chuck it down on a page, then go back and revise it.

Thanks for the kind words they do much to inspire me.
I really need a collaborator. I can come up with dialogue
and situations but I am bad at the Prose and the grammar.

All I wrote came from your suggestion. I have a bad habit of writing
visually and not literally.

You might like to see the latest 'Writing Write with Dmitri -Getting from Here to There' piece - A87750372, and the conversation that followed F22125075?thread=8291999.

The police story that Dmitri mentioned adopts the sort of approach you were proposing. Maybe, if you're not sure about writing your stories, but have a good ear for dialogue, you could film them?

Thanks for that. I will certainly check out that source from Dmitri.
My stories come to me as dialogue,rather like the old radio
plays of the past. I do not see my characters and so find it hard
to give word pictures of them and their surroundings.
I have great respect for writers who can create pictures in the heads
of their readers. That film idea is a good one. A documentary drama may work for this story. The BBC used to do brilliant documentaries.
Thanks again.