Darkness Falls

Major "What Ifs"

1. What if the sun sets one evening, but fails to come up in the morning?

2. What if the main character, Rally Witts, walks home from work one evening as the sun, moon, and street lights slowly fade to black? He can feel his way home, but he slowly begins to realize, that he has gone blind. (Trivia: Mr. Rogers [Fred Rogers] was red/green colorblind. Remember that as you describe Rally's life.)

3. What if Rally Witts makes his living as a graphic artist, making concepts to be brilliantly illustrated with vivid colors? How could he continue to create amazing art as a blind man?

4. What if this unseen world becomes more real to Rally Witts than his previously sighted world?

5. What if Rally Witts' whole identity is wrapped up in him being able to see? What if blindness causes a deep depression, that causes him to fight for hope to live, hope to create, and joy at the new possibilities in life?

6. What if Rally Witts starts this journey as a self-sufficient atheist, who is transformed into a God-reliant believer, but only after everything else he tries,...fails?

7. What if Jessie Fide, his live-in girlfriend, who is not artistic at all, becomes Rally's hands and eyes to guide him to the canvas, where he teaches her the nuance of paint colors, but every painting is created by his own hands as she tells him where he is on the canvas, since he sees the finished piece of art in his mind?

8. What if Jessie Fide becomes a world-class painter in her own right, being taught to paint by her blind boyfriend? What if this artistic duo learns to create world-class art by bridging the realms of blindness and sightedness?


Jay O'Toole


Complications:

1. What if it's not possible for Rally to paint as a blind man?

2. What if losing his sight causes Rally to sink into PTSD or even CPTSD?

3. What if Rally becomes clinically depressed for a period of 6 months to a year, before he learns how to function as a blind man, let alone an artist?

4. What happens to a man whose whole identity was wrapped up in being the world's greatest visual artist? Does he become totally worthless in his own eyes?

5. Right now, Jessie seems to be not much more than Rally's "rubber stamp," and live-in lover. What if Jessie sees herself as more than just a pretty face? What if Jessie wants to be a hairstylist, changing her looks from long straight hair to dreadlocks? What if in her free time, Jessie is an artist in her own right, working with multiple media of threads (sowing), watercolor, sketching, and pottery?

6. Martin Harris & Jeffrey Adams were virtually when Rally Witts' name took second place on the firm's marquee. What kind of subtle and overt opposition could they use to jeopardize Rally's career?

7. Does the firm lose a lucrative contract because Rally misspelled a name or completely left out a piece of artwork that was supposed to be in a client's ad campaign?

8. Nobody's life is perfect, no matter how good we are at our jobs. What quirks and foibles can I give to Rally that might affect his perception, both in-house and in public, leading to a comedy of errors, that complicates his life in short order?

9. What if Rally takes quite a while coming to know the Lord Jesus as his personal Savior? When he is finally saved, he starts to realize that the Lord Jesus is working through all of these problems to make Rally into the man He wants Rally to be.

10. What if Rally's life after going blind is a page out of Job's life with Jessie and Rally's Dad and Mom playing the parts of Job's miserable comforters, until they learn how to help him in the end?

Freestyle Brainstorm or Research:


Remember these points from the 1st exercise of "What Ifs."

4. What if this unseen world becomes more real to Rally Witts than his previously sighted world?

5. What if Rally Witts' whole identity is wrapped up in him being able to see? What if blindness causes a deep depression, that causes him to fight for hope to live, hope to create, and joy at the new possibilities in life?

6. What if Rally Witts starts this journey as a self-sufficient atheist, who is transformed into a God-reliant believer, but only after everything else he tries,...fails?

7. What if Jessie Fide, his live-in girlfriend, who is not artistic at all, becomes Rally's hands and eyes to guide him to the canvas, where he teaches her the nuance of paint colors, but every painting is created by his own hands as she tells him where he is on the canvas, since he sees the finished piece of art in his mind?

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What if we start the novel with Rally Witts going around the graphics firm asking questions about the "problems with the lighting"? Rally could ask if maintenance has started using bulbs with a lower number of lumens. "Has someone put a sunblock screen on the windows?" "Did someone put a thick UV filter on the computer screens when I wasn't looking?"

How do I establish Rally's skills as an artist with nearly photographic paintings?

How do I show the difference between Rally's amazing skills and his approaching blindness?

How do I begin this story? Do I start when Rally is young and move forward? Or do I start with his amazing career, showing flashbacks of his early years?

Established: Rally Witts is an extraordinary painter for a quarter of a century.
Conflict Incident: When Rally is 25 years old, he loses his sight.
Possible Crutches: Jessie Fide still has her sight. Could she use the skills she does have, like sight and the ability to hand him things, to help Rally develop a career as a blind painter? Use paints with 3D texture and Jessie's sight to help hone the senses he still has, like touch, hearing, and smell to feel his way into excellent art?

How do I build to the conflict incident when the real transformation begins?

How do I describe Rally's nearly photographic painting skills to make him appear world-class compared to other artists with similar skills?

Reopen my Pinterest Account to study realistic paintings to get ideas for Rally Witts' art.


Freestyle Brainstorm, Round 2:


1. What if Rally has to go through this process of reeducating himself as a painter, but completely alone? What if Jessie has "had enough" and doesn't want a handicapped boyfriend? "It was nice while it lasted, but see ya. 'Bye!"

2. What if blindness comes more slowly to Rally? Instead of weeks, the downturn is years long? He starts to lose his edge as a graphic artist, and ultimately loses his career, before he loses his sight. Could this lead to #1 and/or #3?

3. What if it's not really possible to learn to paint as a blind man? What if there are way too many obstacles to the process?

4. What if collaborative painting is discredited from being his own work? "Jessie was your 'eyes.' Ergo, you didn't actually paint the canvas by yourself."

5. It is so hard for me to believe that a gifted person has to sit in a chair and slowly rot until death. I recently saw a video of a young mother with no arms, taking care of her baby and even driving a car with her bare feet.

6. What if a person can lose one sense and compensate for it with all the others to show amazing skill to the world?

7. What if Rally changes disciplines from painting to pottery? This skill seems to lend itself more easily to tactile, rather than visual pursuits.