The Paint Drop Folio 2019
- Nina McQueen
- Jul 14, 2019
- 7 min read
Inspiration
The Paint Drop was a short story idea I mentally developed in late 2018.
The story follows the progressive decline of a boy’s mental health as represented by the growth of a paint drop on his bedroom wall.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story that has both haunted and fascinated my mind for years. It was written in the 19th century, purveying the attitudes towards women’s mental health issues. It is written in diary form from the perspective of a wife of a physician, suffering from a “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency.” (Gilman 1892, p.10) With each entry, her perception of reality and normality progressively warps, believing there is a woman trapped in the yellow wallpaper of her room. Insanity is imminent and the story ends on a chilling and disturbing note.
The Paint Drop was hugely influenced on this idea of hallucinations on a bedroom wall. I was also inspired by the way in which the nameless woman is regarded and how she is treated based on her declining mental health. I also love the style in which it is written and have taken tips from this story to emulate something similar in my own.
The idea and motivation to write this story came largely from personal experiences. Being diagnosed with depression and anxiety in the past year, I wanted to try and create a fictional reality that would be representative of my own state that others struggled to understand. This includes both mental and physical challenges I faced.
Colin and I share plenty of familiar attributes, including having a ritualistic cleaning routine, a perfectionistic sense of academic achievement, and a self-destructive mindset when things go wrong.
My illness came almost out of nowhere. There was nothing majorly wrong in my life, not a lot had changed, but suddenly my mood and lifestyle completely crashed. I was exhausted, anxious, down, sensitive, teary and melancholic. Most people didn’t understand and neither did I.
This is what I wanted to highlight in The Paint Drop – that mental illness can be prompted randomly and can isolate a victim to having a paranoid mindset.
Readership, Style and Design
· Simple, easily readable language. Can be read by teenagers to adults. No jargon.
· English Australian language. ‘S’ instead of ‘Z’ (e.g. realised and not realized; mum and dad, etc.)
· Australian culture: barbecues, footy, sport-inclined, male expectations in Australian society.
· Abstract, absurd style.
· Delusional imagery.
· Paint drop grows with each chapter – visual cue for readers allows them to feel connected to Colin’s progression into ill health.
· Painted an array of black paint drops to sample. Chose one and copied, pasted and made larger with each chapter in the story.
Timeline
As depicted in my original timeline above, my goal was to steadily pace out the writing and editing process of this story across the summer months to completion in early February.
The aim was to write a 10,000 word short story. Though I didn’t follow my original timeline, I achieved the desired word count, however, I didn’t finish the story. I have realised that this is a story I want to prolong so that Colin’s mental health decline is slower and vague. To condense this into a 10,000 word story, Colin would have to experience a lot of emotions and consequences in a very fast-paced manner, which is not what I wanted to produce.
The below timeline illustrates how I met my 10,000 word writing goals of the first few chapters of The Paint Drop.
Wednesday 26th December
Wrote 100+ words. Struggled to think of how to structure sentences, how OCD I want to make Colin. Introduced Meg then deleted – originally she was Colin’s high school crush. Decided to make her his girlfriend from the moment her character is introduced.
Thursday 27th December
Wrote some more, getting into the story more. Really enjoying writing the ritualistic characteristics that Colin has, especially his cleaning routine. Inspired by my own ritual cleaning routine.
- Playing with stream of consciousness writing.
- Finding Colin’s insecurities as a male.
- Criticism on social constructs and prejudice.
Monday 31st December
- Started from 690 words, page 2.
- Should I use father/mother or mum/dad?
- Mum and dad state their nationality as Australian.
- Going slow today. Unhappy with how obviously OCD Colin is. Though I like the writing, I think it’s too much, too soon. Want the clues to simply be subtle, but so far Colin sounds definitely OCD diagnosed.
- Going to start on painting the points for chapters instead whilst I’m thinking. Stuck at dead end currently, not sure where the story should go from here.
Thursday 3rd January
- Cut out half the story and rewrote.
- Made Colin sound far too OCD.
- Story is now more neutral.
Tuesday 8th January
- Started from 1158 words.
- Deciding Colin’s hobbies, passions = leads to him realising his flaws.
- Structured lifestyle, starting to expand on his OCD – not limited to cleaning, but also to lifestyle being structured.
- Delve into his relationship with Meg.
- Finished chapter 1.
- Inserted chapter paint drop visuals.
Friday 11th January
- Read through what I have so far, made small editorial changes in spelling and grammar.
- Up to chapter 2.
- Started from 2033 words.
Saturday 12th January
- Starting from 2551 words.
- Really struggling with writer’s block, particularly similes.
- Checked this site out to help https://www.porkjerky.com/free/similes.php - definitely not suitable for this story.
Sunday 13th January
- Started from 2942 words.
- Wrote around 300 words.
- Didn’t struggle so much.
- Read back on last page, edited spelling mistakes.
Monday 14th January
- Started from 3237 words.
- Spent an hour on this.
- Much easier to write now that I’m delving into Colin’s insecurities – what distracts his mind at night when he should be sleeping.
- Starting to see anxiety, second-guessing himself.
- Tap into men’s body images – inspired from the boys I’ve talked to in real life that are extremely self-conscious when they’re too skinny, too chubby, etc.
- Playing with unusual descriptions.
- Keeping language Australian – change room instead of locker room.
Thursday 17th January
- Read through page 6.
Friday 18th January
- Started from 4124 words.
Sunday 20th January
- Read through last page, fixed up spelling mistake, rephrased sentences.
- Started from 5432 words.
- Wrote till 5552 words.
Tuesday 22nd January
- Started from 5552 words.
Thursday 24th January
- Started new chapter.
Saturday 26th January
- Started at 6086 words.
- Wrote to 7803 words.
- Good progress, feeling more inspired now that there is physical and mental progression (should I say regression?) in Colin’s state. He is starting to get more noticeably ill and insecure.
- Work up a situation in his mind, fret and dwell on the what ‘could’ happen only for the reality to be much more different.
- Reread the whole story, making small editorial changes.
Tuesday 29th January
- Read from page 12 (chapter 3 beginning)
- Start from 7875 words.
- Wrote 123 words. Struggling today.
- Started and deleted a scene involving Colin and his mum about to get into a fight.
Wednesday 30th January
- Start from 7979 words.
- Losing focus by 8677 words.
Thursday 31st January
- Start from 8677 words.
- The story is nowhere near finished – only halfway through. With the slow decline of Colin’s mental health, this is necessary though. Writing this in 10,000 words will be too rushed and dramatic. Accept that I am no longer writing a full-length story but simply the first few chapters.
Sunday 3rd February
- Start from 9010 words.
Tuesday 5th February
- Start from 1033 words.
- Finished on 10380 words.
- First few chapters are complete and ready for submission.
Saturday 9th February
- Intense edit.
- Evaluating language, grammar, spelling.
- This was still a less embarrassing explanation compared to the reality of the situation.
- He knew what would happen though; the fresh paint would simply not match the rest of the wall. Replaced semicolon with em dash.
- Next-door neighbour -> next door neighbour.
- Checking spelling via The Macquarie Dictionary.
- Deleted: His fight or flight system kicked in whenever they came near him, though he suppressed this with all his might. Too much repetition.
- Final edit complete. 10291 words.
Monday 11th February
- Final edit and check complete.
Deleted Scenes
His room had always been perfect. His cleaning routine was thorough and ritualistic. Vacuuming would always be the absolute last thing on the list. Before that, he’d strip the bed and sprinkle as much bi-carb soda on the mattress as he could without his mum noticing the change in weight of the box. He’d leave that to soak up the unimaginable amount of sweat and dead skin and god forbid, bed bugs and mites that could have made sanction under the mattress protector. Whilst he was waiting, he’d clean his desk – dust, vacuum, sponge, dry. He’d polish his little wooden tables, wipe a damp cloth over the covers of his books so that the paperbacks had crinkled slightly (but at least they weren’t sprinkled with dust). Then the vacuum would roar for the next twenty odd minutes, sucking every particle of air and surface Colin’s room offered. Oh, and most importantly, he’d make sure to disinfect the areas his fingertips intercepted most often: his keyboard, the screen of his phone, his door handle, and of course, the light switch.
This scene was deleted as it gave Colin a sense of being OCD diagnosed. I didn’t want obvious indications of this, rather, my aim was to represent Colin in such a way that it is suggested he may have some mentally challenging attributes. I want the reader to develop their own theories and interpretations of Colin. However, I do like the way I wrote this scene.
‘Colin!’ his mum called. ‘Dinner.’
‘No,’ he said back.
‘It’s getting cold-’
‘I said NO!’ Colin shouted, the tremor releasing like a fireball from his lips. He heard his mum storm down the hallway, ever so cross with the tone of Colin’s voice. Even he hadn’t calculated the velocity of his sharp words.
I started writing this scene to trial if it could work before realising I didn’t like where the story was going. This scene would lead to a dramatic fight, create tension with Colin and his mum (which has already happened earlier in the story) and highlight Colin’s unreasonable and rude anger. I wasn’t sure I wanted to represent Colin in this way. Instead, I had Colin fall asleep and wake up to a text from Meg. This scene still indicates how anxious and on-edge Colin is feeling without the melodrama of fighting.
References
English Language and Literature 2011, ‘Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper’, Prose: Stories Of Ourselves, English Language and Literature, viewed 9 February 2019, < https://englishlanguageliterature.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/charlotte-perkins-gilman%E2%80%99s-the-yellow-wallpaper/>.
Gilman, C.P 2009, The Yellow Wallpaper, The Floating Press, Auckland.
Porkjerky.com 2019, Simile Creator, Porkjerky.com, viewed 12 January 2019, <https://www.porkjerky.com/free/similes.php>.
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