I made a post on UnFiction back in December declaring that I was working on a novel revolving around the Slender Man and requested a few brave souls to act as sounding boards for me to bounce ideas off of. It's nearly April now and I've made progress in the weirdest of ways. While the novel itself hasn't had a single word written, the overall plot and characters are growing into almost living beings as I think to myself about them.
Today I noticed that I'm slipping into what most fans of the genre would recognize as Slender Man Induced madness. I spent nearly two hours rambling to a camera in a single shot just talking to myself about Slender Man. What it is, how it works, etc. My walls are starting to become covered in pictures involving Slender Man, with Post-It notes attached with my thoughts written on them. My notebook for thoughts on the story is as many drawings as actual thoughts. I've been emulating the typical actions of a victim of Slender Man for months and just realized it today.
This brought a thought to my mind which is the point of this post. Even if the Slender Man doesn't exist, his effects are still there. The need to know more about him, the growing sense of paranoia over shadows and tree lines, the dreams...they're all there and they're all with us. These things are made even more potent by the fact that we know them as symptoms of being stalked by a certain tall individual.
Having realized what I'm doing, I think it's a good idea. Being physically surrounded by the central figure of my writing, being able to look up from this chair and see His history all around me, is a perfect way to immerse myself in the subject. I'm going to continue expanding my picture collection on my walls and adding sticky notes as thoughts come to me regarding the images. I'll probably take pictures to so I can keep track of the expansion. Plus mimicking the typical actions of a Slender Man victim should help me get into the mentality of a victim. Which is good for my story. I think...
Here are some pictures of the things I mentioned above.
The Walls: 1 2 3 4
Close-Ups of Pictues/Post-Its: 1 2
Notebook: 1
The Office: 1
