Walls of Bone and the People Who Build Them

Okay, so there is this story I've been mulling over in my head for at least a year, maybe more, that I've been experimenting with putting into different forms.

Originally, it was an attempt at a webcomic called "Bricklayer." I tried an experimental visual style on the comic that I thought went well with the bizarre premise: I had colored sky backgrounds (never blue, the sky is never blue in that world) and monochrome cut-out foregrounds. I posted the first several pages I'd done over in Webcomics to get them thoroughly shredded. I got cries of "floating head syndrome" and people finding the monochrome on top of color distracting. I also had a tendency to put too much exposition into the comic panels. In other words, I got such a lambasting over stuff that I ultimately thought was right and fair criticism that I rage-quit the thing, tore it off the places I'd posted it and went, "maybe I could still work with the story."

It seemed that people actually liked the story - which surprised me. I thought my STORY would actually be the problem, given that it is excessively weird and, by nature, creepy. So, I've attempted to turn it into a novel and/or story-series kind of thing.

So far, I have a prologue and two chapters, plus an out-of-place-and-time chapter that I recently finished writing that would be pointless to post since it's a bit of story I'm working up to and wouldn't make much sense posted anywhere right now.

Anyhow, the prologue, in illustrated form: The Bonekeepers' Union

As you can see, I have renamed the story the Bonekeeper's Union.

It is about, to put it simply, a group of people living in a mysterious city-state who are charged with memorializing the dead by building a wall out of their bones.

These people, the Bonekeepers, at once have a kind of sacred-duty charged to them, and at the same time, are considered "unclean" by the rest of the city's populace. The job of Bonekeeper goes only to those who cannot get a job anywhere else, the poor, anyone self-deprecating enough to volunteer for it or people who are "sold" into it by their parents.

The story is told mostly through following an Audience Surrogate in the form of a journalist from what we would consider a more normal / modern/ like us country who wishes to research and write about these people and what they do.

And then he winds up actually liking them.

Chapter 1 is here: The Bonekeeper's Union Chapter 1

And

Chapter 2: The Bonekeeper's Union Chapter 2

Keep in mind, these are rough-drafts and greater ideas for the story are being worked out.

Characters are as follows / interesting bits about characters I have in mind:

Joe Murrika - (named as "any Joe schome" and for a derogatory term for "America." ) A curious journalist who wants to bring an open mind to a subject and a people that he feels his fellows have treated poorly.

Korrina Crucia - (The Bonekeepers have Theme Naming related to execution devices and methods, both ancient and modern, you can guess what hers is). So far, she's mostly just a pragmatic guide. She tends to be stuck with the worst jobs in camp, such as the flesh-stripping when kin want someone ready for the Wall in short-order and can't wait for the burial-method of cleaning bones. Likes to order a big steak, if she can, after one of those stripping-days.

The Lynch Sisters - A pair of twins, dark-skinned beneath their masks and cloaks. They constantly wear masks because they don't want to be known. They like to party in town and would be shunned if people recognized them as Bonekeepers. They take care of the carnivorous beetle pit and the chemical treatment of bones.

John Guile - (Name derived from "Guillotine," but he is also quite guile)... The strangely religious member of the group. The local religion is one which bars the "unclean" such as the Bonekeepers from the Heavens, but that is not way he practices it. He is one that has alternate uses for the religious life, mostly having to do with helping other people. One of the older members of the group. Dark skin, has a beard and when I've drawn him, he has sad eyes.

Axxel Hatcher - (Named for "axe", beheading by axe ) A stoic young man who has long hair he dyes mauve and wears a headband with a deer antler in it. He has a kind of connection to deer... seeing them makes him feel peaceful. Has family problems and was forced into being a Bonekeeper. The only signed/sealed confirmed, outright athiest of the group, but I don't want to make it a core character trait, just something that comes out around Guile, because they happen to be best friends and play off each other. In fact, I kind of want to make the two of them a sort of Justice-Team who do strange and unpleasant, but non-fatal things to the trolls who heckle people at the Incorporation Ceremonies (the second funeral by which individuals' bones are put in the wall). The police look the other way, too.

Nicholae Alva aka "Sparky" - ("Ol Sparky, anyone?") A teenager who loves music and wearing earphones, assists Crucia in the dirty jobs and, so far, in my mind, is pretty much a ball of anger and misanthropy.

Terra Stone - (..."stoning") Group leader, director, designer. I think she lost a little sister through a hit-and-run accident and held her in her arms. This is why she is able to handle the bodies of children when some of the other Bonekeepers cannot, because she feels a need to honor the youthful dead.

Anthony Stake - (..."burning at the stake") The only other Bonekeeper who could handle children, because he was a very kindhearted man with a high sense of honor. Sadly, though, it kind of broke him and one day he slit his own throat in his kitchen, to be found by Stone and Crucia. His skeleton is now part of a pillar and he is sorely missed. Stone takes care of his cat, who she still considers his.

Chapter 3 is planned to be Stake's story. I've pretty much been hand-scrawling anything, any line, passage, thing I think of when depressed and feeling like I should die in order to eventually write him because I really want to create a realistic sense of clinical depression and/or bipolar disorder with him. (It will probably turn out being the latter, as that is what I have). ... Well, if I can get it off the ground.

The out of place chapter is an arc about terrorists and budding war. One of the adjacent city-states, Whitefeather (named for a town I created for a Trigun fanfiction years ago), wants to take over the area / finds the way my main city of Flynn (..."sounds like flayed") not to their standards.

So far, however, most of my ideas are just character-driven slices and no real unifying plot to speak of yet. And I have no idea what an ending to this thing is going to be like.

So, I guess I'm posting these rough-rough drafts and ideas so I can get some people bouncing their ideas off at me. See if you can help me make an actual plot out of this.

And try to be gentle. I am a bit sensitive, as my rage-quitting the comics version can attest. I do respond to constructive criticism, especially when I seek it, but be polite and try not to make me feel like the dumbest thing that crawled out of the muck.

Sounds pretty good to me. Sometimes one's chosen media just doesn't pan out. Personally, I'd have liked to see those comic strips; Deliberately Monochrome with Splash of Color is one of my favorite art styles.

PS: After reading the posted chapters, I must say I eagerly await chapter 3.

edited 27th Oct '14 2:57:48 AM by dvorak

It sounds like you have some very interesting characters. I would say a possible overall plot would be the rival city-state's plot to take over forces the bonekeepers and the "clean" people to work together to defend the city from the coming invasion.

Worth considering. Thanks.

The only major plot-arc I've got in mind so far has to do with the disposal of slain terrorists. Putting them in the Wall is the common thing, and also something of an honor, so not all of the city is for it. Meanwhile, the place where they come from sees the Wall as disgusting and doesn't even want their rejects to be a part of it.

..... I sort of got the buddings of this story bubbling up in my mind in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing, actually. The one dead suspect was rejected by his family and country and no one wanted to bury him and he kind of stayed in the morgue for a couple of weeks, if I recall. I got to thinking, then, how ridiculous it was that the nation was having this huge argument over dealing with someone already dead and thought "If nothing else, he'll become a health-hazard, why not truck him off to Skulls Unlimited?" (As seen on Dirty Jobs Mike Rowe).

My own animal bone collecting, cleaning and painting hobby came up in my brain and I kind of got that idea regarding humans and the various problems that would arise with cross-cultural burial in regards to something like that.

Yeah, I'm weird. I'm very, very weird.

More of it, a chapter dealing with serious things:

http://shadsie.deviantart.com/art/The-Bonekeepers-Union-Ch-3-495878833

Commentary on general story structure is welcome, but if anyone has anything to say about the depression-bits, depression thought-trains, I'd like them to be someone who's stared into the abyss themselves. Trust me, some of those thought-patterns are authentic.