Following the OGR I needed to come up with a shorter story that incorporated the windmill element more, this is just a rough first idea since then.
A woman is dancing on stage with her ballet partner who keeps forgetting his routine, afterwards she is walking backstage and hears a repetitive banging noise coming from the basement and goes to see what it is. Upon finding a no entry door from which the noise is coming, she peers through a gap to see a large man pick up a bowling ball and walking over to a large wheel connected to a spinning pole reaching up through the ceiling, when he then goes to throw the ball at the wheel too keep it turning she notices he naturally pulls a ballet pose to throw, and carries on doing this while pulling different poses each time. After a while he notices the woman watching him and is startled and embarrassed, she dances over to him and pulls him to dance with her, with him naturally being able to dance. The two of them then become ballet partners, while her old partner is sent to the depths of the basement keep the windmill spinning in his place.
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteJust saw this update, and I think you're absolutely moving towards a decent resolution: but it just occurred to me that there's an obvious link between your dancer and the windmill - and it's this:
The Moulin Rouge (Or Red Windmill):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_Rouge
This is so obvious, I feel pretty stupid for not pushing it under your nose before: the venue for the whole story could be the 'Moulin Rouge' - the famous entertainment venue - or indeed, you could make one up as a pastiche - so 'La Moulin Blue' - the point is that it's a legitimate use of your windmill setting - because it absolutely associates with the worlds of theatre and dance. I think too, the idea of your ballerina needing a 'strong man' with a 'strong arm' in order to become the perfect duo is a great way of making an equally legitimate use of a character who bowls heavy objects with one arm for a living. You know, it reminds me a little bit of this great song from Ella Fitzgerald about 'Jonny One Note' - a character who can only sing one note - but does so with huge strength - maybe your bowling champion is a 'Jonny One-Arm'. Indeed, maybe if you flipped this all around, and made it so your bowling champion dreams of a career in the famous Moulin Blue dance hall, but he's too clumsy etc. to do so (this is a nice conflict between 'low culture' and 'high culture'), and yet, one day, because of his one, incredibly strong arm, he does indeed make his dreams of appearing on the stage with the beautiful ballerina into a reality.... !!! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mUZSUxCFCQ