Alright, decisions in my story...
Early on, I decided my story would be a good one
When I saw the pictures, I noticed a certain thread linking them. The "hair in the underground" one immediately said tree to me, by the way, so I noticed a hint of nature or the elements in the pics: an animal (the cat), water (twice), air (the umbrella man) and a tree. This lead to the druid. The pics were contemporary (especially the umbrella man), however. The cat just had to be intelligent.
I must admit my first anchor into the story was the swimmer picture. To me, the whole story was about what the woman was catching (or giving up?) there, something small enough, and light enough, to be contained in a soap bubble. The story kind of evolved from there, and away from it.
So the swimmer was catching something precious, and the cat was intelligent (and obviously mean - look at that pic!). It's about a heist! I had already thought the ceiling of the "whirl pool" pic could have been the cover of the pool, and the jump to making it a safe was quickly done. And the umbrella was our hero escaping. But how did the "tree" fit in? And what to make of that catching thing, now that our hero escapes through the air.
My first idea was to make the "mermaid catch" his plan B, that when the hero hears police helicopters approaching, he steers over the river and drops the package. But what's a heist story without treachery? And when I got the idea of using Piratecat's signature as a close-off, I knew I would have to have it end badly for the narrator. But the cat couldn't win, could it? He? She? That's where the hero's speci-ism came from, and it gave me the reason why the mermaid would betray him.
I knew the "tree" was still a stretch, even though it gave me the chance to strengthen the mermaid's part in the story (and the hero's clothing in the umbrella pic), and her betrayal was too contrived (I mean, how did she know he'd fly over the river, even though she tipped off the police? Yeah, I know you didn't know that, but I did
). But I still felt the scenes were remarkable enough to warrant illustration, so the pictures weren't throw-aways.
And as I really, really struggled with that bitch of a story, I just said to heck with it and wrote the damn thing down
Now I return to Harry Potter's final chapters.
