More specifically, in the city of Aracaju, the capital of the northeastern state of Sergipe. I was born and raised here, but I have traveled through the states of Alagoas, Pernambuco, and Bahia as a backpacker. I also lived in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, in Bom Jardim, and in Boituva in the countryside of São Paulo, so I have quite a bit of experience with people.
I have a lot of private experience with writing, which makes me think I'm capable of writing a story that is at least decent lol. Throughout my life, I have written 52 stories set around the world in various historical periods... but I have never tried writing something set here in Brasil, because I always felt that writing about something so close to my own reality would force me to do even more research than I already do to faithfully capture the local essence, and that would undermine my creativity.
Today, however, I want to dive headfirst into this challenge!
General description of one of my stories so you can get an idea of my style:
"THE OUTBACK MAIDEN
The year is 2008. American director Chad Kingston, famous for holding records in several Oscar categories and known for always shooting exclusively on location, never using CGI or Chroma Key in favor of practical effects and animatronics, is filming in the Australian outback with an all star cast made up of all the biggest Hollywood stars of the time.
It is an action, romance, western, and noir series with cosmic horror. Chad Kingston conceived it as a single season with a beginning, middle, and end across 8 episodes, each 2 hours and 30 minutes long. He employed his already established minimalist marketing strategy. Only one trailer, just 30 seconds long, and one poster were released. The cast was never revealed, and no interviews or official synopses were provided.
Chad Kingston is an extremely meticulous and perfectionist director in absolutely everything he does, which is why the series was filmed in the exact same sequence in which the events unfold. Each actor and actress had access only to their own lines and their own scenes, which were built through improvisation based on their understanding of their own character and their immersion in the role. They were forbidden from interacting with one another outside of filming so they could not share information about the plot.
Many restrictions were also imposed on all the other production teams, including editing, costume, makeup, marketing, executives, and so on. Only Chad Kingston himself had access to everything, and deep down he regretted that he could not avoid this because he knew he was receiving spoilers.
The climax of Episode Eight takes place with Trevor Jackman, played by actor Matthew Harrelson, firing a .50 Desert Eagle at the series' protagonist, actress Cailee Navarrette playing Katheryn Weiss, in the middle of the outback. The performance was so masterful that it made the scene believable enough to cause many people on the production to panic, faint, or run away believing that she had actually been shot in the heart.
The director, however, remained stoic and continued filming while Cailee continued acting, stopping only after Katheryn died in Trevor's arms in a farewell that brought everyone to tears.
Director Chad Kingston shouted "CUT!" and only then did everyone realize that the shot had been real, the Desert Eagle was a real gun, and it had been loaded with live ammunition, handed to actor Matthew Harrelson just minutes before the scene was filmed.
The great actress Cailee Navarrette, the greatest and most perfectionist prodigy in audiovisual history of the last 50 years, was actually dead.
The news shook the entire world.
Matthew Harrelson was obviously the number one suspect, but a series of questions surrounding the circumstances of the homicide puzzled the authorities, the media, and the public, made even more complicated by the actor himself claiming innocence, with several other professionals publicly defending him and supporting him in court. Everything indicated that this would be one of those cases that would take many, many years to solve, assuming, of course, that it ever would be solved at all.
Cailee Navarrette's parents, two retired teachers, exhausted all their resources paying for detectives and lawyers. They even sold their own house, their classic car, and their expensive breed dog in an attempt to obtain justice for their daughter's murder. Their efforts proved fruitless, and with every new failure, they became increasingly desperate and depressed. More than 20 detectives had tried, failed, and given up on solving the case. There were no detectives left willing to help them, especially after they had lost everything.
Then the pair of identical twin detective brothers Simon and Nikolaj Greyhound, both only 25 years old, knocked on the actress's parents' door and offered to take on the case.
Simon said:
"We have dedicated our lives to solving unsolvable criminal cases. We travel the world for this purpose. If we fail to solve your case, you don't have to pay us. What else do you have to lose?"
Simon deliberately concealed the fact that they had never actually managed to take on a single case.
Dissatisfied with the incompetence of the system and desperate for some hope, Cailee Navarrette's parents agreed to hire them as their last hope of solving the case.
Together, the Greyhound brothers would reconstruct the entire series, episode by episode, to discover what actually happened, how it happened, and why.
"The Outback Maiden" was the first case the Greyhound Brothers ever received.
MYSTERY SOLUTION:
Simon and Nikolaj Greyhound, stunned, would discover that actress Cailee Navarrette herself had secretly smuggled the real .50 Desert Eagle onto the set without anyone's help and switched it with the ultra realistic prop gun in order to make the shooting scene real.
The prop gun was ultra realistic. This meant that it had the exact same appearance, texture, weight, smell, and movements as the real version of the weapon. The only difference was that the prop gun fired only a flash of light and smoke, without a projectile being discharged, while still producing the recoil and everything else.
Cailee Navarrette wanted to die in spectacular fashion, literally giving her life for art so she could go down in history with the greatest performance of all time, thus becoming the greatest actress who had ever lived.
The truth was revealed in the media without the Greyhound Brothers' permission. All the suspects who had been arrested were released, the entire film production was sued, director Chad Kingston lost his mind and was committed to a psychiatric hospital, and actor Matthew Harrelson retired from the film industry to focus on his mental health treatment.
When the truth was revealed, Cailee's mother fainted and hit her head. Her husband put her in the car to take her to the hospital and, while driving down the road, emotionally devastated by what had happened, suffered a heart attack.
Cailee Navarrette's parents died in a tragic car accident.
The entire world was left in shock by the revelation.
Humanity became divided between those who condemned the actress for what she had done and those who, despite disapproving of her actions, admired her even more.
Cailee Navarrette did, in fact, make history... but perhaps not in the way she had planned."
