I think I mentioned awhile ago that I've been wanting to write a story about a young girl who gets beat up in a concentration camp in WW2 germany. I had a discussion on Tuesday with my writing group about authenticity and after hearing Dean Koontz talk about the theories of quantum mechanics, I came up with a different way to write this story.

I think I may be riffing off my friend Mel's Picasso story, although I've never read it and only heard her talk about it.

I started freewriting the story last night and this is my sketchy plot. A woman goes to one of those free psychic fairs and has a past life reading done. The past life reader tells her that she had a past life as young german girl in a concentration camp in WW2 germany. As a young german girl, she was beat up by the Nazis and subsequently died later of her injuries. Most of the young girl's injuries were in the hip, legs and feet. The modern day woman has the same pain and the pyschic reader tells her the pain is from her past reincarnation trauma. The psychic reader tells her that the woman is experiencing the trauma because there is something she needs to learn from that incarnation. What the woman needs to learn, the psychic reader cannot tell her.

The woman is a skeptic when it comes to psychic stuff but after the reading, she starts see images of the girl everywhere. One day as she's looking into a mirror at herself, she sees the young girl and the young girl in the mirror sees her. The woman reaches out her hand to the mirror and the young girl does the same thing. The woman, magically, enters the world of young girl but as her imaginary friend, since only the young girl can see her.

I'm envisioning three scenes with young german girl right now. The first time she meets the young girl is before the family is thrown into prison by the nazis. The second time is life in the prison camp, and the third scene is after the young girl gets beat up by the nazis. That's as far I've gotten with plot and I started writing the scene where the woman is at the free psychic fair in GG Park. I have to figure out what the woman needs to learn from having this experience. I was thinking it would be fun to have her go to a church and find a magic portal, but I would have to find a lutheran church with what looks like a magic portal and I'm not into doing that kind of research right now.

I like this story and I keep thinking, I want to have this kind of experience happen to me. I want to go through a magic portal and enter into another world. How cool is that? This story has all my long time interests too, reincarnation, WW2 germany, religion, magic, weird stuff.

Does this story sound too derivative of other fantasy stories? I wish I knew what she needed to learn but maybe I have to write the story to find out.