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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: meg_evonne on October 01, 2009, 09:49:18 PM
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So my printer/fax/copier at work is slowly grinding to a halt. It sounds like some poor mouse is inside squeeling as it gets pulled through the rollers.
I can't get the image of the original copy coming out the machine with blood and guts all over it.
Anyone want to write a sequel called, "Honey, I shrunk the kids and put them through the grinder?" LOL
Anyone else got a wild idea they would never use in a story?
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Yeah, i just had thought of one today.
A spider mutates into a half mouse in the shape of a kid, spider, and mouse, and tries to enroll in human schools. It promtly gets beaten to death. the president of the united states gives "It" a memorial, as it wasn't a sentient being long enough to give itself a name, and is buried under Fort Knox(Which i believe is where all of the treasury of the U.S. is held.) Uneventful end and no sequels. thats a bestseller... ;)
Anyone else?
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A few weeks back I had the strangest dream about people turning into vampires after they died. From there they lived the typical blood sucking life of a vampire but this was actually a kind of "pupal" stage because they'd eventually have to choose whether they'd go on to become either an angel or a demon. I can't remember any specifics of the dream but I thought it was an interesting idea and wrote it down.
So you've got the natural evolution of human beings from life, to unlife, then to some kind of higher entity that must pick a side in the grand scope of good versus evil. It might be a spark for a story idea but I don't generally write stories with vampires in them and the idea's a bit wierd, even for me.
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my professor gave us this exercise option the other day:
"Have your character accept a ride from someone she doesn't know well. Describe the ride and the car, particularly its interior. Instead of naming or generalizing about your character's feelings, focus on the details and let them reveal her emotional state and comfort level."
I was tempted to write a story about a woman who gets in the creepiest, dirties, ugliest, most dangerous looking psychopath driving looking car imaginable. The seats lined in plastic (like syranwrap), the seatbelts cut off and frayed like someone had tried to chew threw them. Claw marks in the dash and bullet holes in the front window. A dolls amputated head hanging from the rearview mirror. A dirty chainsaw in the backseat. A box next to it filled with lye, rope, and a shovel.
Then telling the story as the driver explains away each thing as being entirely harmless. Just building the tension with each item, but the passenger is completely oblivious to the danger. Then they reach the destination, she gets out and goes on with her evening. Basically, building up as much suspense as I could possibly muster, and then leaving off the story with an unsatisfying middle finger of anti-climax, hehe.
I should totally write this, but i doubt i could sustain it. The Big Lebowski of Horror.
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I get titles that I don't want to even think about the stories for; the one that comes to mind is Run Lolita Run.
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My older brother told me the following story years ago and insisted at the time it was true; though I'd love to use it I think it strains credibility a little too much:
At one point during my brother's college career he shared an apartment with a guy whose not-so-secret dream was to make himself a benign dictator of Haiti and drag the impoverished country kicking and screaming into the (then) late 20th century. Kind of an unusual ambition for a middle-class American white guy. For him, though, it was more than a dream; it was a goal toward which he was actively working. Somehow he'd managed to convince a lot of other people this was a great idea, and he was constantly getting cash donations from all over the country. He was also stockpiling weapons in his apartment against the day of the Big Coup. I think there was more to the story that I don't remember; however, the upshot was that someone found out about the weapons and turned him in to the police. My brother said the guy was sobbing as they took him away, seeing his beautiful dream evaporate before his eyes.
Now, my brother is a very good storyteller and made this utterly convincing at the time, but now that I think about it, there are some things that just don't add up, such as why he failed to be, at least, questioned by the police, and at most, arrested as an accessory. And while I'd love to incorporate it into a story, I think it's just a little too bizarre to be believable, even in a fictional setting.
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Ever seen "Moon Over Parador" or "Dave", or read Double Star (Heinlein)? Those aren't far off of that concept - they come in by the back door, true, but still very close.
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My brother is currently visiting from Virginia and just confirmed that this story is, in fact, true. I'm off to Google the guy's name and will post a link if it turns anything up.
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The animistic version of Endurance where the ship is possessed by the spirit of a mule.
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So my printer/fax/copier at work is slowly grinding to a halt. It sounds like some poor mouse is inside squeeling as it gets pulled through the rollers.
I can't get the image of the original copy coming out the machine with blood and guts all over it.
Anyone want to write a sequel called, "Honey, I shrunk the kids and put them through the grinder?" LOL
Anyone else got a wild idea they would never use in a story?
Call the company's help line and tell them the situation. When they ask you when you bought it, tell them it was maybe three months or so ago. In my case, this got me about 10 minutes on the phone with someone trying to fix it, then a brand new printer sent four days later when we couldn't.