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rowynI've been trying to think of story ideas that take place over a short period of time. Like, a day or less. Part of my motivation in this is that almost all my fiction, whether it's an RPG or a book, runs really long. And I'm thinking that if the time period covered by the story is short enough, then there'd be a limit to how long even I could drag it out. "Game of October" demonstrated that one month is still too long. Maybe 12 hours would work?
This dovetails with my post a few weeks ago looking for non-violent books, since another common fixture in my writing is violence-based conflict. Also, conflict on a huge scale. The fate of the world hangs in the balance! I want to scale down, to write about something important but not earthshaking, interesting but not epic.
So far, I don't have many ideas.
The most obvious one is a literal race: characters competing to reach a physical goal. It doesn't have to be as simple as a horse race or a car race: "Rat Race" showcased one way of injecting variety into the "race" premise.
Other kinds of sporting events have a similar time-limited nature. I don't really like sports, and most don't translate well to written form, but possibly a fictitious (fantasy or futuristic) sport could sustain a story.
Another possibility is a "race for treatment" -- one real-world example of this would be getting a snake-bite victim from the jungle to a hospital. Still, I'm wanting to steer away from life-or-death scenarios. A fantasy example might be "get the faerie back to the portal before it closes at dawn or she'll be stuck here on Earth for ten years" -- where failure is bad, but not fatal.
Then there's "you have to stop X event from happening at Y time". Classic ones are "stop the meteor from hitting the Earth" or "stop the bomb from going off", but less dire possibilities exist. For example: Lily is marrying Damon tomorrow, but Lily's ex-boyfriend suspects Damon's lying to her. Can he get proof that Damon's really a sleazeball before it's too late? In a similar vein would be political scenarios: "this treaty will/won't be signed unless the protagonists are able to provide certain information by X time."
Anyway, not sure I have anything I really like yet. Anyone have ideas they'd like to share?
This dovetails with my post a few weeks ago looking for non-violent books, since another common fixture in my writing is violence-based conflict. Also, conflict on a huge scale. The fate of the world hangs in the balance! I want to scale down, to write about something important but not earthshaking, interesting but not epic.
So far, I don't have many ideas.
The most obvious one is a literal race: characters competing to reach a physical goal. It doesn't have to be as simple as a horse race or a car race: "Rat Race" showcased one way of injecting variety into the "race" premise.
Other kinds of sporting events have a similar time-limited nature. I don't really like sports, and most don't translate well to written form, but possibly a fictitious (fantasy or futuristic) sport could sustain a story.
Another possibility is a "race for treatment" -- one real-world example of this would be getting a snake-bite victim from the jungle to a hospital. Still, I'm wanting to steer away from life-or-death scenarios. A fantasy example might be "get the faerie back to the portal before it closes at dawn or she'll be stuck here on Earth for ten years" -- where failure is bad, but not fatal.
Then there's "you have to stop X event from happening at Y time". Classic ones are "stop the meteor from hitting the Earth" or "stop the bomb from going off", but less dire possibilities exist. For example: Lily is marrying Damon tomorrow, but Lily's ex-boyfriend suspects Damon's lying to her. Can he get proof that Damon's really a sleazeball before it's too late? In a similar vein would be political scenarios: "this treaty will/won't be signed unless the protagonists are able to provide certain information by X time."
Anyway, not sure I have anything I really like yet. Anyone have ideas they'd like to share?
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Date: 2008-05-29 02:16 pm (UTC)That "incidental extra" was far more interesting than the annoying protagonist. Why does he get the "flashing neon protagonist sign" over his head, anyway? I want to hop off this train and follow HER story instead!
What? The hero wins just because he grunts a bit and makes some lame mini-speech, and suddenly reveals he had an uber-power he's never bothered to use before? That's cheating! Let him LOSE, and let's see how he deals with the story from that point on.
Oh, you just know this plan isn't going to work, because they've *explained* it to us. Not that there's any good reason for it to - BAH! Why did he suddenly turn STUPID? Why can't the plan work for once? The plot seams are showing!
...
I suppose the impact of writing a story that is an attempt to break or subvert a trope is lessened unless someone is familiar with the trope in question. And depending on how I do it, I could be in danger of just writing really bad fan fiction.
...
As for the scale issue ... well, maybe you could take one of your stories that does form in your head and that leans toward the epic, and figure out how it can be "scaled down" by changing the scope. Is the world in danger? How about just one life? And maybe it's not even about physical death, but something more spiritual.
(I am suddenly reminded of Kino's Journey. Great anime series. I highly recommend it. I have the whole series on DVD.)
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Date: 2008-05-29 03:49 pm (UTC)Often, I'll be inspired by wanting to invert a story, too. Prophecy does that twice, by making the big bad world-destroyer effectively a protagonist, and by re-visiting the classic Electra/Orestes story from Electra's perspective.