Story Ideas (not stories)

[YerK]

Ok. I am not a writer. I can help someone else right, but when I try to right a story, I agonize and over-edit, and what I wind up with is a disaster, not a story. I do, however, get the odd idea, now and then.

1) If you've ever been driving out in an industrial zone, you have likely seen factories that have lots of pipes and tanks. Sometimes, even these monster places go belly-up as technology, environmental, economic, and other changes can ruin the profitability of a given industry. I see this as a potential site for some sinking. I've actually read about ignorant kids climbing down a ladder into a tar-filled tank and getting stuck. It would be easy to do, as the ladder would be beneath a door or hatch, and dirt & such would likely land near the ladder, and the surface closest to the opening would be the most likely to oxidize, so the best chance of standing anywhere would be near the ladder, and your chance of getting stuck would increase as you got away from it.

2) Plastics are frequently made from petroleum products, and those tend to be volatile. An explosion at such a factory could have the effect of mixing things that are not intended to be mixed, and workers at such a factory could find themselves faced with unfamiliar substances. Worse still, as the substances flow, they could come in contact with catalysts, which could kick off chemical reactions with unpredictable effects on the nature of the mixture. Someone could conceivably enter a flooded room from an opening well above the floor, walking on a skin that had formed over some two inches of whatever chemical had flowed into this room. (nothing to worry about, right?) Yet, while they're walking through the room, something in the mix changes, and the skin disappears and they find themselves standing in something similar to the gummy stuff used in glue traps. Then, another change sweeps through, and the glue starts foaming, so while it gets a little weaker as it foams, it also gets lighter and deeper. Who knows how deep it will get. Can the workers get out before it gets too deep???

3) A factory is a noisy place. While "sick-time" is usually available, there are ways you can be sick and still work. What if someone at a factory stumbles into a vat of something they're mixing? What if that particular day, they're working despite a bit of laryngitis. Now, if the vat is deep enough, nobody will see the worker. Without a strong voice, nobody will hear the worker either. Taffy starts as a sticky fluid. I think the stretching may oxidize it a bit, so that it's less sticky as you go. Does a human float in wet taffy???

Just a few. Feel free to take these and make stories, if you want. (and if you want to credit me for the idea, I'd be tickled for the recognition!) Actually, with a bit of encouragement, I might come up with more.

[quagmire_uk]

These are some very cool ideas.

[YerK]

Thanks, Quagmire!

Another fun idea: Imagine you have a petroleum plant with a leak that is leaving tar in this one trench on the property. Now, the trench is there so that people do not have to repeatedly duck under pipes, and has cement on either side, up to ground level. There are stairs that go down to the bottom of the trench, then it's about a 5 or 6 foot wide, 6' deep walkway with cinderblock walls that runs about 30 feet. The pipes that blocked the way above have been moved, and thanks to a recent dust storm, the tar has been coated with a bit of dirt. (the trench does have drains, but tar is thicker than water by quite a way, and is not draining well through the grates) A worker coming along that did not well know that the walkway was supposed to be a trench would think it was merely a paved path, and might actually walk along it for quite a way without breaking the surface tension provided by dirt and clay. (Or, someone could go to cross the trench-that-looks-like-a-walkway, and maybe step somewhere without a thick dirt covering, and sink in the middle!)

I keep reading about tar sands in Canada. I can well imagine that someone is running some-or-another piece of gear near the digging and radios in that his shift is over and he's headed back. (I type "he" but either gender could be used easily!) Anyhow, if there are tar sands, surely there could be tar quicksands. Maybe the stuff is slower than regular quicksand, but the smooth grains of sand from an ancient riverbed could surely be quicksand with some light tar seeping up from below. Such would be a real trap for someone unwary! (and may have been just uncovered by some of the last digging, or welled up to fill in a pit where digging was going on earlier, you name it!) For all I know, rather than some tar/sand mix, regular tar could seep up at some point, being every bit as much a trap as the pits at La Brea. It wouldn't be something you could readily detect by smell, as the whole site likely reeks of tar all the time. If the tar is thick enough, the first few steps could be really sticky without sinking. The tar could have seeped out over regular ground, so that the worker is walking on sticky stuff before steping out over the edge of the pit...

[Fred588]

My take on this is as follows.

I would see the things described here as in the category of events, or perhaps just settings, that could occur or be used in a story. However, while events and settings are parts of a story they are not the story. That is to say a plot does not make a complete story. A good written story is usually about the character or characters in the story. While I am not competent as a creative writing instructor I think a common mistake made by aspiring but inexperienced writers is to focus too much on telling what happened rather than on character development or, at least, putting the reader inside the character's head to see how that character is affected by the events that happen. If you get bogged down with re-writes it is very likely due to this missing element. Viridian can problem explain this better than I (or perhaps he might disagree).

Getting from setting and events to a video scene is a little easier. Provided you have the needed setting you just have the actress play out the events. If she is able to put herself in her character's head then she becomes the writer for that part. If she cannot, you dump the footage and try again. On the other hand, telling what happens is sometimes more difficult in video, especially if that is elaborate, detailed, or technical. You cannot really just 'tell' the viewer what happened using something like text overlays. If over done that's sorta cheating and not very satisfying to the viewer. Instead, the events have to be shown to the viewer in some way.

[YerK]

Fred,

My wife is the writer of the family, but has no clue about any aspect of this fetish/kink/hobby. She can't abide not seeing her feet through water, so wading through any ankle-deep mud is just WRONG in her book. (She does make up for it in other ways, mind you!) The one thing we've written (or rather that she wrote, then I helped edit/rewrite) was a 1-act play about a WWII soldier who gets a letter than his father died. It got nice reviews, but I can't get her to write anything along the lines of a sinking story.

I just suggested these in hopes that someone who did write would pick up the ball and run with it.

[Fred588]

One could also start with some off the wall fragment, or sentence, from any source, and then just see what can be done with it. As an example, the following is a silly sentence that used to be used in typing classes simply because it uses all 26 letters, followed by the start of a story. {In this case, an equally silly one:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Just why he did this has, until recently, been something of a mystery. To most observers of this singular event it was believed the fox simply wished to get to the other side of the dog and perhaps the dog was too lazy to get out of the way. The truth is more complicated. As it happened, the dog was actually a hunting dog and the fox was well aware of the approach of a large pack of similar, albeit less lazy dogs, a number of horses, and quite a few oddly dressed humans making a great deal of noise with trumpets.

End of story fragment.While I doubt anyone here really wants to read much more of this story, but I think the test of a good story opening is whether or not most readers want to do so.

[YerK]

Another idea for a story situation might come from a monster I added to our AD&D campaign, a bit over 30 years ago: The Tarleaf. The tarleaf seems a very "normal" plant, most of the summer. It has leaves, uses photosynthesis, and needs water. The energy it stores down into it's roots comes back up in the fall, and the plant changes. The stems become extremely fiberous, as do the roots, and while the stalk of the plant stands erect, it becomes very difficult to cut or break. The leaves take on a coating that makes the surface of the leaves extremely adhesive, but in such a way that the leaves do not stick to each other. Any hapless animal that blunders by, however, will be snared if it touches too much of a leaf. The real problem is that the stalk is flexible, and trying to pull away from the plant when stuck by just one leaf is liable to bend the plant in the direction of the animal, causing more leaves to come in contact. While these plants do tend to grow with a bit of distance between each, once bent, it is possible to blunder into a second plant while trying to pull away from the first.

This isn't quicksand, but you can see where things can get perilous quickly around these.

As they ripen in the fall, some do produce a fruit that few things eat. (imagine a black strawberry with a single seed inside) These berries have a wonderful perfume, and a farmer can tell they are ripe when the leaves become adhesive. Later, after the first good freeze of winter, after the berries have fallen, the smell of the leaves turns to a more carrion-like odor, and the prey of tarleaf plants becomes carrion-eaters. The first get stuck among the leaves and freeze. Frequently, others come to feast upon the frozen carrion, only to become stuck just as bad. Eventually, the snow covers the leaves and the trap no longer works. As the winter continues, the leaves die, and the remains of the victims are left to enrich the soil for next spring.

[Cuthbert]

Yerk you and I would get along famously! We both have great imaginations.

[YerK]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/2 ... 61422.html

Remember the factory setting from earlier? It wouldn't have to be petroleum. Just imagine being in the wrong room when a blast causes a pipe to rupture that dumps tar-like syrup of some kind between you and the door, or for a blast to throw you over a railing and into a vat of fudge? Who wants to see for themselves if this-or-that sweet ingredient is lighter or heavier than a human body? ...

The explosion happened in a factory that makes gummy bears. I wonder what the raw gummy bear stuff is like? Seems like it certainly could be a very sticky, messy substance! No real big deal if it's watery, but what if it is like really cold syrup, and really adhesive? If it's that way at room temp, survivors from the blast could be in dire need of prompt rescue!

[Fred588]

Do a Google search on the Boston molasses flood of 1919. A large, above-ground tank burst. Several were killed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/candy-factory-explosion-mexico_n_4161422.html

Remember the factory setting from earlier? It wouldn't have to be petroleum. Just imagine being in the wrong room when a blast causes a pipe to rupture that dumps tar-like syrup of some kind between you and the door, or for a blast to throw you over a railing and into a vat of fudge? Who wants to see for themselves if this-or-that sweet ingredient is lighter or heavier than a human body? ...

The explosion happened in a factory that makes gummy bears. I wonder what the raw gummy bear stuff is like? Seems like it certainly could be a very sticky, messy substance! No real big deal if it's watery, but what if it is like really cold syrup, and really adhesive? If it's that way at room temp, survivors from the blast could be in dire need of prompt rescue!