Quicksand Fans

A troubled young model finds herself in a struggle for survival after becoming stranded in the Savannas of southern Africa during a safari.

The first of my mostly off topic survival/drama stories. More of a long story featuring a quicksand scene, which was one of my oldest ideas for a quicksand scene. It was inspired in part by an obscure movie from 1999 simply named, “Africa,” which I only ever saw on TV once, probably not long after it came out. (Previously mentioned on page 5 of my topic, “Movies You Wished Had A Quicksand Scene” viewtopic.php?f=10&t=23450&start=40 ). It’s actually the third story I wrote back in the spring of 2020, but I’ve spent the last few months revising, editing and adding details to make it the longest story I’ve written so far at 43 pages, 4 chapters and 17K words.

Hope you enjoy, and thank you for taking the time to read my story. And as always, feedback is appreciated!

Great Story Theo, I loved every second of it. I’d kill to see another story like this

UltraWarriorX367 wrote:Great Story Theo, I loved every second of it. I’d kill to see another story like this

Wow, thank you so much UltraWarriorX367! I do have some ideas for more survival stories if they turn out. Stay tuned!

I regret I haven't been reading much lately, but I do remember reading and enjoying one of your stories, Aoi Asahina’s Swimming in a Quagmire a while back. Maybe I'll read more one of these days, if I can ever pull myself away from writing

Theo wrote:

UltraWarriorX367 wrote:Great Story Theo, I loved every second of it. I’d kill to see another story like this

Wow, thank you so much UltraWarriorX367! I do have some ideas for more survival stories if they turn out. Stay tuned!

I regret I haven't been reading much lately, but I do remember reading and enjoying one of your stories, Aoi Asahina’s Swimming in a Quagmire a while back. Maybe I'll read more one of these days, if I can ever pull myself away from writing

Your welcome Theo, my stories are a good

Absolutely wonderful read. It's funny that you developed scenario - I had been putting together a similar art piece under a similar premise of being caught between a rock and a hard place and being forced to walk backwards into quicksand. I really enjoyed how you paced the sequence out. The worldbuilding takes a lot of time to put together, something which I don't have a lot of time for these days, but it gives so much satisfaction to engage with the climax and the closure.

Viridian wrote:Absolutely wonderful read. It's funny that you developed scenario - I had been putting together a similar art piece under a similar premise of being caught between a rock and a hard place and being forced to walk backwards into quicksand. I really enjoyed how you paced the sequence out. The worldbuilding takes a lot of time to put together, something which I don't have a lot of time for these days, but it gives so much satisfaction to engage with the climax and the closure.

Thank you so much Viridian! I'd love to see your art piece! I don't think the first draft of the story played out that way, she just walked into the mud, got stuck, and kept sinking. But having since wrote a dozen or so quicksand scenes I thought it was a little too "generic," and in fact, earlier this year I wasn't even sure if I'd post this one because of that. Then, that idea hit me this summer, I rewrote it, and it turned all the better.

That's a similar problem I've been having. I put together lots of sinking scenarios, but scrap them because they're generic plop and sink. More recently I've been focusing on building a sensory sinking scene (which works well as vignettes for artwork), but I don't feel satisfied without having fleshed out the world and characters, so it's gratuitous but not satisfying.

Viridian wrote:That's a similar problem I've been having. I put together lots of sinking scenarios, but scrap them because they're generic plop and sink. More recently I've been focusing on building a sensory sinking scene (which works well as vignettes for artwork), but I don't feel satisfied without having fleshed out the world and characters, so it's gratuitous but not satisfying.

Yep, I feel the challenge also in creating a somewhat unique quicksand scene. I do however find it fun and interesting creating different characters and stories to go around sinking scenes. Sometimes I even think the story around the sinking scene is the best part.

I think my biggest fear and aversion to writing and posting stories at first was that I’d put all the time effort into it, only to have someone say, “hey, I wrote a story very similar to this!” I’ve always kinda thought original ideas are hard to come by anymore, and most “new” ideas are just a different spin on what’s been done before, like tweaking the ingredients in a recipe. Even with some of my stories I often feel like I’m just taking my favorite ingredients, rearranging and mixing and matching them. But I also think, maybe that's a bad way of thinking. Sometimes even a different spin on a chocolate cake is a hit.