Various Writing Ideas as They Have Occurred to Me
Would you like to see what my writing idea notes are like? Well, here we go.
Many of these ideas don't need any more of an explanation. But some of them do. Let's take them and comment on them a bit.
A few of the ideas I've mentioned before. I write these little idea lists for three main reasons. One, I want to remember them. Two, I want to see how it feels to write about them. Three, I want to see what ideas keep coming to my mind. There are interesting trends.
Here are the links to that series where I created the short story "Matt's Eyes".
Part 1
https://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/09/a-flash-of-horror-part-1-of.html
Part 2
https://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/09/a-flash-of-horror-part-2-of.html
Part 3
https://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/11/a-flash-of-horror-part-3-of.html
Part 4
https://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/11/a-flash-of-horror-part-4-of-4.html
- - - - - - -
adam and eve as last surviving martians
The Traitor's Heart
telekinesis in accordance with the force of gravity in proportion to the mass of the various planets. gods, angels, or something.
born in day versus night, the children of light and the children of darkness
prince phillip as movie name rather than sleeping beauty or malificent, shadiversity
dragon of indeterminate size
vamps hunt humans, vampires farm humans, humans suped up on vamp venom, humans hunt vamps, humans learn to farm vampires, vamps created by humans backstory?
retrovirus infected vaccines as causing genetic mutations and leading to ...? monsters and superhumans. accidental, but then covered up
pairs, duality. god and chaos, christ and antichrist/satan/lucifer, raphael and uriel, gabriel and michael, adam and eve, cain and able, dobbleganger theory
superstitions as real, like knocking on wood, whole systems like type of wood and where grown and aged and such make a difference, entire magic systems, the WoodKnockers
butterfly monster and butterfly protector/fairy emergent story from teaching, monsters hang out by flowers, put flowers on their heads, flower fashions, evolve to grow flowers from heads
how close to the end can you start? say 14 pieces, 14, 1314, 121314, etc.
there's no such thing as a dragon fairy tale expanded idea
jfk, collusion, or onassis jealousy, change context
humpty dumpty
she sighed walked away with isfp essay
werewolf epistolary
matt's eyes tragedy into malevolence
- - - - - - -
adam and eve as last surviving martians
The Traitor's Heart
telekinesis in accordance with the force of gravity in proportion to the mass of the various planets. gods, angels, or something.
born in day versus night, the children of light and the children of darkness
prince phillip as movie name rather than sleeping beauty or malificent, shadiversity
dragon of indeterminate size
vamps hunt humans, vampires farm humans, humans suped up on vamp venom, humans hunt vamps, humans learn to farm vampires, vamps created by humans backstory?
retrovirus infected vaccines as causing genetic mutations and leading to ...? monsters and superhumans. accidental, but then covered up
pairs, duality. god and chaos, christ and antichrist/satan/lucifer, raphael and uriel, gabriel and michael, adam and eve, cain and able, dobbleganger theory
superstitions as real, like knocking on wood, whole systems like type of wood and where grown and aged and such make a difference, entire magic systems, the WoodKnockers
butterfly monster and butterfly protector/fairy emergent story from teaching, monsters hang out by flowers, put flowers on their heads, flower fashions, evolve to grow flowers from heads
how close to the end can you start? say 14 pieces, 14, 1314, 121314, etc.
there's no such thing as a dragon fairy tale expanded idea
jfk, collusion, or onassis jealousy, change context
humpty dumpty
she sighed walked away with isfp essay
werewolf epistolary
matt's eyes tragedy into malevolence
- - - - - - -
Many of these ideas don't need any more of an explanation. But some of them do. Let's take them and comment on them a bit.
- - - - - - -
(adam and eve as last surviving martians)
I may have seen an old movie like this when I was a kid where you think two people are on Earth the whole time and everything is going poorly so they need to escape. But, surprise!, actually they are put on a ship to this uninhabited planet called Earth, because they're Martians. I'm not sure if that is a memory I have or just something I vividly imagined, but it's interesting either way.
(The Traitor's Heart)
This is just a cool title that popped into my head one day. R. L. Stine of "Goosebumps" fame often gets a good title first and then builds a story based off it.
(telekinesis in accordance with the force of gravity in proportion to the mass of the various planets. gods, angels, or something.)
Magic is cool. But, sometimes the magic with no rules gets old. The fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson even has a series of laws that address these problems with magic. The writer Patrick Rothfuss is great at limiting magic in his writing. He was inspired by the book "The Master of the Five Magics". In this case I'm thinking about 7, or 8, or 9 people. Maybe they're gods, maybe angels or something. Anyway, they have telekinesis powers, meaning they can move things with their minds. But, instead of just being able to will themselves to have stronger powers when they need to I would have an actual math formula so they have real limits. This would be limited like the force of gravity. So they're power would drop off quickly as things were further away. They would have powers in proportion to the planet they're associated with. This could be 9 if we include Pluto. It could be 8 if we go with what we are saying now. It could be 7 if we went with the Medieval system, although in that system the Sun and the Moon are both planets.
(born in day versus night, the children of light and the children of darkness)
What if the major division in society wasn't along race, gender, religion, or whatever? What if it was based on when you're born? This could be month based, but what if it was just based on the time of day? Then there would be two basic groups. There would be supremacist groups on each side. People would have family and societal pressures to have children earlier or later to have them born during the day or at night. There would obviously have to be something that separates them, I haven't thought about what that would be yet. I just think this division would be interesting. Maybe it has to do with moonlight, or sunlight, or gravitation, or the magnetic field, or something. Maybe the difference isn't a difference in appearance either. Maybe it changes something in the brain and mind. Then people could try to hide it and deceive others. The governments would make people identify with their groups, depending on who is in power. Fun stuff.
(prince phillip as movie name rather than sleeping beauty or malificent, shadiversity)
Shadiversity is a channel I sometimes watch on Youtube. In one episode he pointed out that Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty is a real hero, but he doesn't seem to get very much credit. I didn't even know his name. There should be a book and script written where he is the main character. Why is his perspective forgotten in that story?
(dragon of indeterminate size)
In "There's No Such Thing as a Dragon" the dragon changes size fairly quickly. What if there's a hero that has to face a dragon and that dragons size depends on something that you wouldn't expect? Maybe some part of the psychology of the hero. It's an interesting little idea.
(vamps hunt humans, vampires farm humans, humans suped up on vamp venom, humans hunt vamps, humans learn to farm vampires, vamps created by humans backstory?)
This is an awesome evolution of a story! This could span a whole series, or cover a lot of time quickly in a single novel. I think it's laid out pretty well in that little description. Prey, predator, victim, persecutor, you can be it all.
(retrovirus infected vaccines as causing genetic mutations and leading to ...? monsters and superhumans. accidental, but then covered up)
This is how science fiction comes to be. You take a real thing and then just push it a bit further.
(pairs, duality. god and chaos, christ and antichrist/satan/lucifer, raphael and uriel, gabriel and michael, adam and eve, cain and able, dobbleganger theory)
The biblical pairs are interesting: Cain and Able, Adam and Eve, Michael and Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael. Then, when you get into a lot of mythology, including Christian, you have a duality of gods too. This could be something like God and Chaos. Then, Christ and Lucifer as the original pair of archangels, the only archangels endowed with the ability to create, is just intriguing.
(superstitions as real, like knocking on wood, whole systems like type of wood and where grown and aged and such make a difference, entire magic systems, the WoodKnockers)
What if there was a magic system based on superstitions? It could be interesting. I think it lends itself to humor. It reminds me of something that should be in Terry Pratchett's "Discworld".
(butterfly monster and butterfly protector/fairy emergent story from teaching, monsters hang out by flowers, put flowers on their heads, flower fashions, evolve to grow flowers from heads)
I invented this little monster when I was a young kid. I used to draw him on my homework in school when I was doodling. It was my rendition of a more interesting looking Pac-Man. He's evolved little over the years, but a little bit. Now he's the Butterfly Monster and has an antagonist that's the Butterfly Fairy. My students often love him. It could make an interesting series of children's books.
(how close to the end can you start? say 14 pieces, 14, 1314, 121314, etc.)
There are certain pieces that you need to make a story. How far back from the finish do you really have to start though? I think it would be interesting to read the end of a story. Then read the part that happened right before that and read the end again and see how your perspective has changed. Repeat this process until we get to the beginning of the story and read the whole thing.
(there's no such thing as a dragon fairy tale expanded idea)
The same ideas contained in "There's No Such Thing as a Dragon" by Jack Kent could be put into a more expanded story. It's a simple children's book. But, really, it talks quite deeply about social verification, shared realities, subjective and objective truth, deception, and self-deception.
(jfk, collusion, or onassis jealousy, change context)
Take the JFK assassination theories and change the context so that it's set with a king in Medieval Europe or something. Was it collusion between a great enemy kingdom that's far away, and a closer but much smaller enemy where the king has had to try to have this little king assassinated and failed, and a group of organized thugs who are in the kingdom and the nearby kingdom? Did the king and his father cut deals with these thugs on their way to power? Or, was it because the king's wife was desired by the richest man in the world? All sorts of interesting plots here. Maybe it happens in space. It's an interesting plot no matter where you place it.
(humpty dumpty)
I would like to expand and change this story, maybe quite a bit.
(she sighed walked away with isfp essay)
I'm still interested in making that four word story into a coffee table book, or something like that, with a philosophy essay to go with it. ISFP is the International Society For Philosophers.
(werewolf epistolary)
An epistolary story is made of letters or articles or related fictional written materials. "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" were epistolary novels. It just seems like there should be a werewolf one to go with them. The moon cycles go with it well.
(matt's eyes tragedy into malevolence)
My story "Matt's Eyes" is quite tragic. It will be published in the anthology "Horror Without Borders" next year. You can read the whole thing in my post "A Flash of Horror - Part 4 of 4". That whole series is about writing that story. You can see the whole process. The story is tragic, but you don't really see malevolence in it. Malevolence is the really disturbing thing, when people are causing tragedy that wouldn't have to happen. To a large extent there is an underlying substrate of tragedy to all of existence. But malevolence is different. PTSD is often caused by seeing real malevolence in the self or another. It's that disturbing. I could add that element to this story by making an addon story. Just an idea.
- - - - - - -
(adam and eve as last surviving martians)
I may have seen an old movie like this when I was a kid where you think two people are on Earth the whole time and everything is going poorly so they need to escape. But, surprise!, actually they are put on a ship to this uninhabited planet called Earth, because they're Martians. I'm not sure if that is a memory I have or just something I vividly imagined, but it's interesting either way.
(The Traitor's Heart)
This is just a cool title that popped into my head one day. R. L. Stine of "Goosebumps" fame often gets a good title first and then builds a story based off it.
(telekinesis in accordance with the force of gravity in proportion to the mass of the various planets. gods, angels, or something.)
Magic is cool. But, sometimes the magic with no rules gets old. The fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson even has a series of laws that address these problems with magic. The writer Patrick Rothfuss is great at limiting magic in his writing. He was inspired by the book "The Master of the Five Magics". In this case I'm thinking about 7, or 8, or 9 people. Maybe they're gods, maybe angels or something. Anyway, they have telekinesis powers, meaning they can move things with their minds. But, instead of just being able to will themselves to have stronger powers when they need to I would have an actual math formula so they have real limits. This would be limited like the force of gravity. So they're power would drop off quickly as things were further away. They would have powers in proportion to the planet they're associated with. This could be 9 if we include Pluto. It could be 8 if we go with what we are saying now. It could be 7 if we went with the Medieval system, although in that system the Sun and the Moon are both planets.
(born in day versus night, the children of light and the children of darkness)
What if the major division in society wasn't along race, gender, religion, or whatever? What if it was based on when you're born? This could be month based, but what if it was just based on the time of day? Then there would be two basic groups. There would be supremacist groups on each side. People would have family and societal pressures to have children earlier or later to have them born during the day or at night. There would obviously have to be something that separates them, I haven't thought about what that would be yet. I just think this division would be interesting. Maybe it has to do with moonlight, or sunlight, or gravitation, or the magnetic field, or something. Maybe the difference isn't a difference in appearance either. Maybe it changes something in the brain and mind. Then people could try to hide it and deceive others. The governments would make people identify with their groups, depending on who is in power. Fun stuff.
(prince phillip as movie name rather than sleeping beauty or malificent, shadiversity)
Shadiversity is a channel I sometimes watch on Youtube. In one episode he pointed out that Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty is a real hero, but he doesn't seem to get very much credit. I didn't even know his name. There should be a book and script written where he is the main character. Why is his perspective forgotten in that story?
(dragon of indeterminate size)
In "There's No Such Thing as a Dragon" the dragon changes size fairly quickly. What if there's a hero that has to face a dragon and that dragons size depends on something that you wouldn't expect? Maybe some part of the psychology of the hero. It's an interesting little idea.
(vamps hunt humans, vampires farm humans, humans suped up on vamp venom, humans hunt vamps, humans learn to farm vampires, vamps created by humans backstory?)
This is an awesome evolution of a story! This could span a whole series, or cover a lot of time quickly in a single novel. I think it's laid out pretty well in that little description. Prey, predator, victim, persecutor, you can be it all.
(retrovirus infected vaccines as causing genetic mutations and leading to ...? monsters and superhumans. accidental, but then covered up)
This is how science fiction comes to be. You take a real thing and then just push it a bit further.
(pairs, duality. god and chaos, christ and antichrist/satan/lucifer, raphael and uriel, gabriel and michael, adam and eve, cain and able, dobbleganger theory)
The biblical pairs are interesting: Cain and Able, Adam and Eve, Michael and Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael. Then, when you get into a lot of mythology, including Christian, you have a duality of gods too. This could be something like God and Chaos. Then, Christ and Lucifer as the original pair of archangels, the only archangels endowed with the ability to create, is just intriguing.
(superstitions as real, like knocking on wood, whole systems like type of wood and where grown and aged and such make a difference, entire magic systems, the WoodKnockers)
What if there was a magic system based on superstitions? It could be interesting. I think it lends itself to humor. It reminds me of something that should be in Terry Pratchett's "Discworld".
(butterfly monster and butterfly protector/fairy emergent story from teaching, monsters hang out by flowers, put flowers on their heads, flower fashions, evolve to grow flowers from heads)
I invented this little monster when I was a young kid. I used to draw him on my homework in school when I was doodling. It was my rendition of a more interesting looking Pac-Man. He's evolved little over the years, but a little bit. Now he's the Butterfly Monster and has an antagonist that's the Butterfly Fairy. My students often love him. It could make an interesting series of children's books.
(how close to the end can you start? say 14 pieces, 14, 1314, 121314, etc.)
There are certain pieces that you need to make a story. How far back from the finish do you really have to start though? I think it would be interesting to read the end of a story. Then read the part that happened right before that and read the end again and see how your perspective has changed. Repeat this process until we get to the beginning of the story and read the whole thing.
(there's no such thing as a dragon fairy tale expanded idea)
The same ideas contained in "There's No Such Thing as a Dragon" by Jack Kent could be put into a more expanded story. It's a simple children's book. But, really, it talks quite deeply about social verification, shared realities, subjective and objective truth, deception, and self-deception.
(jfk, collusion, or onassis jealousy, change context)
Take the JFK assassination theories and change the context so that it's set with a king in Medieval Europe or something. Was it collusion between a great enemy kingdom that's far away, and a closer but much smaller enemy where the king has had to try to have this little king assassinated and failed, and a group of organized thugs who are in the kingdom and the nearby kingdom? Did the king and his father cut deals with these thugs on their way to power? Or, was it because the king's wife was desired by the richest man in the world? All sorts of interesting plots here. Maybe it happens in space. It's an interesting plot no matter where you place it.
(humpty dumpty)
I would like to expand and change this story, maybe quite a bit.
(she sighed walked away with isfp essay)
I'm still interested in making that four word story into a coffee table book, or something like that, with a philosophy essay to go with it. ISFP is the International Society For Philosophers.
(werewolf epistolary)
An epistolary story is made of letters or articles or related fictional written materials. "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" were epistolary novels. It just seems like there should be a werewolf one to go with them. The moon cycles go with it well.
(matt's eyes tragedy into malevolence)
My story "Matt's Eyes" is quite tragic. It will be published in the anthology "Horror Without Borders" next year. You can read the whole thing in my post "A Flash of Horror - Part 4 of 4". That whole series is about writing that story. You can see the whole process. The story is tragic, but you don't really see malevolence in it. Malevolence is the really disturbing thing, when people are causing tragedy that wouldn't have to happen. To a large extent there is an underlying substrate of tragedy to all of existence. But malevolence is different. PTSD is often caused by seeing real malevolence in the self or another. It's that disturbing. I could add that element to this story by making an addon story. Just an idea.
- - - - - - -
A few of the ideas I've mentioned before. I write these little idea lists for three main reasons. One, I want to remember them. Two, I want to see how it feels to write about them. Three, I want to see what ideas keep coming to my mind. There are interesting trends.
Here are the links to that series where I created the short story "Matt's Eyes".
Part 1
https://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/09/a-flash-of-horror-part-1-of.html
Part 2
https://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/09/a-flash-of-horror-part-2-of.html
Part 3
https://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/11/a-flash-of-horror-part-3-of.html
Part 4
https://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/11/a-flash-of-horror-part-4-of-4.html
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You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com
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