Give me a short story idea
- Thread starter Fox12
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Huh, I'd forgotten all about the Masque of Red Death, but now that you mention it I can't unsee it. Though on the note of the twins...that one kinda has a lot of potential in several directions. I mean it could as easily be touching as terrifying if the deceased twin was trying to comfort their grieving counterpart.Saetha said:
A hundred years ago or something, the not-Rebels failed to blow up the not-Death Star. Its continued existence soon sparked open, widespread rebellion, resulting in planets being blown up en masse as a warfare strategy rather than a domestic one. Between this and the increasingly sequestered and paranoid not-Imperial forces aboard the not-Death Star, there are now only two habitable planets left in the entire galaxy. The not-Death Star has no means of food production or other methods of self-sustainment, so if one planet were to be destroyed, the other would be forever safe.
So the only question remaining to the general populace is this: Which planet is the one that's gonna get blown up?
So the only question remaining to the general populace is this: Which planet is the one that's gonna get blown up?
A man takes a long car ride though the countryside on the way to his wife's funeral.
A group of teenagers hit a deer while drinking and driving, and slowly realize that what they feel is not fear for being caught, but rather sorrow and guilt.
A child soldier is shot on the battlefield, and looks at the night sky as he lays dying.
A mother defends her daughter who was sexually harassed by a senior teacher, with much clout in the local union.
I suppose it all depends on how short you want them to be. Those are four off of the top of my head, if you want more, there is an entire subreddit dedicated to writing prompts. I've actually never visited thee myself, but I've always meant to go over and look.
A group of teenagers hit a deer while drinking and driving, and slowly realize that what they feel is not fear for being caught, but rather sorrow and guilt.
A child soldier is shot on the battlefield, and looks at the night sky as he lays dying.
A mother defends her daughter who was sexually harassed by a senior teacher, with much clout in the local union.
I suppose it all depends on how short you want them to be. Those are four off of the top of my head, if you want more, there is an entire subreddit dedicated to writing prompts. I've actually never visited thee myself, but I've always meant to go over and look.
Not so much an idea as a setting where you can do whatever you like:
It's 2099 (or 2199, 2088, it's the future. Not too close.) and we've been discovered by aliens. One of our first out-of-solar-system-probes has been spotted and we've been contacted by a huge alien...alliance/society (a representative of a huge amount of alien races). Since then a few of their ambassadors have been staying with humanity to see if we'd be eligible to the sharing of techniques, philosophies....basically if we'd be ready to join their union.
Humans haven't been doing nothing, either, we haven't invented any form of FTL-travel, so we've been unable to personally explore beyond our own solar system (this is one of the promised techs), but we have terraformed/colonised most of the planets in this one. Egypt colonized Mars (they've really taken up the pace after the Third World War (or whatever Grand Event) and are now one of the leading countries in the world), Mars has declared sovereignty, of course. Mercury is now the new Florida. And Pluto is a 'backwater planet' with most of the prisons and (surprise) an insanely high amount of criminality.
It's possible to have the human race band all together after the first alien contact out of fear, but whatever works best. Personally, I like the idea of people realising "Yeah...it might be scary, we might find it hard to trust them, but if they wanted, we'd have been spacedust yesterday."
Use whatever you like, it's a premise where you can zoom in on the diplomatics between the humans and aliens, have it on the background of a freelancer just trying to make a living or even follow one of the 'Chosen Ones' that get to experience the alien society up-close as the first human beings out of our solar system.
It's 2099 (or 2199, 2088, it's the future. Not too close.) and we've been discovered by aliens. One of our first out-of-solar-system-probes has been spotted and we've been contacted by a huge alien...alliance/society (a representative of a huge amount of alien races). Since then a few of their ambassadors have been staying with humanity to see if we'd be eligible to the sharing of techniques, philosophies....basically if we'd be ready to join their union.
Humans haven't been doing nothing, either, we haven't invented any form of FTL-travel, so we've been unable to personally explore beyond our own solar system (this is one of the promised techs), but we have terraformed/colonised most of the planets in this one. Egypt colonized Mars (they've really taken up the pace after the Third World War (or whatever Grand Event) and are now one of the leading countries in the world), Mars has declared sovereignty, of course. Mercury is now the new Florida. And Pluto is a 'backwater planet' with most of the prisons and (surprise) an insanely high amount of criminality.
It's possible to have the human race band all together after the first alien contact out of fear, but whatever works best. Personally, I like the idea of people realising "Yeah...it might be scary, we might find it hard to trust them, but if they wanted, we'd have been spacedust yesterday."
Use whatever you like, it's a premise where you can zoom in on the diplomatics between the humans and aliens, have it on the background of a freelancer just trying to make a living or even follow one of the 'Chosen Ones' that get to experience the alien society up-close as the first human beings out of our solar system.
So, basically The Masque of the Red Death. I wouldn't write about that, because no one beats Poe. No one nevermore.TakerFoxx said:
Saetha said:
Aw, damn it! I thought I was being original! I actually haven't read Masque of the Red Death and didn't know it had the same premise. Though I had in mind a full-on apocalypse, with fire falling from the sky and the earth tearing apart while everyone inside does their best not to look out the window, ignore the shaking, and keep talking about meaningless things while holding onto to their progressively strained smiles.Ryan Hughes said:
Masque is my favorite short story of all time. And I went to college for writing and literature, so I have read a lot of short stories. Poe is a master, and walking into his territory is not advisable for anyone but the best of the best. In the story, he uses the different colors of the seven reverie rooms to signify different states of human emotion and/or stages of life, depending on how one wishes to interpret it. The base idea of "an uncaring and callous aristocracy fiddling while the world goes to hell" is mastered here in Masque. Poe's insight into the psychology of those people leaves little if anything to be desired, and he instinctively shows us what those types of reverie are, irrespective even of the outside world: they are intended to hide the reality and brutal finality of death itself.TakerFoxx said:
His insight into the existential desire to hide from death was far ahead of its time, and the use of wealth as a means to do so ran counter to many perceived concepts of wealth that are still prevalent today, i.e. Randianism and other philosophies. Not only that, but his language as always is dense -not with flourish- but with meaning and reflection: "There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless, which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death and equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made." And it has the greatest ending sentences of all time: "And the life of ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
Note the capitalization -as per the proper pronoun- of "Darkness" and "Decay," which gives at least some hint as to the voice of the narrator of the story. At least in my opinion, as this is still hotly debated in studies of Poe. And he does it all in about five pages.
So, yeah, it is a brilliant work, and not to be trifled with.
Edit: Oh, also, he beat Hemingway to the punch in sentenced word repetition: "Blood was its Avatar and its seal --the redness and the horror of blood." So, yeah, Poe is a genius, and despite how popular he has become, he is still vastly underestimated in my not-so-humble-opinion.
True. I guess it says something about me that I immediately jump to horror. Though ideally you could do both. It wouldn't be impossible to have a heartwarming story with some... disconcerting hints on the afterlife. It'd have to be subtle, though.Asita said:
You could certainly try it. Wouldn't be the first time that two people with the same idea turned out two completely different stories, especially if you went the more comedic route with it. The idea sounds like it's begging for some gallows humor.TakerFoxx said:
I say go for it. This short story idea really excited me, I thought it was brilliant. Yes, it reminded me of poe, but that's not a bad thing. Plenty of people end up with similar ideas, and plenty of great artists borrow from other writers. We wouldn't have The Thinker or Robert Frosts Ice and Fire if it wasn't for Dante's Inferno, which both are inspired by. Heck, we may not have Dante's Inferno if it wasn't for The Aeneid, and we may not have The Aeneid if we didn't have the Iliad and The Odyssey. We may not have had Berserk if it wasn't for Oedipus Rex and Greek tragedies concerning fate. J.R.R. Tolkiens ideas were hugely inspired by celtic and germanic legends. Can you imagine where we'd be if Tolkien said "nah, can't touch Beowulf's quality, better grade some papers and get drunk with Lewis instead." If you don't write it then I will : PTakerFoxx said:
I think it's safe, so long as he does some original work with it. If he has some rainbow colored rooms, then yeah, there's a problem, but having a similar concept isn't such a big deal, I think. Poe would probably prefer people to carry on his legacy, even if they don't all reach his heights. If everyone's too intimidated to write in his field then the genre will stagnate, and I don't think anyone would want that, Poe included. Not that you're wrong, I love me some Poe : )Ryan Hughes said:
It is not really an issue of how close it is to Masque so much as. . . well, ok. It is like a musician just getting started and then making a song that sounds even remotely like something composed by Beethoven. . . It is not anyone's fault, and only someone boorish would bring up things like plagiarism, but it also -even under the best of circumstances- invites comparison between the two. Which no one should feel bad for not measuring up to that. So, it is not that they shouldn't do it, it is just that I would suggest they not. I suppose. Though, that is a rather silly answer, I admit.Fox12 said:
Poe cast a shadow over everyone in the genre, much like how Shakespeare did for playwrights around his time. Baudelaire was the only one at the time to really understand him I think. BTW, if you are still looking for inspiration, Baudelaire's work is a fantastic place to start if you've never read him. He practically learned to write by his translations of Poe into French, and considered Poe to be the greatest writer of all time. Now, Baudelaire is likely the largest literary influence on modern high literature.
An easy one, based off of what may be one of the shortest stories possible.
The last man on earth sits in a room. There is a lock on the door.
Also
The last man on earth sits in a room. There is a knock on the door.
The last man on earth sits in a room. There is a lock on the door.
Also
The last man on earth sits in a room. There is a knock on the door.
I really like those two-sentence horror stories. My personal favorite are these:Dalisclock said:
My daughter won't stop crying and screaming when I'm trying to sleep. I visited her grave to ask her to stop but she never does.
When I was in my room I heard my mom call from downstairs, "Honey, could you come down into the kitchen?" As I passed the closet, I heard my mother say from inside, "Don't go, I heard it too."
As I was putting my son to bed, he said, "Daddy, there's something under my bed." When I went down to check for him, I saw my son under the bed, who said, "Daddy, there's something in my bed."
You look out your window in the middle of the night and see a monster in the garden staring back at you. What do you do?
A butterfly of unusual colours drifts by during each of the worst moments in a man's life. He becomes convinced the butterfly is the direct cause of his misfortune and tries to kill it.
A captured princess plays psychologist for one of the minions guarding her, revealing how they got into that position.
An MLG Call of Duty veteran signs up for the real military believing they'll do great.
A captured princess plays psychologist for one of the minions guarding her, revealing how they got into that position.
An MLG Call of Duty veteran signs up for the real military believing they'll do great.
Two grizzled old assassins have been hired to kill each other. They are alone in a luxurious hotel room. Each assassin knows everything about the other, including favored methods of killing, as well as the nature of their respective ongoing missions. They are not friends (assassins don't have friends), but they have known each other for a long time and there is much mutual, professional respect involved.
What do they talk about? Does either of them really want to kill the other? How does each of them plan on doing the job?
Also, there's a furry convention going on at the hotel - and it all takes place on the day that Michael Jackson's death first hit the news.
What do they talk about? Does either of them really want to kill the other? How does each of them plan on doing the job?
Also, there's a furry convention going on at the hotel - and it all takes place on the day that Michael Jackson's death first hit the news.