Storybone

From a dream the other night. I remember it being a very cool premise, but all of that is gone except for the note: Fredda and Heathis, werecats (various species, IIRC, linxs and cheetah) who fight vampires/eldrich horror Nazis in WWII.

Storybone

Two serial killers in competition with each other to be more audacious, more disturbing, more terrifying, and getting more media attention than the other. Think Whitechapel Murders (Jack the Ripper) versus the Thames Torso Murders which happened at roughly the same time. Each one trying to barely make their escape (the adventure of being caught), trying to be more spectacular (for certain values of that word) than the other, higher profile victims, who could tease the cops more, that kind of thing. Only to draw the attention of an older serial killer who realizes these two are going to get them all caught and decides to either kill them, or deliver both to the cops while blaming them for the third killer's crimes (mostly likely going on for decades).

If you like, you can change this to some other crime (extortion, robbery, etc).

For a twist you can have them realize that they're suddenly out of their depth and that there are bigger monster swimming in their pond, so they join forces to protect themselves.

Story bone

Who died and made you the asshole?

I've been thinking about that line all day. It's gotta go somewhere.

Story Bone

There's a number of stories about colonization of other worlds by sending DNA and the molecules that sustain and make up life to the alien world. But to do that requires a lot of machinery that can reconstruct life (as we know it) and maintain that life on a potentially hostile world (well of course it's a hostile world, that's where the main conflict comes in). There are also several stories running along the lines of "if we meet aliens, our biology will more than likely not be compatible to either coexistence or to using alien life for food." And then there is the concept of panspermia, where life (the unique self-replicating chemistry) might have formed elsewhere and come raining in on planets from comets or meteorites.

Okay, how about this one. Colonizing another world through the use of macro-viruses that would suborn the existing biosphere while using it as the mechanism for reconstruction and reproduction. Think of it as a combination body-snatching through parasitology or more likely symbiosis.

Most life is going to be carbon based (carbon is hella flexible and while silicon has similar electrical properties, it's damn heavy and doesn't exist - as far as well know - in all the states that carbon can), so if a planet had any life it mostly likely would be carbon based. That narrows the variability if cellular structures and creates likely surface protein combinations that would allow a virus to latch on. Can consciousness be encoded in DNA (or more likely RNA, the real workhorse of cellular life)? Could you potentially create a hidden consciousness within another life form. Or, if you want to go the "all life is in conflict" route, could you alter an existing consciousness to a preprogramed state? Would it be possible to direct planetary evolution (through the DNA expression) to recreate a life form that could hold the alien intelligence (and just how big a package of DNA/RNA would you need for that)? Could you convert an existing (alien) cell into a stem cell and generate a whole being that way (there's a lot of hurdles to get over with that one)?

Now let's say all that is possible. Let's say an alien intelligence design the macro-virus to create a symbiotic intelligence and let's say it would infect us humans. Would we know? Could the other consciousness be so detached from our own that it could live and function within us without our knowledge?

Personally I would hate to write this as we are the alien life form and we're still evolving because that plays into the concept of "evolving higher." That's a concept I personally find as bullshit and stems from the human attempt to say "we are special!"

Story Bone

Were-Polar Bears versus Were-Lynx. 'Nough said.

Story Bone

Murder mystery where in a group of friends one of them is a murder, but they never discover which one of them did the deed. At the end of the story they've all come to peace with this. From the armchair analysis any one of them could have been the murder. In the end they're all complicit.

Story Bone - A Twitter Fantasy

I had the drop on him. Leveled my gun for a center-mass shot. He raised his hands, keeping in his kneeling position. The 9mm felt cool and firm, like taking an old love to bed.

I grinned. "You had to wear the red shirt today, eh McGee?" I said.

He smiled back, stood straight and lowered his hands. "Well actually, wearing a gold shir…"

I couldn't hear his statistic over the barking of the gun.

Story bone

Bounty hunter in the "wild" west known as "The Lawman", real name Miguel Cortez (name came to me with the alias). Makes his living by bringing in bounties. "Wanted Dead or Alive", he prefers "dead" (unless there's a major price difference). Specializes in the exceptionally difficult cases (which have a higher payout). Uses his Mexican heritage to blend into the background of the West and move relatively unseen by Western eyes, but everyone knows him by reputation (but not what he looks like). Once the Lawman is after you, it might be better to turn yourself in. Not above eliminating competition. Takes a commission to bring in another bounty hunter who plays even looser with the rules called, "The Spider", one of the few female bounty hunters. Non-typical high jinks ensue. Of the several plot twists that instantly come to mind (do they fall in love, does one use love/lust over the other, is it all business until the end, etc) the best thought so far is it's an elaborate trap by the Spider to collect a private bounty on the Lawman.

Story Bones

Okay, so one of the things about writing is coming up with something new, a new take, a new twist, something different than the 10,000 other submissions. And while I'm not an expert on this, it's a skill I'm trying to develop.

What you can do is take a common story and work out how you would tell it, including something new. Since it's approaching Halloween, last night's exercise was to take a common scary story and work up something new.

The Ghost Hitchhiker. Almost every state and major local has this story. Basic structure goes something like this; late at night a driver picks of a hitchhiker and drives them to where they asked to go only to find that hitchhiker is really a ghost. Some common variants of this story (and this is good to know, just how have people adjusted the story before you):

• Common pickup points
  • Loney road
  • Cemetery
  • School
• Drop off points
  • Cemetery
  • Abandoned home
  • Home with older couple (child's parents)

So what are the elements of the story?

• Hitchhiker
• Driver
• Location driver picks up hitchhiker
• Driver's motivation to help/pickup hitchhikers
• Journey to somewhere
• Arrival
• Reveal
• Resolution

You can play with any of these. Most often people play with the pickup location and the place of arrival, but there's all those other things most people don't play with. So here are some ideas I came up with last night.

• Driver is the ghost. This is probably the easiest switch, so I'm sure this has been written many times.
• Ghost is victim of driver, comes to haunt them - there's a lot that sounds appealing here, but it's a trap. It's easy, and works to common stereotypes. Also there's (serial) killer psychology that they remember all their victims, it's unlikely the driver wouldn't recognize a former victim
• Ghost is a almost victim that escaped, but died from other causes while escaping. This could be a little better, complicates the motivations and gives a (somewhat) plausible reason for driver to not recognize hitchhiker. To me, though, it still feels a little to easy. I really would be surprised to find this hasn't been written many times before.
• In both of those cases, is it the ghost's motivation to seek revenge, or resolution?
• The driver is a ghost hunter looking for ghosts to pickup. Okay, changes the reveal here. Feels a little thin though. Maybe the driver is an emotive who is looking to help wayward ghosts. That feels a little better, more complex. Changes up the motivation of the driver.
• Both hitchhiker and driver are ghosts. Seems silly. But maybe what we're witnessing is repeating haunting for two ghosts who are unable to continue on. Do they realize it, is it a slow realization as they travel. Sense of urgency created by needing to solve issue before end of drive. The need to change the story they seem to be repeating.
• Driver is actually Charon.
• Let's go back to the idea about the ghost being the victim, but both are ghosts, but neither can rest until they resolve their conflict. Maybe the driver/killer/abuser, doesn't realize they're dead and the hitchhiker needs them to confess their sins for both of them to be at rest.
• The driver is alive, but trying to atone for their sins by "settling" the ghosts of other killer's victims.
• Hitchhiker directs driver to new accident. Was the hitchhiker killed in accident, or is this a "service" they do to help others?
• The hitchhiker directs the driver to their home, but on the way the ghost slowly transforms into the decayed body of a missing child, which is left behind in the car. Was the driver the killer or just a way for the child to come home? How could the hitchhiker be the victim of the driver who is tricking the driver to deliver their body home without the driver recognizing then? Could you work in the excitement that serial killers experience visiting the sites if their victims, maybe tie it into the excitement of having a new victim? If the driver is innocent, how does the story end because a stranger just showed up at the parent's house with the body of the victim in their car?

For my money that last one has legs.

Story Bone

A tweet with an excellent story line. Not mine, but damn that would make an excellent movie and/or novel. (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)

Story Bone

The future of art forgery could be data forgery. The Hidden Brain podcast on forgery (youtube). And an NPR intro to the podcast (with text). Right now we have a for of this. After all, identity theft is a form of data forgery. Especially in those cases where people live as those they've taken an identity from (different than just stealing). And hacking is a form of data forgery. But here I'm talking masterpiece, history changing types of data forgery. Creating whole databases of information that you pass off as real in an attempt to gain something (changing history, proving you're the lost heir to whatever, altering the social fabric). So I think if you think big here, beyond the "simple con" there could be an interesting novel (from many sides, the forger, the victim, society, or the detective who is trying to prove the forgery).

There are so many facets to such a story. Credibly forging not only a database, the information and structure to possibly match an outdated piece of software, but generating the metadata needed for the provenance and proof. Plus the psychology of forgery, the insertion of time bombs, etc. Yes, I'm thinking this is a novel length work (although you could do it minority as a short story plot bunny).

Story Bone

I've been searching through some boxes looking for something and have realized I used to write a hellofalotta notes about writing. Think like bits of conversation, ideas, plot lines, etc. And I don't do that as often as I use to. So let me share this gem.

Time travelers would be subject to infectious diseases that their immune systems are not prepared to handle. Would then need a series of vaccines? Would doctors know what to inoculate them with? Or could they bring back to their future time a plague that would wipe out large portions of their population leading to political will to never time travel again, or societal collapse leading them to never be able to time travel again?

Story Bone

Maybe not so much of a bone as a rumination.

One of the major plot issues of dealing with immortality is working out the moral stance or the psychology of someone who doesn't die as they watch all around them dying. And there's some various workarounds for this, such as vampirism (which then creates it's own culture, which then has it's own problems… ah, the life of the writer). But I'm not sure I've encountered a story that solves the problem through amnesia (either intentionally caused or as a side effect of the immortality). Or through the use of a phoenix-like regeneration (although I have already written one story using this, that immortality is something you have to work to achieve, and it's a renewal process). Also, in the past it would have been much easier as an immortal to hide amidst those who are not. In this day, however, identity is much less malleable (although still capable through identity theft).

So how does the modern immortal navigate society and deal with their past? Are they like dorky parents who are consistently one step behind the times, or would they have developed keener senses to maintain their cover? Would they eschew property, or how would they handle it's transference to those new identities, or could they be identified by a public records search?

Story Bone

You wore me like a knife.

Story Bone

About 15 years ago there was a big rush of researchers using fMRI to reproduce images of what our eyes were seeing from the signals in our brains (this was then also mapped to dreaming imagery). While the actual images produced were very fuzzy (to make an understatement), and I can't find much after that first rush in the 2000-2013 time frame) what if that technology progressed to where you could recreate high-def images (maybe movies) of what someone was seeing. Okay, got that. There's this magic myth that the eye holds the last image ever seen. Now, what if we could scan a dead person's occipital lobe and recreate the last images that were seen. This could be used by criminal forensics teams to solve murders (if the person saw the murderer).

What weird supernatural things would we see through their eyes? There's also the myth that right before death people can see "beyond the veil" (people dying slowly seeing lost relatives in their rooms, that sort of thing). What do the dead see? Would it creep us out? Would it prove an after life (or disprove it in some manner)? What if the last image in the brain was of being reborn?

Okay, different route. As a murderer, how could you manipulate that last image to frame someone else? I have a side thought here that scanning the brain in this manner destroys the brain tissue itself (or re-polarizes the neurons effectively setting them back to zero). So you get one shot at it, and you get what you get. Could you use that to create an alibi, make a statement, or point the finger at someone?

Story Bone

Story about future where everyone's brain is uploaded into a computer which is running a world simulation. The outside real Earth is dead, and the computers have been set up with all intents of "running forever" (note, death of our Sun will happen before heat death of the universe, but whatever). Systems are redundant, and made as bullet proof as ever possible. Some power source is used that would be uninterruptible (worldwide solar grid, geothermal, etc). To make this "life" livable all the people in the networked world agreed to forget that they once lived "outside" and that they are running in a simulation of the world inside a computer. Maybe one or two had to keep that knowledge, it's your story, whatever. This is our colony ship to help humanity survive. But now, some 50 or hundred years later the systems begin to fail, which has noticeable effects into the virtual world (program resets, people just disappearing, glitches in the "resolution" of the world). So the people inside the simulation need to both figure out that they are in a simulation and then how to fix their world. Are there external robots meant to maintain the physical computers they all exist in? Is there a way they can manifest outside And what does that do to their society to realize that they are running in a simulation? Remember, they all choose to forget so they could live "happily" inside a computer simulation.

Story bone

Deadman Grey had aways known his fate in this dust filled world. His father had been sixty-three when he was born, a desiccate-apple head wrapped in a collarless shirt and wool waistcoat. His mother, the target of an old-man's lust, he could only remember the six-petticoats she wore in the furnace of that first summer. She had been sent to a home for disrespectable women soon after Deadman could walk on his own. Educated by taciturn nannies in severe black dresses smothered in floral perfumes, he had grown up watching his progenitor navigate the mansions of death until his father passed in silent senility, his toothless mouth shouting without noise, eyes fixed on the stained canopy above his bed. Deadman had been sixteen when he sold the house, strapped guns to his waist, and rode westward on the best horse he could find. He was eighteen when Death settled in as his constant drinking partner.

edit

Deadman Grey knew his fate in this dust-filled world. His father, a desiccated-apple head wrapped in collarless shirt and wool waistcoat, had reached sixty-three before having a son. His mother, the target of an old-man's lust, remembered for the six petticoats she wore in the furnace of that first summer; interred in a wayward woman's home soon after Deadman could walk. Educated by taciturn nannies in severe black dresses and smothered by floral perfumes, he had endured sixteen-years watching his father navigate the mansions of his death before passing in silent senility, his gaping mouth shouting, eyes fixed on the stained canopy above his bed. Deadman burned the house, strapped sixs-guns to his waist, and rode West on the best horse in the stable. Death sidled in on Deadman's eighteenth birthday and never left his side. Business was brisk.

Story Bone

Painted war-zeppelins riding the bow wake of a haboob the way dolphins ride the bow wake of ships (if set in other than desert conditions, this could be a massive thunderstorm). One or two of the airships are torn to tatters by the fierceness of the storm. There's panic on the ramparts of the city as they see (through spy glasses?) the approaching raiders. As the zeppelins approach the walled city (in my vision, this is an oasis trading hub center) the raiders drop grappling hooks that snag against the walls (or houses) and the winds bring the airships down close to the ground. Raiders rappel into the city (or if the walls/houses were low enough, they just jump), fighting their way inside structures before the storm fully engulfs the area. The abandoned airships explode or set fires as they are demolished by the storm (depending on your world and how they are lifted in the air). By the time the storm leaves, the raiders are in charge of the city.

edit I realize this is very similar to the scene where Maud'Dib retakes Arrakeen. I didn't have that connection until I finished writing it. This is the steampunk version of that scene.

Story Bone

"When things go bump in the night…"

"Yea, we bump back, right?"

"Bumping is for dancing. We unleash hell on them."

Story Bone

A submariner's tale, one of the people who man the sonar on a nuclear submarine starts to hear sirens in the deep. An as all who hear their call, desired to join them. The other crewman are put in peril because of this and attempt to stop him from sinking the boat in order to get out.

What kind of creature would an underwater siren be like? What would they sing and how do they sing?

Okay, now place this during World War II in the North Atlantic.

Got that? Okay, now place it in space.