Plot Suggestions

Here's a challenge to all you writers and wannabe writers. Here are a few plot suggestions. Have some fun and try writing a story or screenplay using one of the following plot ideas. Try them as an exercise. One of you might produce the next "Frankenstein" story. I think it would be great to have several versions of each. I will try to keep these suggestions coming on a regular basis, as I have far more story ideas than I can ever write myself.

1.. Write the story of a confrontation or battle taking place on a boardwalk across a marsh or on a bridge. Make all of the characters, events, and circumstances correspond to things found in a hand of stud poker. {This one has now been done. See The Battle. However it would be great to have several versions.)

2..             Is there a story here? Click on each for larger images..

3.   The End Game - Write the story of two kings, two queens,two castles, two bishops, and two knights in the final stages of a battle. Make all the major events and all the major skills or tactics of each character correspond to those of a chess game.Title the story The End Game or something else from the world of chess.

4.   Sinking Out of Mud - Tell the story of a sea snail getting caught in shallow water and gradually being forced out of the mud and onto dry land to its doom. Tell the story from the snail's point of view such that it sees itself as "sinking" out of the safe mud.

5.  Infomercial - Write a script for an infomercial for The Amazing Mudmaster, the world's greatest exercise machine, that consists of a five foot deep (or six in the deluxe model) ten foot diameter mud pit, complete with high powered circulation pump, aerator (for reduced buoyancy) heater, and other amenities. Installation and mud not included. All for only 795.00 (995.00 for the deluxe). But that's not all. For no extra charge you also get a complete post-exercise washup kit (a bucket and a towel and a complete set of safety equipment (a rope).. An incredible offer, you say. Wait, these even more. You also get two sixty-minute exercise videos showing how to exercise using the Amazing Mudmaster, one for low impact exercise and the other for high impact.And if you call our operators and order while we're on the air, you also get.... (well you get the idea). By the way, please keep the references to real infomercial (is that an oxymoron) personalities out - I don't want to get sued.
 
6.   False Witness - Write a mystery story in which the prime suspect has been framed by the apparent victim. The 'victim' has staged his/her own murder in which no body is found but his/her hat is found floating on a quicksand bog. The fake is recognized by a dectective who is secretly 'into' quicksand and ,thus, knows it is next to impossible to involuntarily sink all the way.

7. Write a story of a robbery three times, once from the point of view of the victom, once from the point of view of a police officer giving chase unsuccessfully, and once rfom the point of view of the thief, who tries to escape by using a secret, hidden path across a swamp.

8. Tell the story of an organism that survives by feeding off the energy of intense fear within those whom it encounters.

9. Write a detective story about a thief who repeatedly escapes by submerging in a bog and breathing thrugh a tube after running into a swamp. The ruse is solved by a detective who seems to have a surprising knowledge of the true nature of bogs.

10. Borrowing freely from famous writers of the past, try inventing a story to fit a title that is a parody of a famous story. Here are some suggestions:

The following pages display stories of a similar nature to those found here, although in general only the short story format. Some may contain material of an adult nature.

In addition, persons who find the stories here of interest may be interested in several discussion groups. These groups are, however, limited to persons who have achieved the age of majority. Information on these groups may be found at:

Writing Suggestions

Spelling, fonts, print size, backgrounds, placement on page, etc.

        Spelling may not have counted at school but it counts here. Everybody makes spelling mistakes from time to time and a spell-checker will not catch every error. However, a   story with many spelling errors, grammatical errors, and the like reflects poorly on the author as well as on this page. Use your spell checker, make corrections, use the spell-checker again, and then PROOFREAD before making a submission.

        Fancy scripts may look quite nice on formal invitations but they can be very hard to read. Please stick to a simple, business-like font.

        You may be able to read an 8 point type but most of us find it very difficult. This is 8 point. This is 10 point. This is 12 point. This is 14 point bold.. I strongly suggest use of the 12 point size for text and 18 or larger bold for titles.

        The HTML language allows you to use print and backgrounds  of various colors. You can even use a very complex image as a background. Often, however, this makes text quite hard to read. Please try to avoid using complex backgrounds for scripts and stories and to keep the text - background combinations limited to those that are easy to read.

        This page uses space on the geocities system. That space for is paid for by advertising that geocities places near the top of each page when it is downloaded. Thus, please remember to leave an adequate margin at the top of each text file so the text will not be covered by the advertising.

Writing Style
 
        In a recent writing workshop conducted among several people who should be interested in these pages, the most common style error seemed to be shifting the point of view in short stories. In a short story you tell the story from the point of view of one, and only one character. You write to put the reader 'inside' the head of one character. You can then say what that character is feeling or thinking, but you cannot say directly what another character is thinking. Instead you must 'show' what that character is thinking or feeling by using dialogue, facial expressions, or other contrivances. However, this is not true in a script for a screenplay or movie. As the writer you can, and often must, say what the character is feeling. However, you must do so in a way that it is possible for an actor or actress to convey what is being thought or felt to the viewer.If a character has sunk out of sight in a quicksand bog, that may be rather difficult, although it might be done using a voice over of the person's thoughts or feelings.

        So far as I have been able to determine, there is no pre-determined format for a screenplay script. I have read through several books containing examples of screenplay scripts and they are all different. Think of the script as a set of directions for production of a visual-media story and write out what you want the story to be.

 Story or Script First
 
        I have tried writing a screenplay first and then a short story and I have tried writing the short story first. Look, for example, at the script and short story versions of The Pits of Pendar, and I think you will know without being told which was written first and which was second. If you can't, I'll tell you. The script was written first. If anyone ever decides to produce that one, I'll probably re-write the script to match the story more closely. In general, and in my own humble opinion, whichever version is done last is usually the better product. I think what this means is "Write, revise, revise, revise."

Plop and Sink, or a Real Story?

        If you look at the Video Vignettes section, most of the stories there are very simple. They are basically what one correspondent of mine calls "Plop and Sink" stories. The plot is basically the same. Someone wanders into quicksand, then they either get out or they sink. The only thing that really changes is the name of the subject (almost always female) and the explanation for how she gets into the mud. Such stories are not much in the category of literature but, judging by the videos that are currently available, they may have a better chance of being produced. If you look in the scripts or short stories sections you will generally see more complex stories in which there is more than just a quicksand scene or two (or seven). Such stories are obviously much more difficult and expensive to make into videos or movies. In my opinion, however, these are a much higher level of literature, assuming they are well done. In many stories of this type, and the better ones, I think, the quicksand or mud scene is an important patr of the story but it is not the whole story. Of my own works in this category, I think The Quicksand Pipe is the best. In that story there really is no quicksand, only an encounter with mud.
 
Writer's Block

        Every writer experiences 'writer's block' from time to time. You want to write but the words just don't come. Aside from trying a different story, a technique that somethimes works is to just start writing. Write ANYTHING, even "I can't think of anything to write." over and over. Just keep your pen moving. Another thing to try is to change what you write with. Personally, I prefer writing the initial part of a story (or a book for that matter) in longhand and not on my computer. Eventually, when the story has begun to write itself, then I change to the computer. In the initial stages of a project, however, I think perhaps my marginal typing skills (I'm fast but inaccurate) force me to have to divert too much attention away from creative writing and onto eye-hand coordination.

        Another piece of advice for creative writing, if not for dealing with writer's block, is to write about what you know. This does not mean you have to tell a story that actually happened to you. It means to base incidents, characters, and/or locations on your own experience. I said above that I believe that The Quicksand Pipe is my best story. I have never actually been in the situation depicted in that story, nor am I female. However, I am an avid cave explorer. I have seen some pretty tight passages. I have encounted animal skulls, and I have encounterd fairly deep mud (although not as deep as in the story).