Tuesday 13 January 2015

Writing Excuses Masterclass: Homework 2

Episode Link

Writing Prompt: Using last week's five story ideas (or five new ones):

  1. Take two of them and combine them into one story.
  2. Take one and change the genre underneath it.
  3. Take one and change the ages and genders of everybody you had in mind for it
  4. Take the last one and have a character make the opposite choice.
I kind of cheated and only used four out of my five ideas, as there was one I wasn't that keen on to start with.

1.

Two ideas I had last week were "Lord of the Flies in a ski resort" and the effects of war on a town that borders two countries in conflict. I'm going to combine them, and have the avalanche cut the town off from the war. Consequently the conflict in the town will be less about hiding the fact that the two sides are in reality cooperating (which was the idea last week) and more about how the knowledge that their countries are at war effects the residents dealing's with one another, despite the fact that they are isolated from the major conflict.

2.

Nerdy kid who get's caught up in the behind the scenes dealings of a "silk road" website turns into nerdy kid who get's caught up in the behind the scenes dealings of a "illegal magic" website. Crime turns into fantasy.

3.

I had imagined the warring town to be full of adult political things such as local council meetings and diplomatic communications with the outside world. Instead let's make it about how the crime effects a group of kids that go to a school that serves both sides of the town. Genders were going to be a mix anyway, so I'm going to skip that bit.

4.

So last week I had a guy lying to his wife, claiming that he had managed to create a virtual version of their stillborn child. Let's change his decision to actually deciding he does have the technology to create a virtual representation of their child, and instead of exploring the effects of deceit, explore whether parents can learn to have a relationship with a child that exists only in electronic form.

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