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.

Writing Excuses Masterclass: Homework 1

I basically started this blog as a way to force myself to keep up with the homework set during the Writing Excuses Masterclass. The homework for episode 1 was to come up with five ideas:

1. An idea from an interview or conversation you have had.
2. An idea from research, science news or history.
3. An idea from observing something.
4. An idea from media, a movie or a book.
5. An idea from music.

 Below are my five ideas:

1

Inspiration: Talked to my Dad, who'd just got back from a ski trip where he stayed with a guy he used to work for and who is now super rich and owns a place in a ski resort.

Idea: An avalanche cuts off an exclusive ski resort, leading to a kind of Lord of the Flies but with mega-rich people and those that serve them instead of kids.

 2

Inspiration: Reading about the silk road trial that's starting.

Idea: Nerdy kid whose bullied at school uses a website similar to silk road to purchase drugs that help him study. Accidentally gets delivered a package worth hundreds of thousands, gets pulled into the behind the scenes activity on the website, turns out he actually excels in the drug business. This leads to him getting popular at school and some of his classmates get involved with the business and ....

3

Inspiration: I stayed in a town over Christmas which basically sits on the border of two European countries (it's technically two towns, but there is no physical separation, just a border running through them). Observed how closely integrated the two sides are, including plenty of people who live on one side and work or go to school on the other.

Idea: War breaks out. Instead of perhaps the obvious route of the two sides of the town going to war with each other, for most people living there, loyalty to town overrides loyalty to country, so the story is about how they continue to live and work with each other while at the same time trying to convince authority figures elsewhere in their respective countries that they are at war. (I guess I would probably have to set it in the past to make the idea of them keeping this secret even semi-plausible).

4
Inspiration: I watched Gone Girl (I guess the idea hints at spoilers).

Idea: Elaborate plan to deceive people + the pregnancy stuff led to this. A women whose husband is researching the possibility of uploading brains to computers is informed that she is going to have a miscarriage. She begs her husband to do something, he says there is nothing he can do, but eventually gives in and says he will try to upload the babies brain to a computer. It works, we see the women learning to communicate and love her "virtual" child. Turns out the husband couldn't do it and that the seemingly realistic child the women has been experiencing is the result of him and people he hired playing the role.

5

Inspiration: I kind of drew a blank on this one. There was a song in the movie "Frank" which the titular character referred to as his "most likable song ever".

Idea: Kind of gave me the idea of a very analytically minded person trying to set out to find the scientifically provable most likable song ever. Kind of like "The Rosie Project" but with music instead of love. I don't think I would be musically literate enough to write this, but I guess it's still an idea.