Help Me Develop This Idea Into A Story?

[Guttersnipe]

Ironically, I have a story idea about stories. I imagine a building where each storey is a literary story. There is an elevator with buttons that have story names or character names rather than numbers. I'm not sure if this has been done before, and don't know if the stories should be folkloric or otherwise. I also have an idea about a literal character assassin, but I'm not sure if that should be included. People tell me that all of this is a good idea, but it is just an idea at this point and I feel stuck and unable to come up with a plot for this story about stories. Any help?

 

[Biskit]

From my pantser perspective, I would pick a character and start writing an exploration of the story building. My initial suggestions would be:
The character assassin
Someone hunting the character assassin.
The elevator repair engineer
One of the building staff - maintenance, cleaner, something like that.
Someone making a delivery.

 

[Timebender]

Here are some questions and thoughts that might get your juices flowing, feel free to use them:

• If you're having trouble deciding which stories to use, the first narrower is obviously that they be public domain or otherwise legally accessible for you to use. If you don't want to especially focus on a particular genre, I would go with a variety mixture: mythology, folk tales, fairy tales, classic literature, maybe even modern urban legends. If you want to go even further, there are certain old movies and comics that have their copyright expired, although your readers might be much less familiar with them than they would be with fairy tales or classic literature. Just ask yourself: what are your favorite stories, and can you use them?
• Or you could include parodies of popular modern fiction like Star Wars or Harry Potter, or anything, really.
• Why does the building exist? What's it for?
• What order do the floors go in? Does it go by order of the story's age? By genre? By what country/culture the stories come from?
• How do the characters feel about being in this building? How did they get there?
• Does somebody from the outside discover the building? Who? Why? What do they do after they discover it? What stories in the building would they already be familiar with?
• What fictional character(s) is the character assassin (a pun I love by the way) after? Who would be the hardest for them to kill? How do they feel about the killing? Why are they killing?
• What could destroy or otherwise ruin this building? And would that be a good thing or a bad thing

I really like this idea, and look forward to seeing where you go with it!

 

[Timebender]

While I've never heard of the idea of "stories" as "stories in a building", somewhat similar concepts were used in the comic series Fables, the TV show Once Upon a Time, and the movie The Pagemaster. Maybe you can research them and see how you want to do things similarly and how you want to do them differently. Just a thought.

 

[JS Wiig]

I’m with @Biskit: I’d start with a character and some short sketches to see what falls out of my brain.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Brainstorming some ideas.

• Make it a murder mystery. The main character can visit various 'floors' while trying to solve the mystery. Or perhaps do it as a race against time to prevent the murder.
• Have the faceplate on the elevator panel removed or destroyed so that the main character visits places or people at random.
• Give the main character a major decision to make and them have him or her visit various parts of his or her past to help make the decision.
• Make the main character a writer with a deadline. The writer must visit various 'floors', each one a scene from prolog, story, or conclusion, and put them in the right order, otherwise some bad thing will happen.
• Have the main character select various characters, bring them to a particular locale and see how the story evolves. Change characters and locations and see how the same scene plays out differently.
• Tell a short scene from a pure external point of view. Have the main character visit various floors and retell the scene from that floor's character's point of view.
• Perhaps the main character never leaves the elevator but only views each floor for the limited time the elevator doors remain open.

I hope this gives some ideas to chew on.

 

[Wayne Mack]

One more idea:

Time-looped hero's journey. Character assassin is in the penthouse. If the main character does not do the right things, he or she dies and is returned to the bottom floor. Two possible scenarios that the main character must discover:

• Elevator is restricted to three total occupants. To succeed, the main character must pick up the mentor, but then must leave the mentor behind to pick pick up an alternate companion. Any other combination of two companions leads to failure at the penthouse.
• The main character must go down at some point. If the character only proceeds upward on the elevator, he or she will fail at the penthouse.

Have the character go through several failures before discovering the secret needed to defeat the character assassin.

 

[DLCroix]

Hi! This that you raise refers directly to Jasper Fforde and his too funny Thursday Next series, where he recounts the adventures of the OpSpec, a kind of literary FBI where the activity of the characters in all the stories is monitored and they all cross each other as if it were the behind-the-scenes world of all the stories together. Fascinating! So, since this idea has been explored in two novels in that series, as far as I know, I think it's the first thing you should consult for guidance.

 

[therapist]

This is a fun idea. This is my take on it.

The building is a computer simulation. Each floor has its own genre, (fantasy, horror, romance, sci fi). Each floor has the same cast of characters but in different settings and roles. The hero must start from floor one and work his way to the top. Each floor contain its own story in that genre, and to get to the next floor, the hero must complete that story (maybe by being the hero of the story, or overcoming the villain/antagonist). And as he progresses through the floors he learns about what he needs to clear the final floor, or gradually pieces together an over arching plot mystery.

 

[paranoid marvin]

An interesting concept.

How about there is something on each floor that the protagonist has to obtain in order to unlock the door to the top level. Along the way he/she may befriend others that they can take on their journey?

The other floors could be different time zones/regions of Earth. So for example you could have feudal Japan on one level, the Wild West on another, Tudor England etc etc.

 

[The Big Peat]

You've got a solid idea and I third Biskit about finding a character whose interactions with it intrigue you, and go from there.

 

[Maseeha.Aellari]

I love this idea Guttersnipe!

I would make the MC someone living in the building. Someone living in the penthouse could be a really popular/famous character from a bedtime story, like Goldilocks or Red Riding Hood. People living lower down could be lesser known characters like... a shoemaker who makes Seven League Boots (very old folklore) or even villains!

Or it could be the other way around, with rich characters on top, like kings and queens, and poor characters on the bottom, like paupers and thieves

Maybe your MC could get in the elevator and bump into the assassin. The assassin could drop something as they rush out of floor x. Your MC picks it up and it's a list of all the building residents. One name is crossed out. A few hours later, it's reported on the news that that character has died by some old weapon from a story (e.g. magic/poison/sword)

This is your inciting incident. So your MC asks their best friend for help and they set off to stop the assassin before he can reach the penthouse, because if he kills that tenant, then he controls the building. Throughout the story, the assassin always seems to be one step ahead of the duo, and this strains their relationship.

One night, the best friend slips up, revealing that they are the assassin, and that the MC is next on their list. Their motive could be:
Their story was never popular
They were a misunderstood character (like Cinderella's sisters)
No one likes their character in the outside world
Their plot is very embarrassing (like the Emperor's New Clothes)

I have so many ideas for the end. They could have an epic fight. If the MC dies, then that could lead to an anti-hero being formed with the best friend, who now kills the penthouse tenant and controls the building. It could lead to a sequel maybe.

Or if the best friend dies, the MC is left rebuilding his home and finding new tenants. He may also keep the assassin a secret. This could lead to the assassin becoming a story character for the next generation, so he's reborn in the building of stories and is out for revenge.

I may have just gone way too deep into something simple. Oh well. This was so much fun. Thanks for the brain game my friend