Aging dabbler in ideas offering story seeds

[Khyranleander]

Brand new, so no clue if I'm violating some rule. But generally I'm a middle-aged guy who likes to think up story ideas, maybe flesh them out a bit, but only health is getting bad enough can't spend a lot of time working them out. Have some pet projects I'm keeping that I want to try and finish, but there's a few I'm just curious to see if anyone sees promise in and would like to work them up themselves. No pleas for money, just maybe a brief line of credit somewhere if it pans out.

Here's an example I called The Circumventures of Jack Awyrd. Notion is a secret legend known only to the heroes of some fantasy realm. "Jack" as he is known, apparently came from a family known for bragging about all the great men of wide renown and all that nonsense... and was one of the few witnesses of their brutal massacre to survive. Furthermore, a chance encounter with a charlatan of a fortuneteller trotted out that same trope for him at a bad moment, and plain scarred him so bad, he started being fanatic about avoiding any chance of being complimented. He got so nutty about it, he actually drew some minor interest among the gods, who tossed some low-hanging fruit his way for a brief amusement, and he managed to trip some other passerby into receiving his rewards. Curious, the gods stepped up the game, discovering the man had a talent for avoiding them -- by leading others into accidentally taking his "wyrd", the fate the gods were leading him towards. In time, many legendary heroes came to speak his name in whispers among themselves, fearful revealing his aid in their fortunes would somehow end their rewarding careers.

So that's it, pretty much all I ever got done on that one, because there's a lot of others I was much more interested in fleshing out. Still, it's one of my brief "sidenote" scenarios I've kept for years, because it seemed like it could make for an interesting story or two. Any thoughts?

 

[Khyranleander]

Er, "line of credit" means a mention, like "Thanks to Khyranleander" or similar.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Hi, and welcome to the forum. It's perhaps worth considering working some of your ideas in to the 75 and 300 Word Challenges held here.

 

[Khyranleander]

Hi, and welcome to the forum. It's perhaps worth considering working some of your ideas in to the 75 and 300 Word Challenges held here.

Hi, thanks for the welcome! Any particular reason for the suggestion, though?

 

[EPS James]

Hi Khyranleander,

As a victim of people like you, I was naturally picqued by your post. I ended up writing fiction because someone close to me said 'I have these characters, and a setting, but I haven't the time or inclination to do anything with them, so maybe you...'

A 147K-word novel later, I was thankful for the nudge.

And I do like your idea. Certainly I can immediately see variations of it fizzing and popping in my brain and it's an idea that could very well work. I immediately got an Eighteenth Century vibe, which may be well-off your mind's eye vision. I think that is your title, which recalls to me: The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle; The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling; The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews; The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy etc.

Having newly joined here, strangely I, too, was directed towards posting work in order to receive, what I was assured would be, the copious critical and negative feedback on offer from this community. And I was only looking for a proof editor. So there seems to be something of push towards feeding an insatiable critical Sarlacc hereabouts!

From the sound of things, 'From an idea by Khyranleander' might well betoken a good read!

 

[Khyranleander]

Nah, man, no problem, go for it: I really did mean it when I said I'm just offering the idea up to whoever wants it. Seriously, I have way too many projects in my backlog to really play them out in my lifetime -- mostly because I seem to think in terms of series ideas, stuff that leads to a lot of open-ended exploration of the idea, rather than pithy nuggets for short stories.

So 18th century style? Wasn't thinking that, but I can see how my oddball title evoked that. You want it? Lay on, MacDuff!

 

[Khyranleander]

Though, now I think of it, I do have a few that are just partial scenes that pop into my head, for whatever reason. Most I don't keep, but here's one I found amusing under the label "Personal Touch":
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Matthew Aloysius McLean, get your butt down here!”
Matt winced and was halfway out his bedroom door before he realized he was in motion. Oh, nuts! he thought. He usually worked very hard to avoid this situation, making sure to appear or at least respond promptly when he heard his mom calling him. He’d been so focused on getting that programming down, though, that he’d apparently missed the warning signs. Now she’d gotten to the truly angry stage where mothers unleash the full-name yell.
Not that Elizabeth McLean was scary or anything. What scared him was anyone hearing that bloody middle name of his.
Besides. Right now, additional aggro was the LAST thing his mom needed.
“Sorry, Mom,” he said when he could see her in the stairwell. Scooting down with his hand on the banister to guide him, he made a point to look out the windows at the landing & then the foyer as they came into sight. “I had a brainstorm on how to accomplish that job for Lex, and was focused on getting it down in a form I’d understand later.” He tried to casually check out the rooms nearby.
Liz wasn’t fooled. Now that her errant junior professor was actually paying attention to her again, she let herself chuckle at his antics.
“Yes, I thought it was something like that.” She took his face gently in hand to make him look at her. “Don’t worry, I made sure nobody was around before I used your middle name.” Dropping her hand and turning, she gestured for him to follow. “Now, come on, I need your help for dinner.”
Matt was gobsmacked. He was sure he was being discreet. “You know?”
“How you feel about your middle name?” Elizabeth’s voice turned distant as she passed the kitchen door. “Of course, I do.”
He uprooted his feet from the foyer floor & rushed to the kitchen.
Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder from beside the island counter to see the outrage she expected edging onto his face. She smirked.
“For some reason, it’s a parental instinct to try and sneak an ‘artistic’ name in on their kids. The sensible ones stick them in the middle, if they can’t avoid the impulse altogether. I just decided I’d deliberately choose a name you’d probably hate.”
That admission stunned Matt right past outrage. “For Pete’s sake, why?”
Elizabeth turned her back to Matt and focused on pulling groceries from shopping bags.
“It was an experiment of desperation. I’ve seen how some kids grow up to where their parents can’t control them anymore. And, uh, you know how I am about, about spankings.”
Yeah, Matt knew. May you suffer for eternity, Grandfather Tennys, Uncle Will.
“So,” he said hesitantly, “you thought emotional blackmail or humiliation was a better road to take?”
Luckily, he’d gauged right, and his mother took the harsh terms as the humor he’d intended. He was glad to see her grin, wryly.
“Okay, smart guy. Still, it seemed sensible. I mean, even when a kid is too big to spank, a parent yelling their kids’ full names always seems to hold power over them, to some degree. If the middle name was embarrassing, how much more effective, you know?”
Matt grimaced. “Yeah, well, okay, I guess it makes sense, somewhat. Though, I’m not so bad a kid, you need the nuke version, am I?”
Liz shrugged. “Sorry, slugger. Hard to match names to temperament right out of the box. Also gets into the nature vs. nurture thing.”
Now, *that* had been a more interesting discussion! Matt didn’t know if his favorite part of Trading Places had been seeing Jamie Lee Curtis’ infamous scene or seeing his mom realize she’d forgotten that was on the copy she had. Not that either had made him anxious to watch it again; Eighties movies tended to be a bit thin, plotwise; too much so for him in that case. Thankfully, he’d seen enough to get her point.

 

[Khyranleander]

Anyways, I have a number of seed files, some just scenes or ideas, others with a fair bit of the first chapter written out. Just no clue how to post them to the site in any way other than making people download mystery files. Here's one I cobbled back together from some scrambled notes, so forgot some of the background notions: It's a scifi setup with some Shakespearean influence: "Taking Gruoch's Hand"

 

[Khyranleander]

Next is a scene that leapt to mind the first time I heard the Madonna/Justine Timberlake song 4 Minutes to Save the World. Bears absolutely no relation to that stupid video they made for it except maybe for that weird wave of destruction... which I guess was only written out as part of the scene AFTER what's written out in these, and in some file I can't currently spot. Okay, moving on.

Unfortunately, what DID leap to mind was pure visuals, not script as I was just lost in that initial exposure to the music, so there's a couple different files where I tried and failed to write it out in a compelling way. Very first part in Doc1 has the tone pretty good; rest covers different areas of the background setup I sorta assumed as part and parcel.

 

[Swank]

You should read the compacted stories of Borges and consider writing your concepts as shorts. Check out his "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". With exotic enough details, simply telling how it happens in brief can produce something very satisfying.

 

[Brian G Turner]

This thread is kinda getting out of hand. It's nice you have story ideas @Khyranleander , but writers need to generate their own, and chrons really isn't a place for people to dump their ideas in the hope of them being picked up. This is especially as if any were picked up and became successful, there could be a very real fight over intellectual rights. I'll therefore close this thread and move on.