25 Words or Less: Middle-aged married woman in Louisiana is being haunted.  Through counseling sessions with her priest, we get closer to the truth about her marriage.

Background: Another Idea I’ve had floating around in my head for years.  I’ve tried on numerous ocassions to write up a first draft, but always tend to get stuck on momentum issues, among other specifics of the story.

Story: MAGGIE is a middle-aged Louisiana housewife with a teenaged daughter (SHELLY) and well-to-do husband (SHEP).  One morning, Maggie is staring out her bedroom window at an oncoming storm when a mockingbird flies directly into the window, right in front of her face.  Set on edge, Maggie tends to the regular occurrences of her day, which today includes Shelly angling for a new car for her upcoming sixteenth birthday, and Shep mentioning that he’ll have to be spending the next several days in Houston on business.  These early scenes hint at a possessive and controlling nature within Maggie, but hopefully not too harshly.

One of the nights when Shep is out of town, and while Maggie is waiting up for Shelly to get home, she starts to hear strange noises. as she follows them for the source, she comes across the friendly family dog, who is inside the house and dead-set on attacking her.  Maggie manages to escape the dog, barricading herself in a coat closet, but then freaks out when the door opens to reveal – Shelly.  The dog is still outside, and still as friendly as ever.  Shelly makes a call to Shep, who comes home early.

END OF ACT ONE

After discussion of the incident turns into an argument, Shep takes Maggie with him to see FATHER NICHOLAS for marriage counseling.  Maggie stonewalls her way through the first session, and Father Nicholas insists that he needs to meet with Maggie just on her own.  Meanwhile, as Shelly is sneaking around with her boyfriend, a creepy, older TOWNIE is watching her from afar.

Reluctantly meeting with Father Nicholas, Maggie tells the story of how she and Shep met at LSU.  It’s a pretty standard boy-meets-girl story, but with a little prodding, Father Nicholas is able to get out certain details, like that it was a shotgun wedding, that Shep had a beautiful girlfriend (BONNIE) when he and Maggie met, and finally, that Bonnie disappeared mysteriously, which is when Shep came to Maggie for comfort.

Father Nicholas starts looking into this, doing his own research to find out what happened to Bonnie, but there seem to be no leads, until a new development out near the swamps pulls up a 16-year old car.  Meanwhile, the Townie confronts Shelly, pounding on the car window and yelling at her as she and her
boyfriend are making out.  As he attempts to actually enter the car, Shelly manages to escape.

In all of this time, of course, the hauntings continue in one way or another

In their final meeting, Father Nicholas locks the door to his office and demands that Maggie tell him the truth.  As she covers and lies and reverts and changes the telling of events, we find out that Maggie, obsessed with Shep, not only murdered Bonnie, but also intentionally got pregnant in order to play on Shep to marry her.  When Maggie wasn’t pregnant from her one encounter with Shep, however, she went out and found… the creepy townie, which did the job.

Father Nicholas asks Maggie if she wants him to hear her confession, but she refuses and makes him open the door.  After she leaves, Father Nicholas reluctantly decides to give Shep a call.

END OF ACT TWO

As Maggie is rushing home to pack her things, the hauntings start affecting her car, sending her into a panic.  Once home, it’s time for the Ghost’s big finale, where she lets out all the stops. This leads finally to Maggie taut and waiting in the master bathroom with a kitchen knife, as apparitions play off the mirror and she has finally lost all control.  As everything reaches a crescendo, the door flies open.  Maggie lunges forward and stabs like mad, unknowingly killing Shep.  The apparitions die down, with just a final image of Bonnie herself in the mirror, mouthing the words “Thank You” as Shep joins her.

Problems:

1. Making Maggie sympathetic without destroying her key character traits.

2. Fleshing out Shep much more.

3. The actual nature of Bonnie’s Murder/the hauntings, which should be inter-related, for obvious reasons.

4. Perhaps a better final image which still conveys the idea that the hauntings were not just to punish Maggie, but also to get her to kill Shep, so that Shep and Bonnie could be together once more.

5. Building momentum in the first and second acts.

25 Words or Less: Cyber-punk religion novel exploring the relationship between technology and the soul. One world government/church which controls the pathways to heaven and hell.

Background: This work is in the concept phase.

Story: In the indeterminate future, the world is run by one government, one economy and one religion – the Hierophany. All is subservient to this global religion, every individual toils for this church, earning karmic capitol with which to buy their way into “heaven.” Technology allows the spirit, the soul, the essence of each man, woman and child to be transferred to a single disc. If the person manages to accrue sufficient karma in their lifetime, they are then eligible for download into heaven. If they do not, then their essence is simply jacked into a new body, continuing the karmic cycle. There is, of course, a downside. Those who subvert the wishes of the Hierophany lose karma, lose enough and you find yourself downloaded to “hell.”

Problems: Struggling with story ideas, of which here are a couple:

1. Our protagonist begins the story as a member of the Hierophany, a low level functionary, who through his (her?) actions soon finds that he has lost sufficient karma to win a one-way ticket to Hades.

2. Protagonist must journey to hell and back, helping lost souls find new bodies and attempting to dispose of a religious dictator who controls the path to ultimate happiness and fulfillment.

Author: Jason Lewis, Alexandria, VA.

25 Words or Less: Brooklyn Slacker breaks up with his girlfriend and suddenly becomes the metaphysical center-of-the-universe. He risks up-ending the universe to get her back.

Background: I got the basic idea in Santa Monica 10 or 11 years ago, and have fiddled with it through many incarnations ever since. I’ve gotten through the second draft of what I hope will be the basic final form. The title comes from a long-forgotten Dog’s Eye View song that I got my first speeding ticket to, and which inspired the story after some incubation.

Story: We start with a cryptic scene where a man perches over the top of the Flatiron Building in Manhattan, while a crowd gather on the street below. As two waspy, old white men in suits (GILES and ANDREWS) step out of a limo beggin him to come down off the ledge, he jumps. Once dead on the ground, we see that he is wearing a suit encrusted with diamonds, which the onlookers quickly rip off. this brings us to:

SAM (25) an unemployed Brooklyn ad-man who’s never actually had a job in the ad industry, goes in for an interview that his girlfriend (SADIE) set up for him. He bombs the interview, due to nervousness, overthinking everything, and having no portfolio to show. That night, when he meets up with Sadie for dinner, the two have a fight over his lack of ambition. She admits that she got a job promotion to do what she really wants (promotions, actually), but that the job is in L.A. She leaves.

Walking through the streets, Giles and Andrews approach Sam in their limo and beckon him in. Drunk, he does so, and they explain that he’s been chosen as the new metaphysical Center of the Universe. This means that whatever he desires will be granted, and that the rest of the entropy of the universe will fall in line behind it. The ride ends at a mysterious mansion estate in the middle of Central Park that no one else knows about.

END OF ACT ONE

SAM initially likes his new powers, and spends his days slacking off, watching television, and playing with the world markets for laughs. Giles and Andrews take turns “advising” him, but it is clear they are just soft-peddling their own interests. When Sam gets it in his head that what he really wants is Sadie back in his life, the universe instead provides him with AYUMI, a comically yet disturbingly subservient concubine. Pissed at this, Sam confronts Giles and Andrews in their quarters, but instead finds the entire “board,” as yet unbeknownst to him, sipping brandy and discussing his activities. Andrews explains to him that the reason that the board had to pick him to act as “center” in their place is the same reason he cannot be with Sadie again – the center needs to be of a singular interest, and love, like the politics of a boardroom, brings in the interests of another into account, throwing the universe off balance.

Meanwhile, Sadie has found her new job to be just as demeaning as her old job, with no real say in the matters she’s working on. Her new boyfriend, DEAN, also treats her as a trophy more than anything, despite her efforts to prove herself to him.

Sam hatches a plan to get a letter to Sadie explaining what’s going on, and uses the powers at his disposal to outrun Giles and Andrews, who are in hot pursuit as he gets the letter into a stranger’s hands in the hopes that he will mail it. When Giles and Andrews finally catch up with him, they take him back to the mansion, toss him into a closet, and tie him to a chair, with only a small t.v. so that he may do his job. After a couple of days, Giles sneaks in on his own to tell Sam of his own tragic brush with love, and leaves Sam with an ambiguous message condoning whatever strategy Sam has for getting Saide back.

Another day or two passes, and Sam starts changing the channel by will. He comes across war, drought, and hopelessly lost cricket games. Then he comes across footage of an outdoor music festival in L.A.

Sadie comes out of the tent at the festival she’s working, and is handed a mysterious letter. After reading it, she looks up at the magnascreen over the stage to see the cameras focused on her tear-strewn face. Sam watches on his t.v. as she nods and mouths, “yes.” She abandons Dean and her boss and races out of the festival.

END OF ACT TWO

Sadie “commandeers” a car from a P.A. and heads towards the airport, while accidents occur in front of her and police helicopters follow her, the universe abhoring her return to Sam. Sam himself follows the events on News-camera footage, helping to keep her out of harm’s way. She enters the airport, where Sam can no longer watch over her, and finagles her way onto a flight to Laguardia.

Sam watches over all such flights on the weather channel, keeping storms or any other interference out of her way. He switches back between this and the other footage he’d seen earlier to bring rain to the drought-stricken areas, bring a little girl down in-between a barrier stand-off to keep factions from firing on each other, and to bring back the losing cricket team, among other things. As Sadie is landing, Andrews bursts in through the door and quickly overpowers Sam, beating him into submission. Giles comes in, and takes on Andrews, giving Sam a chance to escape.

While Sam battles through crowds and everything else the universe can throw in his way, Sadie directs a flustered cab driver on getting her to Times Square. At the end of this simultaneous chase sequence, the universe creates a traffic-jam in Times Square. Eschewing her normally meek and non-confrontational demeanor, Sadie busts out of the cab and runs across the roofs of the cars, as Sam does the same from the uptown end. As they near each other, the traffic jam breaks, and they’re hopping from moving car to moving car. They finally reach each other, embrace, and kiss…

At which point trees spontaneously combust, dogs start flying up into the air, and the combined horns of all the traffic play amazing grace.

(Also, the Naked Cowboy tries to pick up Ayumi, who is now a demanding future dominatrix.)

Problems:

1. Defining the mythology of “The Board” so that they can be more powerful than the protagonist is certain situations, but can over-power him in others. Bonus if this can have something to do with the restrictions of the Mansion.

2. Coming up with more appropriate names for the characters.

3. Making Sadie’s story in L.A. as strong and involving as Sam’s, so as not to delegate her to second-class character. We should care and empathize with her as much as with Sam.

Author: Dawson Smith, Washington, D.C.

25 Words or Less: Brief description of your plot. You will have an opportunity to expand below, but that will be after the jump, so make this good.

Background: As you can imagine, this is where you’d put in any information about how long you’ve been working on the project, what inspired it, and the status of it (conception phase, first draft, emergency re-write, etc.) This is all optional, of course, but it helps if you want to get the best answers for your problems. I’ll also just note here that the title of the post should be the title of the story. If you don’t yet have a title, come up with a generic working title to give people an idea of what they’re looking at (e.g. “Werewolves in Prison Dance-Party Movie of the Week).

Story: This is the body of the post. Expand on your story. If you know your acts/books/episodes, tell us. If not, or if that is not applicable, don’t worry about it. In general, going into scene-by-scene or chapter-by-chapter structure will probably be unnecessary, and just make things more complicated for the reader.

Remember that you want to keep your recap as brief as possible, while at the same time making sure we know everything we need to know specific to the questions you have about it. For instance, in the Werewolves in Prison movie, if the question is about how the hero kills one of the werewolves, the particular tenets of werewolf mythology that you’re adhering to will be very relevant, while the toke that the heroes mother gave him in a flashback that reminds him never to give up might not be so pertinent. However, if your question is about the scene where he decides not to give up, the werewolf strengths and weaknesses might not come into play. Or they might, in both scenarios, and you can of course pose multiple questions. In either event, something like why the hero is in the prison to begin with, and other key points of characterization, are probably things we’ll want to know.

I encourage everyone to remember Robert McKee’s words of Wisdom: character equals plot, and plot equals character, though your story philosophy may differ greatly from mine, and that’s okay. My point is that We the Commentors cannot adequately answer plot questions if we don’t know the nature of the character, and cannot answer character questions without understanding their plot.

If you have an idea about the world that you’ve created, and are lost on story elements, that’s fine as well. Just explain that below in your questions, as clearly as you can about what you’re stuck on as far as creating a story in your world.

Last word: Entertain us, and we’ll be more likely to help you out!

Problems: What are the specific areas where you’re looking for help/suggestions?

Author: Richard Milhouse Fakename, Vancouver, Italy

Ahoy.

For those who don’t know, the purpose of this blog is to allow people a safe place to solve story problems, review story ideas, discuss ideas to strengthen characters, and all of the other things that go into creating a great story, whatever the medium. That creates a few problems, as you might imagine, and so I’ve devised a few impromptu solutions, given the fact that this site is currently hosted through WordPress.

1. First and foremost, we need to ensure that anyone who posts a story here is the sole owner of that story, whatever state it may be in at that time. To be honest, story-theft is a lot more rare than you’d guess, as most people who are passionate about telling a story for money (and there’s not much money in it to begin with) are also pretty passionate about the stories they want to tell. Still, it can happen, so whenever anyone makes a front page post (FPP) of a story they’re working on, it will be credited to them as they would like to be credited, with the time stamp on the post proving the moment the story was posted. ALL STORIES ARE THE SOLE PROPERTY OF THEIR CREATORS.

2. The comments and suggestions made by visitors, which ideally will be the lifeblood of this site, cannot be so easily dealt with. If one commenter mentions a skeleton of an idea, but one which works, and six other commentors run with it to flesh it out, well, you see the problem. I want this to be a community, but if no one can trust one another to appreciate their contributions, it will fail. Thus, IT IS THE DUTY OF THE OWNER OF THE STORY TO PROPERLY ACKNOWLEDGE ANY SUGGESTIONS WHICH MAKE THEIR WAY INTO THE FINAL STORY. What is proper, of course, will be different depending on circumstances and medium. If you are unsure, you can always check with whoever made the suggestion. As a corollary, if you comment anonymously, you cannot expect to be acknowledged.

3. The nature of this site requires constructive criticism. Nothing more, and nothing less. If you can’t be critical, at least aim to be specific in your praise. If you can’t be constructive, then your comments will be deleted. THE MANAGERS OF THE SITE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DELETE ANY COMMENT NOT MADE IN THE EFFORT OF COMMUNITY AND GOOD CONVERSATION. To put it more clearly: DON’T BE A DICK.

4. Spam once, and your comment will be deleted post-haste. Spam twice or more, and all of your links will be re-routed to your chief competitor. DON’T SPAM.

5. In the interest of not having to delete any FPP’s at all, for the time being, ALL PROPOSED FPP’S SHALL BE E-MAILED TO STORYHIVE@GMAIL.COM to provide quality control for the time being. This quality control is not to weed out what is particularly worthwhile and not, but to route out the spam and the hate. Hopefully, this policy can change very shortly. BE SURE TO EXAMINE THE TEMPLATE FIRST!

6. Ideal FPP’s will not just present a story, but also a problem that the author is having with the story. If you simply present a story with “What do you think?” at the end of it, it won’t lead to the most helpful answers. THE MORE SPECIFIC THE QUESTIONS, THE MORE VALUABLE THE ANSWERS.

7. We aim to be egalitarian here, and as such, Non-Fiction is equal to Fiction is equal to Screenplay is equal to Graphic Novel is equal to Fan-Fic is equal to Slash-Fic. Anything can be art if you care enough about it to see it through to the best possible end that you can. As such, IF YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT IT, DO NOT BE AFRAID TO POST IT. But to help people along, ALWAYS TAG YOUR GENRE. For the moment, this means that when you email a post, include the name you want to be credited, as well as any genre tags.

8. Likewise, commentors, DO NOT BE SNOBS ABOUT GENRE OR MEDIUM. If it’s not your thing, move on. If you have expertise in one particular area, however, feel free to run wild (See Rule 3, though).

9. Finally, this site is hosted on WordPress until it becomes enough of a thing for me to move it to its own site. If and when this happens, expect a change in user policy which will allow me to not have to act as a gatekeeper anymore. The site is on WordPress because livejournal is irritatingly hard to read, and because for some reason I thought Blogger was owned by Newscorp a la MySpace. While this is not the case, and I like Google a lot, I also just think WordPress looks better.