Story ideas that you've abandonned

[Talo Segura]

21 hours ago, W_L said:

Do you guys think I abandoned the story too early?

Yes.

I understand it is a challenge to write, but a brilliant idea. A female falling for a gay guy is very believable, we don't really choose who we fall for. Changing herself to fit better with the boy she's fallen for, we all do that. Going so far as to move towards becoming masculine, that's intriguing. Just how far would you go? Then the love triangle. I wouldn't shy away from the concept because you might offend people. I would like there to be some resolution, if not complete, some reasoning behind why this love triangle happens. You should (imo) have something to say about people, relationships, some hint of what forces this situation. Ten out of ten for the idea.

 

[W_L]

1 hour ago, Talo Segura said:

Yes.

I understand it is a challenge to write, but a brilliant idea. A female falling for a gay guy is very believable, we don't really choose who we fall for. Changing herself to fit better with the boy she's fallen for, we all do that. Going so far as to move towards becoming masculine, that's intriguing. Just how far would you go? Then the love triangle. I wouldn't shy away from the concept because you might offend people. I would like there to be some resolution, if not complete, some reasoning behind why this love triangle happens. You should (imo) have something to say about people, relationships, some hint of what forces this situation. Ten out of ten for the idea.

 

Well the idea is kind of simple on why it happens:

A lot of gay guys, myself included, have had really good girl friends. I am not talking about simple acquaintances or people we joke with, I'm talking about girls who we brought to prom as dates, shared our first alcoholic beverage with, and other stuff.  Some of them have told us that they had crushes on us, despite being one of the few to know our "real" sexual orientation.

Then, there's the story of unrequited love for a siblings best friend. We all have had a few crush's on people we knew nothing could ever happen with, who are outside our orbit. A guy who was my sister's friend was really hot to me with his assertive attitude and expressive nature, but recently seeing him now changed, he has become demure and domesticated with a family of his own.

That type of friendship and unrequited love is sort of the heart of the story that I created an outline for on Christmas.

As for the questions to be answered, I just wrote a few off the top of my head:

1. What is it that we love in people? Is it objectified or is it emotional?

2. Who are we behind the masks we put on? Can we redefine our true selves?

3. Who bares the cost of love? (It's not just those within the scope of affections, but those outside it too)

 

[Thorn Wilde]

5 hours ago, CassieQ said:

I had a friend who was obsessed with Lincoln and I had heard about Joshua Speed more times than I can count.  I was under the impression that this was speculation.    

All these things are. There's no way to know 100% for certain what sexuality people in the past had if it wasn't specifically stated, and there were no words for it back then. All we can do is interpret. Personally, where someone's interpreted an important historical figure to be queer, I tend to choose to believe it. We need those stories.

[Talo Segura]

11 hours ago, W_L said:

Well the idea is kind of simple on why it happens:

Simple ideas are often the best. I've known a close gay friend who had a strong relationship with a lady, it was odd to watch, but I simply accepted it was something going on between them. Crushes on friends siblings, yes, been there, also interesting. Knowing nothing could ever happen, not sure I felt like that.

Those last three questions are good ones: who pays for love? We all do, but for some the price is their life, and that is a huge price to pay.

[W_L]

18 hours ago, Talo Segura said:

Simple ideas are often the best. I've known a close gay friend who had a strong relationship with a lady, it was odd to watch, but I simply accepted it was something going on between them. Crushes on friends siblings, yes, been there, also interesting. Knowing nothing could ever happen, not sure I felt like that.

Those last three questions are good ones: who pays for love? We all do, but for some the price is their life, and that is a huge price to pay.

Will you volunteer as a Beta if I do write it?

I made 2 working titles:

An Opaque Mirror (It's a Freud reference)

In Thy Own Image (Biblical reference to Human creation based on God, I like this one, since it fits more and I think people will get the reference)

Edited December 31, 2019 by W_L

[Talo Segura]

5 hours ago, W_L said:

Will you volunteer as a Beta if I do write it?

Yes, sure, I'd like to read it, so I can read and comment at the same time, if you write it!

[W_L]

21 hours ago, Talo Segura said:

Yes, sure, I'd like to read it, so I can read and comment at the same time, if you write it!

I'll just give you a little sample

[BKWildenberg]

I have a number of story ideas that I've put away, each one for a different reason. 

But, I've found that nothing really leaves and there are some stories or characters that just rattle around in my brain until I'm ready to work with them again. Often, I try to work through the things that weren't connecting the first time, while keeping all the things I love. 

The story that I'm currently posting is one that's been stewing for about 9 years now, but it looks a lot different now than when I started. The main character and the premise (superheroes) is the same, but just about everything else is different. My first attempt was a lot darker and the plot was different but I found my heart wasn't really into writing that kind of story. This story has ended up being a lot more fun to write. This year's NaNoWriMo story was another one that I've had notes on for years, but finally sat down to organize them in a better way.

So my advise is that you hold on to those abandoned attempts, because you never know when you will pull from them again. 

[Thorn Wilde]

On 12/28/2019 at 9:09 PM, W_L said:

Here's another story I've just abandoned after plotting through it for a few days: it involves the love of a heterosexual girl, who falls deeply in love with a gay boy.

Why would I abandon this story idea and what made it interest me in the beginning?

Well, first off, the idea is original in the fact that the girl's love for the boy is destroying her sense of identity. From best friends in their youth, she finds herself falling for him and his revelation of his sexuality doesn't dissuade her. She changes her interests to match his interests, her body image to be more to his liking (taking illegal drugs and doing excess exercise to build muscle mass), and culminates in her identifying as a male instead of female. At the same time, she has an admirer in the guise of the her love interest's heterosexual older brother, who finds himself falling in love with her and desire for her love. At the same time, the gay boy also begins to fall in love with the new boy who was his friend as he recognizes what she has done for him.

From my story outline, I wrote 3 lines that summarizes the plot:

"A girl who changes herself to be with a boy, who can only love another boy

A gay boy who finds himself falling in love with a friend, he can no longer deny

His brother, who has always loved his brother's friend, but is unable to love another boy"

It's an awesome modern love triangle, but I realized that I had bitten far more than I can manage like:

1. I don't want trans-people to despise me or this story, because the main character's rationale is based on the sexual needs of another person rather than an individual internal recognition of gender identity.  I don't want to cheapen gender identity discussions, even if the character doesn't recognize her transformation, it is a fact reader would see.

2. The concept of a gay or heterosexual cis-boy falling for a trans-boy is not that far removed from stories, but I am just putting a little twist on it. The question here is can this stand the suspension of belief from readers that 2 brothers: 1 straight and 1 gay would fall in love with the same person; through 2 different aspect of him/her.

 

Do you guys think I abandoned the story too early?

Maybe, maybe not. I understand from your later posts that you're considering picking it up again... I think you should be really careful in how you approach this. The way you're describing it, the 'girl' sounds deranged. Making irreversible changes to your body (and many effects of testosterone are irreversible) and taking potentially dangerous drugs without medical supervision because you want someone to love you sounds like obsession, not love. Your premise feeds a lot of harmful myths, like that trans people are confused and transition for the wrong reasons or that a trans guy is really a girl (with the straight boy falling for him thing). Making extreme changes to your body for someone else isn't romantic; it's dangerous.

I'm not saying don't write it, but I am saying be really, really careful. Not because you might offend someone, but because you may write something that empowers and supports bias and discrimination against trans people, as well as other gender non-conforming people. It's not about causing offence, it's about causing harm.

[W_L]

22 hours ago, Thorn Wilde said:

Maybe, maybe not. I understand from your later posts that you're considering picking it up again... I think you should be really careful in how you approach this. The way you're describing it, the 'girl' sounds deranged. Making irreversible changes to your body (and many effects of testosterone are irreversible) and taking potentially dangerous drugs without medical supervision because you want someone to love you sounds like obsession, not love. Your premise feeds a lot of harmful myths, like that trans people are confused and transition for the wrong reasons or that a trans guy is really a girl (with the straight boy falling for him thing). Making extreme changes to your body for someone else isn't romantic; it's dangerous.

I'm not saying don't write it, but I am saying be really, really careful. Not because you might offend someone, but because you may write something that empowers and supports bias and discrimination against trans people, as well as other gender non-conforming people. It's not about causing offence, it's about causing harm.

Would you be interested in beta reading along with Talos.

Before I even bring in an editor for the effort, I want to give readers a taste to feel it out. The more I write in the story, the easier it becomes to convey it.

Also, she's not deranged. Lovesick, angry, and afraid most definitely with a personal stake in her/his own body. What she/he went through is very traumatic and controversial.

I need to make sure some lines are not crossed, I need to convey horrible reality without being explicit, not just for spoilers.

It's a modern story with elements resembling classics like Count of Monte Cristo and Great Expectations, though it is not like either. I am not trying to be pretentious, just want to write a story about people with complicated experiences.

My story In Thy Own Image will need many re-writes, which I know is honestly part of the process.

 

[Thorn Wilde]

On 2/1/2020 at 11:00 PM, W_L said:

Would you be interested in beta reading along with Talos.

I'd be willing to give it a shot. Let me know when you have something.

[W_L]

Here's one that I wrote part way and stopped:

Setting: It is 1842 in Cologne, Germany. 22 year old Fred is in a local jail cell for trespassing and destroying property at a local factory. His father, a wealthy industrialist, bails him out and admonishes him, then tries to enroll him into the University of Cologne.

Karl is a 24 year old journalist, who due to his controversial views on social order and disdain for people in authority, had been unable to enter a career in academia, but still haunts many of the beer halls in cologne of the intellectual circles.

They meet up in a bar, where both accused the other of being "fake", in modern parlance. After some misadventures, they become friends and more. They will uncover plots like poisoned water supplies, monarchist cabals enslaving people, and other grander schemes, where they will face their ultimate foe: the Prussian Chancellor Bismark with a grand plan to unify everyone under a "Reich". (Think of him as a younger Palpatine at this time only 27 years old with a lot of ambition)

A little chance encounter at a bar leads them to eventually create the most enduring legacy of modern world history.

------------

Basically, I was writing a Queer Historical semi-fiction, most people know who my subjects are and what they will create. It was just a weird little idea based on 19th century history and plots.

It read well, but then, I had 2nd thoughts.

Who would ever be willing to edit this?

Beyond that, who would be interested in reading this?

The key problem here is my "heroes" are very controversial figures, their antagonist has long since been forgotten as a footnote in world history books, but what he did to/for his homeland and the world as whole would be felt in 20th Century. At its core, this story is a 19th century political thriller with deeper social philosophies that are still controversial even in 21st century.

It's a neat idea, but not likely to generate any interests from folks.

Edited March 8, 2020 by W_L

[Krista]

I hate the word, 'careful,' when giving someone advise for writing. It is such a limiting word. There is a debate that people who craft must do so with others in mind, that we have a responsibility to do our part to share and shape ideas that relate to current or past events. There are taboos and there are character studies that will always be reckless to write about. Although with that said, as long as we stay legal, we shouldn't attempt to hinder someone's creativity. If I were to write a story about a deranged girl who self-medicates, has unhealthy reasons or shallow reasons to want to transition, be it obsessive love, etc. I would not wish to be coerced by such a word as Careful to keep me from depicting a character - as flawed and as un-careful as they are from seeing the light of day on the premise that I have this 'responsibility' to be correct and well-meaning to every walk of life on this planet. I will likely never apologize for offending people with my writing (although my writing is very vanilla), as offending is something I didn't start out wanting to do.

With that aside, I will tell you that I have a couple of stories that I have abandoned - not, The Best Year, it is just on hold. ;).

I have a Twilight Fanfiction, back when I was still angry with ol Steph for how she ended the book series with a mythical abomination that broke her own rules. That I wanted to write about two characters. One Gay and vampire. One female finding out about her past/family, that happened to be part of the shape-shifting tribe. I wrote probably 4ish chapters to it - I still have them, I keep everything. Then the, I guess, fangirl for Twilight in me died so I just fell out of sync with it. Although I was also using it to practice and springboard myself into writing or attempting a Paranormal story. So maybe the story served its purpose for the most part. This story will never be completed.

I also have a story about an Angel who curses her son. She switches his gender after she finds out her son's fate. It is a life she doesn't want for her son, as it is filled with abuse (him being the abuser), and not growing into a respectable adult, but a monster of sorts. So she decides to show him his future (albeit after the knee jerk gender swap), and scares the living shit out of the MC. It is supposed to be a comedy/romance. I still like the idea, but I don't know how to do the gender/swap and "magic," to its fullest potential so it has fallen to the wayside. I've done like two different re-writes and I'm still not happy. 

I also have a Cheating story that I want to work on. I posted a couple of chapters back a few years ago. People liked the story, but my head was in a different place. I was in the process of getting married, etc. I guess you can call it.. Marriage/Wedding brain/Honeymoon brain when I was attempting to write it. I just didn't want to write a story about someone cheating on a character that didn't have any real flaws and that loved openly. I didn't want to write a MC that was that selfish. So I just stopped. Now I'd like to do a rewrite of it now that I can distance myself from the premise a bit more, as we've now become a seasoned old married couple and my distraction of writing may prolong his life and keep me from strangling him.

I think that's it. I have 3 story ideas that I am wanting to get out. One short story that I will probably write one of these days.. and two series that I likely will not, because I never will find the time or the energy to entertain either one of them. 

[MrM]

I can't say that I have any 'abandoned' stories, just stories that I haven't circled back to yet.

I have one that is actually a sequel to a story I wrote called Adagio about the ghost of a murdered teen male prostitute from the 1970s (yeah I know, but it isn't what you might think ). It was supposed to be a one-off story for Halloween, but I felt it had enough in it to actually spawn a world of its own. In fact, I rolled it into one of my Worlds because it shared characters and could be part of a mythos that was forming. In any case, I want this sequel to cover another difficult issue facing gay teens and teens in general: school shootings. I actually got a few chapters in and felt the idea was getting too grandios for the intimate nature of the Adagio series. So, I left it to revisit at a later time. I was also coming up on the Halloween deadline that I wanted to meet to release the story and found I couldn't finish the story in time. Instead, my work on this main Adagio sequel actually spawned a prequel to the story concerning the main antagonist in the original story, basically a demon, an Umbereth. I was able to pull that one off for the Halloween release last year and, I gotta say, it is some of the darkest stuff I've ever read, much less written. 😮 

But, that just makes me want to return to my Adagio sequel all the more so my 'abandoned' story will have its day as soon as I actually complete some of my other projects going on. I'm not one to never finish what I start. I will force myself into a cycle so that I can finish a story before I go on to a new idea. It takes a lot of discipline to do, sometimes, but worth it as long as you can keep with your material and keep your passion for it burning. I often feel like I reward myself with the chance to start a new story if I finish a story I started already. In this way, I try not to abandon things. Especially, if I already have some readers that want to see the story progress and come to its resolution.

 

[astone2292]

I've worked in grocery retail for over a decade, and I always had the intention of writing a very extensive how-to styled book on smarter grocery shopping and behavioral activities. There are so many chapters laid out in my planner document for it:  merchandising psychology (chapter titled "It's There for a Reason), tricks on how to save money, and how the shoppers actions affect the store itself and the workers. 

I have picked up the idea time and time again, but it just keeps getting shot down in my head, mostly because I don't believe it would be effective in the hands of most readers. 

[Talo Segura]

On 9/23/2020 at 6:43 AM, astone2292 said:

I have picked up the idea time and time again, but it just keeps getting shot down in my head, mostly because I don't believe it would be effective in the hands of most readers. 

I think you are right, most people just wouldn't be bothered, but it would make a great thesis for a degree!

[W_L]

On 9/23/2020 at 12:43 AM, astone2292 said:

I've worked in grocery retail for over a decade, and I always had the intention of writing a very extensive how-to styled book on smarter grocery shopping and behavioral activities. There are so many chapters laid out in my planner document for it:  merchandising psychology (chapter titled "It's There for a Reason), tricks on how to save money, and how the shoppers actions affect the store itself and the workers. 

I have picked up the idea time and time again, but it just keeps getting shot down in my head, mostly because I don't believe it would be effective in the hands of most readers. 

Actually, it's not a bad idea. I follow a few youtubers who used their channels to promote similar concepts that they in turn wrote books on later for health and nutrition in connection with various products. You can go in-depth on dynamics of shopping, brands, and product placement with the cost of products versus false marketing gimmicks, like the "Natural" vs "Organic" labels.

I hope you do consider it

 

[astone2292]

21 minutes ago, W_L said:

Actually, it's not a bad idea. I follow a few youtubers who used their channels to promote similar concepts that they in turn wrote books on later for health and nutrition in connection with various products. You can go in-depth on dynamics of shopping, brands, and product placement with the cost of products versus false marketing gimmicks, like the "Natural" vs "Organic" labels.

I hope you do consider it

 

I love the concept of marketing gimmicks, both in practical use by the store itself, and also in complete hindsight as a wannabe comedian! Price advertisement is my personal favorite to watch. Not to throw my current employer under the bus, but they started using a new slogan for highlighting sale prices, and it absolutely rips off another major international retailer. Some of the signage placement used makes me giggle so hard, especially when they highlight a store-branded box of spaghetti noodles's price, and that price hasn't changed in over three years (it doesn't go on sale, since it is priced 5% above total company cost). Unfortunately, retail psychology gets the win over normal customer mindset, and they see the low price after the proverbial billboard is placed in front of them. 

[Hunter Thomson]

Bit late to the party. I had a concept over the summer of an apocalyptic fiction piece, even worked on it while camping. The premise of a lot of apocalyptic media is that there is a disaster of some kind, a certain number of humans survive, and the characters learn something. The story ends, and we're left to assume that things go back to something vaguely resembling the pre-apocalypse normal. 

In reality, that wouldn't happen. There are thousands of things both mundane and more exotic that help maintain our societies, things that can't always be done without specialized knowledge. I wanted to write from that perspective of one of the survivors. Just how does a small group of people try to start rebuilding society? The twist here being that instead of some kind of natural disaster or human error that leads to a mass extinction event for humanity, all heterosexual people simply disappear overnight. Infrastructure remains untouched, which would become one of the recurring issues of the story. I'm hoping to set it up here in Vancouver so I can speak more authoritatively to some of the infrastructure... things like what the survivors are supposed to do about maintaining the hydro-electric dam system that powers our region. Topical, since one of them breached a few weeks ago and led to casualties. 

I abandoned it because I didn't really give it a solid plan for what I wanted to write, it was going to be a free writing adventure for myself to ease back into creative writing, but I find I can't operate without some kind of plan of what I want each chapter and scene to look like, and then torture the English language to give me the scene I'm looking for. Instead I'm back into my out on the field series... maybe this thing is worth workshopping into something I can soldier through.

[W_L]

On 10/10/2020 at 4:24 AM, Hunter Thomson said:

Bit late to the party. I had a concept over the summer of an apocalyptic fiction piece, even worked on it while camping. The premise of a lot of apocalyptic media is that there is a disaster of some kind, a certain number of humans survive, and the characters learn something. The story ends, and we're left to assume that things go back to something vaguely resembling the pre-apocalypse normal. 

In reality, that wouldn't happen. There are thousands of things both mundane and more exotic that help maintain our societies, things that can't always be done without specialized knowledge. I wanted to write from that perspective of one of the survivors. Just how does a small group of people try to start rebuilding society? The twist here being that instead of some kind of natural disaster or human error that leads to a mass extinction event for humanity, all heterosexual people simply disappear overnight. Infrastructure remains untouched, which would become one of the recurring issues of the story. I'm hoping to set it up here in Vancouver so I can speak more authoritatively to some of the infrastructure... things like what the survivors are supposed to do about maintaining the hydro-electric dam system that powers our region. Topical, since one of them breached a few weeks ago and led to casualties. 

I abandoned it because I didn't really give it a solid plan for what I wanted to write, it was going to be a free writing adventure for myself to ease back into creative writing, but I find I can't operate without some kind of plan of what I want each chapter and scene to look like, and then torture the English language to give me the scene I'm looking for. Instead I'm back into my out on the field series... maybe this thing is worth workshopping into something I can soldier through.

That sounded like a fun story though, hope you can find some way of re-working it.

I also had a dark Sci-Fi post apocalyptic story that I am on the verge of abandoning in the same vein, but instead of a group fighting to survive a disaster, mankind is already destroyed at the start of the story. I started thinking about my story over the summer too after reading about COVID-19 re-infections and stuff. It got me to think, if humanity was at the twilight of our existence, what can we leave behind, writing wouldn't convey our essence, living tissues will degrade over time, and structures will return to their base elements over millions of years. My idea is sort of an adaptation of Star Trek TNG's "Inner Light", one probe of many was launched with a complete record of a genome, brain scans, and records. The probe was never intended to be more than a PR-inclusion concept to add a LGBT human among those records to be preserved; in fact, it's direction placed on a course dangerously near a black hole. This probe will be found by an advanced alien civilization studying the black hole and its content recovered. They would use the knowledge found in the probe to recreate the long dead human being and we will learn through the narrator's slowly recovering memories about his life along with the aliens, who are considering if humanity is worth another chance.

It's grand science fiction idea, I haven't written something like this in a while. However, I've struggled for months creating an outline of it: the bleakness of human existence, loneliness that individual humans feel in isolation during the final days of our existence, and how I can make a case that despite all that humanity did wrong we should be given another chance from the perspective of a human being, who was supposed to be forgotten and hurdling towards a black hole.

I don't want to abandon it, but it's hard to write.

 

[Hstrychsr]

Gosh, I have dozens of stories collecting visual dust in my computer.  One I wish I could finish, probably has the most potential of anything I've ever written.  I've got about 100,000 words with pages and pages of notes along with pieces of the story to work in somehow.

Almost got David McLeod from here to work on it with me but...  I guess life got in the way.