Here we go again. I just might complete the list in this post.
What if I included an entire public domain book inside of my book? I could do a frame story. A parent reading a book to a child maybe. Maybe a teacher or author reading a book to a group of students. Discussion of the book would be included. The book within the book could be fiction or non-fiction. Ooh, I like this idea. The bedtime story frame would work. Also, R. L. Stine, the horror book author, likes to do readings of his books at libraries for kids, so there's precedent for it.
DARPA has developed a psychopath hat. When you put it on it sends electrical signals through your brain and turns you into a temporary psychopath. It's based on the work of Chi and Snyder on brain stimulation. I heard about it from psychologist John Vervaeke. It's made for soldiers, obviously. It just sounds like something Philip K. Dick would write about in a dystopic science fiction story, but it's real.
Could I make happy tragedies and nice horror stories? It almost seems like it might be possible.
Eugenics is scary, and it always comes back around. Abortions after birth. It's a discussion in society right now. What about eugenics laws that require babies with deformities to be terminated? Wouldn't the organs be worth a lot of money? So, corruption would work its way in there. But, the most demand would be for older organs. So, why not grow the little humans until their organs can be harvested at the right age. Human organ farms.
There are twin girls in China that have been genetically modified using CRISPR to make enhanced brains. And... it seems to be working, reports state that they are mentally superior in a number of ways, including IQ and resistance to dementia. Well, to those that have, more shall be given, and to those who have not, everything will be taken away. It seems like a caste system might develop where the people that can afford it get genetically modified, and then they're just better. Maybe there's a genetic modification scholarship program?
Magic is a fun concept. Many stories explore the idea of magic dying. But, what about the birth of magic? Where did it come from in the first place?
The earth is changing, the earth is always changing. The last ten thousand years or so have been as stable as the earth has ever been. That means that in the future it will be both warmer than it is now and colder than it is now at various points. Narratives could be written exploring both options. Spoiler alert: global cooling is far worse for humans, (global warming might even be good).
Fiction is a form of play. Play is used to explore behavioral patterns in a reality that is both more real than ours, because only the important parts are included, and is safe. I could use a narrative structure to work out how the building of Theoconceptualism might work out.
The movie "Cast Away" starring Tom Hanks is a good story. You could do the same thing in space. Lol, I just realized that this is the exact same idea as the book and movie "The Martian".
Dividing lines are powerful. There are great pictures along the borders of countries that have different approaches to the environment where one side is a grassland or forest and the other side is desolate.
Also, thresholds are powerful. I wrote a tiny story in 20 minutes in a writing group one time about a boy walking through a door and not coming back. A month later a woman told me she was still thinking about that story.
What if heaven and hell were just different places with different rules? What if where you went was self-selected? You can't do anything in heaven that is against the rules even when you want to. Your body is essentially a slave. That sounds like a mental hell. Unless, of course, you never want to break the rules, then it's bliss. Maybe hell isn't just about punishment either. Maybe it's based on the idea that everyone deserves a second chance. Maybe there are individual rights in hell. Maybe that's the point, you have to learn to respect universal individual rights. Maybe the technique of restorative justice is used to make amends for errors in life. Maybe there's a three strike rule and people are then sent to purgatory for punishment.
There are a number of collections of stories that are framed within an overarching story: "The Tale of Tales", "The Canterbury Tales", "The Decameron", and "Arabian Nights". What if I did stories in seven sections, one for each night of the week? Four stories or so to a month, fifty-two stories for the year. I could release these stories in the week, month, and year units. I like it.
I was talking to one of my students one day, Liming. We were reading a book that talked about volcanoes. A crazy discussion led to me inventing lava people as children of the earth. It's basically an alien story, but instead of strangers from outer space, they are strangers from inner earth. The archetype of the stranger is important. Maybe they do something to keep the earth's crust stable, or to create gravity, or to create a stable magnetic field. Maybe the surface people destabilized something, so the lava people invade. Maybe the earth was made as a spaceship, or time capsule, or a safety zone from a previous intergalactic war. Adam and Eve as escaped, or exiled, lava people? At one time there was a spaceship earth movement led by Buckminster Fuller.
What if children that are born at night are different than children born during the day? What if it's just from the light? Maybe people choose up sides.
Antibiotics haven't been around that long, the last handful of decades or so. The diseases are now adapting to them and there are new strains of things like tuberculosis that can't be killed. It's just like the old days, you get it and you cough up your lungs unto death. Just carry this to a logical conclusion; massive human die off.
You could do a frame story around lucid dreaming. Well, that's kind of the idea that Lewis Carroll used. Meh, I'm not too enthusiastic about that one.
Doctor Frankenstein could've created many monsters, especially if he was using modern genetic modification. Maybe that's where dragons, and griffins, and chimeras all came from.
I think it's funny that you can spell right and wrong as Wright and Rong. It seems like those should be characters in something.
There's a Linkin Park song that talks about the moon not owing a debt to the sun for the light that the sun gives and the moon reflects. What if the sun did call in the debt?
- - - - - - -
I watch how the moon
sits in the sky in the dark night
Shining with the light from the sun
And the sun doesn't give light to the moon assuming
The moon's going to owe it one
- - - - - - -
Werewolves become activated in the moonlight. What about the opposite? A monster that becomes activated in the sunlight, or is only deactivated in the moonlight.
I still have a ton of ideas on this list. Maybe I'll finish it in the next article.
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