I was tempted to go into some different story-generating ideas today, but there’s so much stuff in the paper, it’s just too easy. So I’ll save the other methods for a slow news day.
So what’s happening in the news? Well, we’ve got the whole situation in Egypt. Many many story ideas there if you have the either the knowledge of the region, or can spin something that doesn’t require extensive knowledge but can catch the flavor of the events (e.g. an SF or fantasy riff off the events), or just have a great idea and are willing to do enough research to make it feel real. (We’ll cover how to do that kind of research another time.)
Me, I don’t know modern Egypt or its politics well enough to write what I’d consider a plausible story, so that one gets a pass.
How about US politics? Always something going on there, especially with Sarah Palin and the Tea Party gadding about. Nah, I’ve done one of those and one was frankly enough for me.
Up here in B.C. we’ve got this story about a bunch of sled dogs who were shot because business was off and the owner couldn’t afford to keep them. He apparently appealed to the SPCA for help a number of times and also tried to give them away privately, but sled dogs who’ve been raised on a tether to be sled dogs apparently don’t adapt well to being pets. There were no takers. The business owner pulled out his gun and…
Yeah. Possibilities there. Not for a straight-up story about the sled dogs, because I think the real events are tragic and touching enough by themselves. But translate the situation from dogs to humans… Hm. What kind of habituation for humans would ruin them for anything else? Would they have to be slaves? Do I need to posit a future or fantasy society?
No, let’s think wider. What intrigues me about the whole sled dog story is the idea of a creature becoming so used to one kind of life that they can’t adapt to anything else and have to be discarded. My gut says that happens a lot. Corporate downsizing, obsolete equipment, maybe a kid who’s taught to learn one way and changes schools where everything’s different. Failure to adapt.
What about romance? Could you have a dominant person in a relationship suddenly decide for some reason that the specialized kind of loving her partner has been providing isn’t needed any more? I’m not thinking kinky, though you could certainly go that route. I’m thinking that she (we’ll make it a she because if it’s a he-dominant it could get too creepy) has trained her man to be ultra-sensitive to her needs but now she’s gone through a life change where she needs her man to be strong and independent and made her work a little. And her partner can’t adapt.
Okay, as I flesh this out, I’m thinking it would either be very tongue-in-cheek, or erotica, or take place in an SF or fantasy society, or…be just very cynical and dark. This would not be a healthy relationship. At it’s core it never would have been.That’s my gut sense. And maybe that’s a healthy gut sense, because heaven knows this thing with the sled dogs was not an essentially healthy relationship. At least not for the sled dogs. Not in the end.
This wouldn’t be my favorite kind of story because I see it ending on a gut-punch note. But sometimes I believe you have to write these kind of stories too. You start with the basic setup. Here I think the POV character would be the changing/dissatisfied dominant lover. She’s been trying to pawn off her male sensitive guy on her other acquaintances, even strangers, but nothing’s worked. The world has changed. It doesn’t want this highly sensitive submissive male any more. The story, because this is a short story, remember, would probably be about their final confrontation. Maybe he’d try all his old tricks to understand and soothe her. Maybe she’d be half-soothed and half driven crazy by it.
And maybe…maybe… I’m feeling it here, half-writing it in my head and feeling its flow. Maybe the resolution is that she discovers he’s not as weak and submissive as she thought and she breaks down. He leaves her. Then comes back. Teaching her a lesson. They’re moving on together in a new, changed relationship.
Interesting. I could do that. Might do that. Or you could. Take the idea and run with it. It’ll be completely different when it passes through your brain, your heart, your fingers.
Have fun.
