To be entirely honest, I struggled with what to put together for this bonus. The past two weeks I haven’t really been able to find the energy or inspiration to do much beyond the day job, novel edits, and playing Death Stranding*. I’ve haven’t even been able to keep on top of my newsletter reading (as in, all the articles and such I read to see what’s worth including in the newsletter), so it’s no wonder I had trouble with this bonus.
I guess I have to blame the pandemic, and the stress of being back under lockdown here in Melbourne. Has anyone else noticed weird side effects coming up recently? My short-term memory is suffering badly, to the point where I can barely keep track of what number circuit I’m on when I’m working out. I don’t think it’s actually my short-term memory - more like the increased background radiation of stress makes it harder to concentrate, and that lack of concentration leads to memories not being stored properly.
Anyway, the above is all to explain why today’s bonus is something of a mixed bag. I’d wanted to write a follow-up to my Simulation piece, or maybe a Twine game, or maybe finish a piece on Masculinity that I started ages ago, but instead you get this: a selection of possible story ideas. I thought it could be interesting for people to see what a story seed looks like, and how my brain develops it. Also, I’m not precious about these ideas (I’ve long believed the development of an idea was the important and hard part, not the idea itself), so if any of them tickle your fancy, feel free to take them for yourself and see what you can do with them.
*I will definitely be writing something about Death Stranding, but I need to finish it first to make sure my views on the first chunk of the game aren’t completely irrelevant by the end of it.
Bad Idea #1
Corporate Espionage in the Age of Zoom
The impetus: My housemate and I are living the remote work, Zoom meeting lifestyle, but where I have a little office (because I was doing this long before COVID-19), she has set herself up on a dining table just outside the kitchen. Her work is a lot more corporate than mine, so sometimes when I’m making lunch in the kitchen I can look over her shoulder and see some important-looking documents that are often related to high-value, large-scale insurance agreements. Seeing this I started thinking about the potential for over-the-shoulder corporate espionage within your own home.
How I’d do it: At first I thought it could be a piece of flash fiction, but I also had no desire to try and write it as a flash piece. I started putting this one together as a Twine game, thinking for a few short minutes that I could maybe sell it to one of the couple of interactive fiction markets, but then I went down a PornHub rabbit hole (in the story), and now I can’t imagine anyone wanting to publish it…
Anyway. In my head, I see this as being the story of a man who’s been laid off or furloughed because of COVID-19, but his wife still has her job and is actually thriving with her remote work. She’s now the breadwinner, and the husband is getting frustrated with the situation. When the major rival of his wife’s company reaches out to him to see what he can steal from her computer or overhear while standing in the background of zoom meetings, he goes for it because of his fragile masculinity and because he’s a piece of shit.
Bad Idea #2
Emu Blood Meridian
The impetus: Watching Killing Eve on ABC iView, they kept on showing trailers for some Australian drama series that appeared to be set in the early (ish) 1900s, in dusty regional Australia, with soldiers, relationship drama, and all the rest. Now, seeing Australian soldiers actually in Australia, I of course thought of the Emu War…
How I’d do it: I immediately started thinking about a headfuck, psychedelic war movie - something like Apocalypse Now meets the classic Australian movie Wake in Fright, or perhaps just an Australian Aguirre: The Wrath of God - with a young soldier out of his depth and losing his mind, but the enemies he’s fighting are emus.
I was talking to a friend (and friend of the newsletter, hey Brendan!) about collaborating on this, as he’s a legitimate history buff, and he mentioned something about bounties being paid for dead emus, which then made me think of Blood Meridian - hence Emu Blood Meridian, a title that is so bad it’s good.
I definitely want to see this movie - perhaps directed by Panos Cosmatos.
Bad Idea #3
The dAIce Man
The Impetus: I was going to say “A couple of months ago,” but it turns out this is from January. What even is this fucking year? Anyway… Back in January I read this piece about the author of the seminal 70s novel The Dice Man. It’s the story of a psychiatrist who gives over all his decision making to dice, watching with alternating glee and horror as his life begins to fall apart.
I read the novel when I was at university, and it’s one of those books that is an absolutely perfect read for a teenager - hyperstitional enough for you to think the transgressions could be real, and weird-mundane enough that you can let the book alter your mind at least temporarily. Like many other readers of the book, I started carrying dice around with me after reading it, though I could never really give myself over to them fully (which is probably for the best).
Anyway, after thinking about the book for the first time in years, I started to think about how one might write a similarly hyperstitional book in the contemporary setting.
How I’d do it: Here’s the note I emailed myself:
Dice Man style book, but the author/narrator builds an AI based on his own personality, though with certain foibles addressed. After running it through some simulations he decides it makes better life choices than he does and begins leaving his decision making up to it. But that's not enough, so he builds more AIs, more simulations, and loses himself in trying to maximise his life's efficiency.
Totally hyperstitional. Don't know if it's a novel though.
I still like the idea of an updated Dice Man, but the actual details still need some more thought (or might be for a different writer than I to work out).
Bad Idea #4
The Thick White Lines
The Impetus: I honestly couldn’t tell you where this one came from, but I’m sharing it because it seems more relevant now than it did last year when I wrote it down…
Write about crossing guards as though they were cops. Like the sort of bullshit self-mythologizing that goes on with cops, but from the POV of a crossing guard - the importance of the uniform, the dangers inherent in the job, etc.
The police link is to emphasise how unnecessary cops are.
The Thick White Lines of a zebra crossing versus the thin blue line… Get it? GEDDIT?!?!?
How I’d do it: Honestly, I kind of love this one, and I’m glad I dug it out and reminded myself of it. I could easily imagine it as a one- or two-page comic, or if someone wanted to bring school shootings into play, I could also see it becoming something longer, like Nate Powell’s excellent About Face.
Bad Ideas #5-8
Neil Iberal Story Ideas
The Impetus: A few months back (January again, coincidentally) I published the story Land of the Free, about a passenger passing through an American airport in the near future and the increasingly dystopian and awful reality of life under accelerated American neoliberalism. The character in the story is never named, so I came up with Neil Iberal (say it out loud. Yes, I’m terrible, and it’s no wonder Marlee hates my “jokes”) as the name for an ongoing series of stories exploring similar territory.
How I’d do it: So here are the ideas I came up with for further exploration of this neoliberal hellscape of the near-near future.
Neil working in media, scabbing during a journalist strike, and finding himself writing about the hard working men and women of the police force/DHS who have had to round up all the real journalists and arrest them as enemies of the state. Perhaps he travels out to one of the work camps to report on it, and puts his awful perspective over the inhuman working conditions: eg. The open-roofed domiciles are a vibrant modern design, allowing the students (it’s a “re-education” camp after all) a clear view of the stars at night, and a steady dose of Vitamin D during the day. In fact, many of these former desk-jockeys are looking better than ever, with rich tans and toned muscles thanks to the rigorous work out routines and carfeully managed diet.
When he goes to file his story he learns that he has lost his temp journalist job to an algorithm.Security/police work. Police exercise against a poor neighbourhood. Like, it's the police, but they're so fucking militarised it reads like a war story. Except the enemy combatants are kids playing with water pistols, a middle-aged guy just trying to grill in his backyard, a woman with a zimmerframe (it could be concealing dangerous weaponry!), etc. Suburban COINTELPRO.
Mass shooter response. He’s part of a response to a mass shooter event at a school, except the "good guy with a gun" who kills the original gunman gets off on it so much he continues the shooting rampage, killing the teachers who come up to thank him. In the end, all the "good guys with guns" go crazy and finally the police-military arrive and it becomes open season on the GGwG. Neil has to sneak out of the school, so he breaks into a kid’s gym locker, steals their clothes, and leaves his gun in there so he won’t set off the metal detectors when he tries to leave. When he leaves the gun behind, he muses that the kid might need it more than him anyway.
Living rent-free in a city that Hollywood is constantly destroying and rebuilding for their action movies, because everyone can see through CGI now after the deepfakes scandal of 2024. All the denizens of the city work construction - rebuilding the damaged parts of the city while the Hollywood people film elsewhere. Terrorists disguised as construction workers (or people delivering construction materials) start to blow up parts of the city, and nobody can tell what’s real and what’s Hollywood, what’s a real shrapnel wound and what’s a squib. The terrorists end up doing free pyrotechnics for a big Hollywood blockbuster, and some talentless hack director ends up accidentally shooting a documentary about the terrorists.
Bad Idea #9
Guild of Assassins Who Don’t Exist
The Impetus: I have no idea. This is an old one.
A Guild of assassins who don’t officially exist. To gain entry into the group you need to go back in time and erase yourself (usually by killing your parents). Returning to the Present, the Guild will have no idea who you are, as you now never existed in this timelines. This lack of existence itself is the proof that you have completed the guild rites, and after some other small demonstration, you are allowed in. (Perhaps they’re even immortal, as they were never really born?)
How I’d do it: I think this idea seems at first to have potential, but it leaves open a lot of questions, and the answering of those questions might make the whole idea less interesting than it initially appears.
But, for instance, perhaps the MC doesn’t kill their own parents, but rather travels back further in time to previous generations of their own ancestors, until they reach some that have it coming, giving immortality to a whole line or succession. So the rest of the guild are shitty people who murdered their parents for power/longevity, and never even tried to work out a way around it.
Anyway, yeah, it could still work as a bit of detail/background in a wider story, but I don’t know if it could really be a story itself.
Bad Idea #10
Verified Amateurs
The Impetus: Again, no idea. This is an old one too.
After a breakup, who gets to keep the shared homemade amateur porn account the couple used for kicks/kink?
Story of the relationship and breakup told in the descriptions of images and the captions/comments.
How I’d do it: I like this one mainly because every now and then you’ll see someone tweet a screenshot of some pornhub comments that are bizarre and hilarious, and it could be fun to tap into that vein. Also (or, related to the above), I find the idea of people using a porno website in the same way they use a SFW social media site fascinating - just chatting, liking, commenting, etc - so I could imagine this being quite fun and/or tragic, depending on how the break-up unfolds.
Alright, that’s a big ol’ dose of my brain meat. Hope it was interesting or entertaining, or something…