Idea Box: The Green Room

At a backstage tour at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, my wife and I once got to see an interesting green room that served two different theaters at the site. We heard how that week you might find actors costumed for Titus Andronicus hanging out between scenes with actors ready for Saturday, Sunday, Monday, a play set in modern Italy.

The idea of these two very different sets of Italians mingling in the same green room seemed like a wonderful setting for a story or play. Or, pick a different pair of productions to play off of. It's a kind of game -- take a Shakespeare title and match it with a play that makes a contrast, and mix the actors together with behind-the-scenes issues, something like Noises Off. Hamlet meets Endgame, King Lear meets Death of a Salesman, Henry V meets Pygmalion. And of course someone should get so worked up they stomp out onto the wrong stage.

Idea Box: Five for April Fool's

Some story ideas on the theme of being deceived...

An ancient world of humans believes it is our own Earth in the distant future. In fact it is a colony world -- and its more ancient civilizations, which human history depicts as _human_ civilizations, are in fact _alien_ civilizations, if you go back more than a few centuries. This could result in a big shock for time travelers...

A fantasy novel with two big conceits. First, there was a lost epoch of human civilization during the last Interglacial period. Second, there will be a science-fantasy human future where most humans have died out or moved to other planets. This future will look a lot like a traditional fantasy universe, and at first will be presented to the reader as such. Someone in that time period travels back in time to the primordial period, attempting to influence, however indirectly, the history leading through our time and all the way to his own. Gradually the reader will figure out what's going on. Not really a story yet, just two settings and a mood. Call it _Interglacial?_ Each story takes place in an interglacial period; and of course the intervening interglacial is our own.

"Broken Windows," or "Dread and Circuses." A city in a superhero world is losing its tourist industry because the superheroes (and villains) have migrated from the place. Basically it's been "cleaned up" and the heroes have gone on to other things. Somebody gets the idea of setting himself up as a supervillain to draw in the heroes and save the town. (The first title is taken from the parable of the broken window.)

Cloak of Expertise -- a magic cloak that does not confer any particular aptitude, but grants the bearing and attitude of one of great skill. Both the wearer and the witness believe the user knows exactly what he's talking about. The ironic thing is that this confidence often serves as well as actual knowledge.

The Gratitude Beast. A strange energy creature that feeds on the emotion of gratitude. It grants humans increasingly outrageous gifts, for which it expects equally outrageous outpourings of gratitude. If it does not get what it believes is its due, it will lash out with poltergeist-like rages.

Update: Edited for clarity.

Idea Box: Murder, She Thought

An "Idea Box" is a concept recommended by author Joan D. Vinge -- keep your ideas on 3x5 cards as they occur to you. Later, when you need an idea for a story or want concepts to flesh out a story, consult your Idea Box.

My own Idea Box is a file on my computer, but basically I do what Vinge suggests, and it's been a great resource. I'm up to 915 entries at this point. Most of these are very fragmentary, and maybe only useful to me. Others are close enough to full story outlines I want to keep them private. But I figured I'd share some of the rest here from time to time. Here's one...

Murder, She Thought

A Miss Marple-type character, who is inexplicably involved in murder mysteries several times a year, is unconsciously responsible for them. She has an uncontrollable telepathic gift that encourages those with a strong motive to kill to actually do so, and in convoluted ways that make for interesting puzzle-solving on her part. She would be horrified to learn that she is herself responsible, and will refuse to believe it. If confronted with the truth, she will deny everything... but her power will work overtime to silence the accuser.

(As a twist, maybe it turns out there are lots of people around whose minds can force others into a sort of genre mold -- soap opera, adventure, romance, academic/literary fiction, and so on. Our telepathic "detective" may have to be brought down by another telepath who lives in a world of romantic comedy...)