What should I write a story about?

[Pickman's model]

I am glad the killings were done by the best of Bodmin Moor. Nothing but the best is good enough.

The Beast of Bodmin Moor on the other hand would be a bit of a cop out. Blaming some escaped zoo animal for murder is cheating. He - or is it a she, has cousins all over the British Isles, there is even one in Hertfordshire, so nothing exclusively Cornish in The Beast.

there's something in that. the best of bodmin moor - doubtless local freemasons - are offing people who've stumbled across a dastardly plan by this self-selecting elite to build a nuclear power station at baskerville hall.

 

[Pickman's model]

if i have one more cream tea

the horror! the horror!

 

[Sadken]

I'm guessing most of the people in Cornwall look a bit like Hobbits, right? Maybe do something with that.

 

[madzone]

I'm guessing most of the people in Cornwall look a bit like Hobbits, right? Maybe do something with that.

Of course they don't.

Most people are incomers and look like long streaks of Stoke Newington piss.

 

[dodgepot]

Wouldn't that only work if the miner was trapped in a tin of cat food?

no. why would it? what a ridiculous question.

 

[Sadken]

Maybe something about how the Hobbits were driven out then? Formed a rebellion?

 

[kabbes]

I think Hobbits' feet aren't as big as Cornish feet.

 

[Sadken]

Van Damme has a cat.

That's as far as I've got with that one so far.

 

[kabbes]

Cat Van Damme.

 

[Sadken]

I think Hobbits' feet aren't as big as Cornish feet.

Maybe use prosphetics over the Hobbits' feet to make them more freakish looking then?

 

[Sadken]

Cat Van Damme.

Van Damme is......CAT OWNER

 

[Santino]

A control room is discovered in the cliffs near Land's End that allows Cornwall to detach itself from the rest of the country and go roaming about the Atlantic by itself. Very slowly.

 

[Spion]

Just precis a bit of Poldark?

 

[Spion]

Just make sure you include tin mines, shipwrecks and incest and you'll be sorted

 

[DotCommunist]

Just do a rip-off of Wicker Man with rick Stein as the hapless fool who gets sacrificed.

it'll go down a treat.

 

[madzone]

Just do a rip-off of Wicker Man with rick Stein as the hapless fool who gets sacrificed.

it'll go down a treat.

The last one was a bit of a rip off of soylent green so a rip off of the wicker man with disgruntled WI jam racketeers might be a goer

 

[marty21]

Just do a rip-off of Wicker Man with rick Stein as the hapless fool who gets sacrificed.

it'll go down a treat.

trapped in a whicker man made out of burnt chips

 

[Pickman's model]

trapped in a whicker man made out of burnt chips

an alan whicker man

 

[Spion]

trapped in a whicker man made out of burnt chips

lattice pastry, surely?

 

[Hocus Eye.]

It has been said that there are only five stories in the world, so you probably can't be really original.

I tried to find out what the five stories were, but a search on the wwweb just attributed the statement to different people ranging from Tom Baker to George Bernard Shaw, but no mention of the five stories. I think one of them is The Quest, and perhaps another The Journey - although these may be the same one.

If anyone knows the answer please post it up here.

 

[madzone]

lattice pastry, surely?

Crimped in a giant pasty

 

[Pickman's model]

Crimped in a giant pasty

what about something like 'james and the giant pastry'? similar to 'james and the giant peach' but with a messy abbatoir scene.

 

[Santino]

It has been said that there are only five stories in the world, so you probably can't be really original.

I tried to find out what the five stories were, but a search on the wwweb just attributed the statement to different people ranging from Tom Baker to George Bernard Shaw, but no mention of the five stories. I think one of them is The Quest, and perhaps another The Journey - although these may be the same one.

If anyone knows the answer please post it up here.

I read somewhere that it was seven, but they're a bit vague all the same.

'Virtue Recognised' was one of them, Cinderella being the example given. I believe 'Evan Almighty' fits into that one too.

None of them were 'cocky space pilot blows up a huge space station'.

I also heard somewhere that there were only TWO stories: someone goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. And yet I still never guess the murderer on Taggart.

 

[Pickman's model]

there's reverse stranger comes to tow, eg murder she wrote, poirot.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

My researches have now revealed that if you type "there are only two stories in the world" into a search engine you will get lots of links. You can change that number to three, four, five, all the way up to ten and still get lots of links each of them attributing the saying to "someone" or sometimes "my creative writing teacher". The number eleven produces no results, but back on twelve there are lots of links again. I didn't venture to thirteen or above.

However I did find the following reference to a book on the topic:-

20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them) by Ronald B Tobias. His list is:


* Quest
* Adventure
* Pursuit
* Rescue
* Escape
* Revenge
* The Riddle
* Rivalry
* Underdog
* Temptation
* Metamorphosis
* Transformation
* Maturation
* Love
* Forbidden Love
* Sacrifice
* Discovery
* Wretched Excess
* Ascension and Descension

 

[Santino]

However I did find the following reference to a book on the topic:-

No 'turning to the Dark Side and murdering children'?

 

[DotCommunist]

younglings

 

[Santino]

Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.

 

[Pickman's model]

younglings

i might have known you'd post something which would have a mother's role central to the plot

 

[madzone]

Oooh, urban, I can't begin to tell you the relief