theflowerofcarnage

I seem to have a bad habit of coming up with ideas for stories, only to discard them shortly afterward. Right now, I have 10 stories in progress and about five more plots that have formulated in my mind, but that I haven't begun typing yet. I posted these ideas on my livejournal for input, but I feel I need more opinions, and since many of the members here know when too determine when something has been overused or cliche, I believed this was the proper place to post this. These aren't that elaborate; they are extremely brief, but I would greatly appreciate your insight.

One:
After his renowned journalist wife dies, a scientist decides to keep her body in the basement of his house while meticulously combining numerous chemicals out of desperation to revive her. When his plan works, the ramifications are highly unpleasant as his wife begins to have odd, unexplainable reactions to the chemicals, which not only aggravates her husband but also those around her.

Two:
While recuperating from a bad head injury, a girl begins to find herself being pulled through time walking past doors that work as portals, which allow her to see past & future residents of her house as well relatives who died before she was born. When she confronts her friends & family, they think she's crazy.

Three:
A group of friends in their midtwenties end up in isolated Shadow Lake after getting a flat tire, unaware that they are walking straight into the sadistic world of an escaped mental patient with a past tainted by murder.

Four:
A man wakes up from a coma with no memory of his past or who he is; but questions his ability to make those around him commit unforgivable sins, tampering with their free will. Soon, the crime rate & violence in the city he lives in begin spiralling out of control, & an angel of death suspects that he may be culpable.

Five:
A desolated wife & her manic depressive husband somehow end up in an eerie ghost town that looks as if it's been deserted for over a hundred years & that has no source of escape or survival. No food, no connection to the outside world, & no people. As they search for a way out, the husband begins to lose grip of his sanity, which proves dangerous for both him & his wife.


These aren't entirely discarded but are stories I'm questioning to write or not. Some are ones I'm hesitant to type up I'm afraid they're overused. Some I feel are original but I may be oblivious to it having been done already. Sometimes that happens, when I think an ideas I've come up with is amazing but someone else points out it was used before. Some of these might be the case.

I might post up a simliar thread for stories I've already begun writing.

Quillpen

Intreasting.I'd love to read some of those stories if you wrote them.I think the last one might have been used before.Not the setting ,but the whole one person going in sane in the worst place possible.Time windows are used often,but I haven't seen a story use them in that sense before ,so I wouldn't worry.Others seem perfectly original to me,though,I could be completely wrong.

PAGEMASTER

This storyline reminds me a bit of Frankenstein or even Pet Sematary. Even if the idea was from them people refresh old work and with an added pinch of spice and updated fashion turn the work into new, creative storylines.

Interesting.

Flat tyres near psycho killers also reminds me of past stories but as I mentioned everything can be refreshed, you throw in a new developed storyline and walla!

This is a nice idea.

Now ghost towns have been done so many times but still you work hard at the plot and you'll have something new. I began writing a story SILENCE that has a man wake up with no memory in a diserted town, bizarre things happening but the more I thought about this angle the more I realised it still resembles old books/movies, now I'm going to keep on with this story but I've taken a time out from it to come up with something fresh. If you work on this story make sure you come up with a great storyline. Etc... Some of your ideas are intriguing, some will need to be reworked in order to not resemble anything thats been done already. I wish you all the luck with them.


Exactly and some members will tell you oh its been done, don't bother with it, but lets take a look at Frankenstein for example, this has been reworked on so many times, so what, you come up with a fresh storyline for it then its an old piece turned new, Mary Shelley's wrote her own Frankenstein, Dean Koontz has three books resembling his own version, his third installment has only lately come out, what I'm saying is dont be discouraged by the thought of the story been worked on so many times, write your own version and who knows you could have a number one bestseller on your hands.

I'll look forward to reading them. Good luck with whatever stories you decide to write.

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Working Projects:

Preludes to Denouement
Domain
Depiction of Peril
Descendent of Darkness
Masquerades of Sanity
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Dr Strangelove

Yeah, you have a couple of good stories in there I think, the last one though reminds me a little bit of The Shining.

theflowerofcarnage

Thanks for the feedback.

Regarding the first story, when I thought if the idea, Frankenstein wasn't even in my head at all, but I felt skeptical about the originality thing. I don't want to make the wife be plagued by monstrosity; she isn't going to begin terrorizing people or anything. But her body just reacts oddly. The chemical is like a drug, it wears off eventually, so it has to continually be injected to her veins, and that's why it has bad side effects. She starts acting extremely emotional, and can't go out during the night because her skins begins to glow in the dark. She's not undead, but alive, her heart beats, her brain works, blood still courses through her veins, but she's very temperamental and dramatic. If the chemicals aren't injected in time, she'll drop dead.

And for the last one, the husband is already supposed to be a little unbalanced. I want to make him manic-depressive and be cursed with OCD. When him and his spouse are trapped in the ghost town, he stops taking his medication, so his sanity deteriorates. The idea is actually a combination of two dreams I had, one which involved me somehow getting stuck in a town that was completely isolated, that looked like no one had lived there for over a hundread years, and another which included a woman trying to get away from her husband who was trying to kill her.

I thought it appropriate to emphasize on the husband's physical appearence, make him look like a really nice guy, but really, he's not. Weird things don't exactly happen, it's just that...there's absolutely nothing there. I was thinking of having the husband do whatever it takes to stay alive, even if it means killing his own wife, and of course, she's determined not to let that happen...