Is this workable? The fanfic idea thread

[Seldes Katne]

As an experiment, I'm going to start this thread as a place for writers to toss out ideas or ask for help with their fanfics. Now, if you have a substantial amount of work already done that needs to be posted, feel free to start your own "My Story: I Need Feedback Before I Start Posting" thread, as Hibiki did.

If, however, you've just got a scene, or a general idea and want some feedback on it, you can post it here. If it gets to be a big discussion, I'll spin it off into its own "Planning Thread" and the discussion can continue there. If writers are interested, we could set up times in the chat room to talk about stories and ideas.

I'm going to periodically trim the old ideas and discussions off this thread, so authors, you might want to make copies of suggestions and comments on your own computer.

All board rules for civil behavior and appropriate subject material apply.

Have fun, and get creative!

 

[Seldes Katne]

Looking over what's happening on this thread, I'd like to point out that there is absolutely no reason why we need to see sixteen copies of your original story ideas. For example, the following is just plain not necessary:

Hey, I just got this cool idea for this super excellent story! It's about this guy who gets bitten by a spider and finds out he can fly! And then laser beams start shooting out of his eyes, and he gets this superhero team togther and they take on these superpowered bad guys and fight all the time! And then when there aren't any bad guys, the people on the team decide to fight each other for no apparent reason! When they get tired of doing that, they start trashing cars and buildings for fun! And then the US army shows up and everyone fights some more!

So, who thinks this is a good idea?

Hey, I just got this cool idea for this super excellent story! It's about this guy who gets bitten by a spider and finds out he can fly! And then laser beams start shooting out of his eyes, and he gets this superhero team togther and they take on these superpowered bad guys and fight all the time! And then when there aren't any bad guys, the people on the team decide to fight each other for no apparent reason! When they get tired of doing that, they start trashing cars and buildings for fun! And then the US army shows up and everyone fights some more!

So, who thinks this is a good idea?

Hey, everyone come read this and tell me what you think. Should I write this or not?

Hey, I just got this cool idea for this super excellent story! It's about this guy who gets bitten by a spider and finds out he can fly! And then laser beams start shooting out of his eyes, and he gets this superhero team togther and they take on these superpowered bad guys and fight all the time! And then when there aren't any bad guys, the people on the team decide to fight each other for no apparent reason! When they get tired of doing that, they start trashing cars and buildings for fun! And then the US army shows up and everyone fights some more!

So, who thinks this is a good idea?

Hey, everyone come read this and tell me what you think. Should I write this or not?

Hey!!!! This has been on the boards for EIGHT WHOLE MINUTES! Isn't anyone going to respond? Don't you guys like me? What's the matter with everyone!!!!!! :evil: :evil: :evil:

Seriously, guys, stop doing that. Post your idea once, and give us a couple of days to look it over and respond. First, not everyone lives on the UC boards every minute of the day, and second, not everyone can look at an idea and just automatically decide whether it's good or not.

A little common sense, please.

 

[ProjectX2]

I actually thought that was a real quote, Seldes. That's genius.

 

[Seldes Katne]

What can I say, it's been one of those weeks. I was trying to come up with the most clichéd plot I could find to make my point.













(By the way, do you think that story idea really would work? I mean, it's been on the board for more than an hour and no one's commented on it yet....)

:wink:

 

[TwilightEL]

Since this thread is a place to get advice on fanfiction, I thought it was a good place to recommend a website: www.hollylisle.com

She's a very talented fantasy novelist with great advice on her site for nearly every writing situation. Whether you're starting a new story, stuck on a certain scene or don't even have an idea yet, her site has a helpful article, probably with an anecdote and a hilarious hypothetical example. She's also got some autobiographical stuff, satirical articles (you must read How to Write Suckitudinously) and a series of articles exposing the BS of a guy who claims to sell a foolproof method for writing a novel.

Seriously, check it out. But don't bother her with emails. There's a notice somewhere on there about how she's gotten too busy to answer them. I think she has some links to writers' forums, but maybe not.

 

[Gemini]

I have a bit of an idea for something somewhat like Marvel 1602, that I have percolating that I probably will never get around to writing down.

It`s basically like a prequel to a hypothetical `Marvel 300` with the Greek cities inciting a Civil War between Athens and Sparta to determine how to deal with the upcoming invading horde.

Sparta will be rostered with Greek Analogues of Cosmic ``Annihilation`` characters, the General will be `Richard Xandarus` or something like that (i`m bad at making up fake Greek sounding names)

Athens will be rostered with Greek Analogues of Earth-bound Marvel characters. The general will be Augustus Stark

Captain America will be a reluctant warrior Achilles-like figure that Augustus Stark has to track down and convince him to fight for Athens

Wolverine will be vaguely like Ephialtes, not so much deformed but very feral looking almost Neanderthal like, he will save Augustus Stark from a Mountain Lion and aide him on his quest to find Captain

Reed Richards, Doom, Pym, Murdock, and so on will be politicians debating and hindering the march to war. One of them will be sold out to the horde (take a guess who)

The X-Men will have a small part as a Gypsy clan lead by Erik and Xavier, that are doomed to Slaughter when Erik betrays them to save his children.

Star-Lord will be a Dilios like character Sparta`s speaker in the house of Athens

The invading empire will be from the completley made up country of Galan (they consume nations) and will be lead by Thanos the God-King of Galan, his generals will be cosmic types Like Annihilus, Terrax, Kang, and so forth. The Galan Messenger will be Norrin Radd an Albino who rides on a white horse.

I may post more if I feel like it, and if anybody likes it. But again it`s basically if Civil War was a lead-in to Annihilation, juxtaposed over a 300 style Greek climate.

 

[Grocer Man]

I have a bit of an idea for something somewhat like Marvel 1602, that I have percolating that I probably will never get around to writing down.

It`s basically like a prequel to a hypothetical `Marvel 300` with the Greek cities inciting a Civil War between Athens and Sparta to determine how to deal with the upcoming invading horde.

Sparta will be rostered with Greek Analogues of Cosmic ``Annihilation`` characters, the General will be `Richard Xandarus` or something like that (i`m bad at making up fake Greek sounding names)

Athens will be rostered with Greek Analogues of Earth-bound Marvel characters. The general will be Augustus Stark

Captain America will be a reluctant warrior Achilles-like figure that Augustus Stark has to track down and convince him to fight for Athens

Wolverine will be vaguely like Ephialtes, not so much deformed but very feral looking almost Neanderthal like, he will save Augustus Stark from a Mountain Lion and aide him on his quest to find Captain

Reed Richards, Doom, Pym, Murdock, and so on will be politicians debating and hindering the march to war. One of them will be sold out to the horde (take a guess who)

The X-Men will have a small part as a Gypsy clan lead by Erik and Xavier, that are doomed to Slaughter when Erik betrays them to save his children.

Star-Lord will be a Dilios like character Sparta`s speaker in the house of Athens

The invading empire will be from the completley made up country of Galan (they consume nations) and will be lead by Thanos the God-King of Galan, his generals will be cosmic types Like Annihilus, Terrax, Kang, and so forth. The Galan Messenger will be Norrin Radd an Albino who rides on a white horse.

I may post more if I feel like it, and if anybody likes it. But again it`s basically if Civil War was a lead-in to Annihilation, juxtaposed over a 300 style Greek climate.

This sounds great.

 

[Gemini]

This sounds great.

I have a prologue involved for Spider-Man, that I really like, that I'd explain, but I don't want to ruin it if I actuallly decide to write it.

It involves The Green Goblin being the general of the Skrulls (wich will basically be The Immortals from 300), a cliff, and a well

 

[Gemini]

The Spectacular Spider-Boy

Openeing Setting: Central Park (House of M universe) 2 years ago

The Book opens with Layla Miller doing the voodoo that she do on Peter Parker from HoM#5, and Peter taking off.

The next few pages follow both Peter and Gwen in alternating panels leading to "No More Mutants" for Peter, and "Goodnight Richie for Gwen. Then all House of M characters with direct 616 analogues vanish from existence. Hours later Richie wakes to an empty house and says "Mommy?" manages to get into the hallway and says "Uncle Ben?", into the kitchen says "Aunt May?" Steps out onto his front step the street completely vacant no one in sight and says "Daddy?"

New Scene location: New York Cemetary (616 universe) Today

Jessica Jones is leaving the cemetary after visiting her families graves, he inner-monologue rambling about hating coming here but sometimes she forces her self to come down and pay her respects, she continue's saying how she always walks by Gwen Stacy's grave and recalls not being friends with her, she was still extremely saddned when she heard of her death, she comes around the corner to Gwen's grave and see's someone sleeping on it, she jogs up to the grave and kicks the persons foot and says "Hey you low-life this is a gravesite someone people loved is in there it's not a place to take a nap on" While the person gets up he says "I know" he turns around and looks Jessica in the eyes, he looks exactly like Ultimate Peter Parker with Short hair and blue eyes wearing entirely red and blue with a grey sweater on over his clothes. Jessica shocked says "Peter?" the person freaks out and web-slings out of the cemetary. Jessica takes of flying after him calling after him "Peter?!" and thinks to herself that it can't be Peter he looks like he's 10 years younger than him so she starts calling after him saying "Hey You!" eventually she looses him in around a corner. She says "oooooookay time to call the real Peter"

Scene three: Manhattan (616 Universe) Today
The stranger lands on a roof still panicking freaking out pacing back and forth, says "what the hell am i doing here, I don't even know if I can get back! What if they come looking for me!" He sits down buries his head in his arms and sulks, "wait a minute that lady, whoever she was recognized me, she thought I was him!" He stands up and takes off the sweater revealing his costume, pulls his mask over his head, stands on the edge of the building and swings away. "That lady, whoever she was, knows my father, that means he's out there somewhere, and she's my only lead"

End of issue one

Character Design:
Richie Parker age 17, height 5'10", wirey build, yet very toned/muscular, his face looks exactly like how Bagley used to draw Ultimate Peter, his hair is short, brown like 616 Peter's, with Blue eyes from his mother Gwen.

Spider-Boy: Metallic-Blue Boots and Gloves that look like the Young X-Men's uniforms, dark Red Spandex body suit with a white Spider on the chest with 4 legs pointing up, 4 down, with 2 legs running the length of each arm and leg. a black Spder-Web on the back. the mask is like Gambit's-cowl with Arana-like Goggles with clear lenses, his hair and nose/lips/chin exposed.

If I ever get around to posting an issue two, I'll move it to it's own thread

 

[Grocer Man]

I've had this idea for a while now. It's a tad mastrubatory, and I won't be albe to get to it for a good while, but I think it's a cool one.

Picture a world not unlike Limbo from Final Crisis or that Chalkzone cartoon. It's a dimension full of ideas that never met their full potential and were left to decay. Every rough draft, every unused character or design goes there. The story's protagonists are some doodle's made in a kid's notebook during a boring school lesson. They'd spend the story trying to resolve the problems of their extensive backstories, to give themselves the story that they were denied. (Ex: One of them is the ex-wife of a flaming Cthulu stand-in, another is the unwanted byproduct of a genetic terrorist organization, one just wants to get laid, etc.)

To give the story some authenticity, every character, major or minor, would be at least loosely based on characters I made up in my grade school days. Heck, I'm toying with the idea of throwing in rough versions of characters that got their own stories. Obviously, they'd have to be redesigned somewhat and developed considerably to fit both the story and my growth as a writer. That's what the story's big theme is: development.

Again, this is still a rough idea (heh), and I don't want to tackle a project this ambitious without some more experience. I just wanted to see what you guys think.

 

[Ultimate Houde]

Could be interesting, but where's the conflict? Who is going to be the antagonist?

 

[Grocer Man]

Could be interesting, but where's the conflict? Who is going to be the antagonist?

Again, this is just a rough idea. But right now, I've got two central ideas for how that would work.

1. A rough draft of a schoolpaper regarding the Nazi philosophy gets dumped into Limbo and inspires a Nazi movement. War breaks out and the protagonists are just trying to keep it together.

2. In the "real world," mankind has learned of a way to enter new dimensions. Since there are an infinite number of dimensions only limited by imagination, mankind decides to play it safe and only visit worlds that have been imagined within fiction. Some government official learns about Limbo and realizes that (since no one has ever heard of anyone there) they'd be ideal for a covert ops group.

I considered making it about them trying to reach out to their original creator and forcing him to write their story, but that just feels too mastrubatory for obvious reasons.

 

[Ultimate Houde]

Don't like the Real world idea, though I do like the idea of a Nazi like movement. What you could do, is use a made up movement, based on Nazi's, but not really.

And the characters trying to get the creator to write about them is quite stupid.

 

[Zombipanda]

Yeah. I hate to sound like a dick but.... It does sound rather masturbatory.

I just feel like any time you get that explicitly metafictional, you're walking a dangerous line.

 

[Grocer Man]

Yeah. I hate to sound like a dick but.... It does sound rather masturbatory.

I just feel like any time you get that explicitly metafictional, you're walking a dangerous line.

Agreed. But I've made up a bunch of stuff over the years, and it seems a waste to never let them get told. Which is exactly why I abandoned the "forcing writer to write" idea. The last thing this story needs is to become a mishmash of in-jokes. No one other then me would be able to enjoy it. Maybe if I focused more on the abandoned ideas aspect and the idea of a bunch of those things living together instead of the "LOL GUYS I WROTE THESE FELLOWS IN KINDERGARTEN NOW THEY'RE BACK BUT GROWN UP AND BETTER" I could dodge that bullet.

And Houde, I see what you mean about the Real World concept. Something like that would work best when that character is ingrained in the public conciousness. And these characters would most certainly not be.

All in all, the nazi thing or some variation thereof seems most solid. Which is weird, since I made it up six seconds ago.

 

[Zombipanda]

Agreed. But I've made up a bunch of stuff over the years, and it seems a waste to never let them get told. Which is exactly why I abandoned the "forcing writer to write" idea. The last thing this story needs is to become a mishmash of in-jokes. No one other then me would be able to enjoy it. Maybe if I focused more on the abandoned ideas aspect and the idea of a bunch of those things living together instead of the "LOL GUYS I WROTE THESE FELLOWS IN KINDERGARTEN NOW THEY'RE BACK BUT GROWN UP AND BETTER" I could dodge that bullet.

We all love our characters, but I think you just have to accept the idea that only 10% of your concepts are ever going to make it past the drawing board. That's just the way it goes. I'd ask myself, are you telling this story because you think it's worth telling or are you telling it because you want to utilize all your old characters? It sounds to me like you came up with the idea of your characters in limbo, and from there decided to try and fashion a story around it.

All in all, the nazi thing or some variation thereof seems most solid. Which is weird, since I made it up six seconds ago.

Ech. Nazis are overdone.

 

[Grocer Man]

We all love our characters, but I think you just have to accept the idea that only 10% of your concepts are ever going to make it past the drawing board. That's just the way it goes. I'd ask myself, are you telling this story because you think it's worth telling or are you telling it because you want to utilize all your old characters? It sounds to me like you came up with the idea of your characters in limbo, and from there decided to try and fashion a story around it.



Ech. Nazis are overdone.

I did. And I was aware of that from the beginning.

Still, your input is apprechiated. And like I said, something like this would require more experience on my part, if only to try and dodge the problems with the concept. Who knows? I might get bored with it and move on.

 

[Gemini]

Hows about once the half-baked characters are allowed to rot for X amount of time they turn into concept-zombies and run ravage over the dimension

Sends the protagonist on a quest to try and reverse the effect only to learn that it can't be undone and his only way of survival would be to have his creator go back and finish his idea/story/design whatever, wich means he would have to leave everyone behind to escape. Leading him to make a decision, achieve his dream of becoming a fully realized charactor, or stay behind to fight back the concept-zombies with his compatriots.

Yeah I got nothing

 

[Grocer Man]

Alright, this idea is similar to my previous one in that I won't be able to get to it for a while. However, I've got it better fleshed out then the first one, so here goes.

Eight-year-old Phil Morris has just become the bad guy in a movie. His mom went into "my baby is gonna be a star" mode and had him sign up for a movie called Yellow Cap Donovan. Phil's never really been interested in acting, but it'll make his mom happy and he gets to play a miniature skeleton cowboy, so he can't complain that much.

Yellow Cap Donovan is the tale of a wise beyond his years boy played by Bobby Frost who moves into the small town of Carport Coast. With his american know how and incredible spirit, he teaches the kids of the neighborhood the meaning of life and friendship, takes down the creepy skeleton cowboy suit wearing bully across the street, and goes on to unite the world in an era of peace and harmony.

But while filming the movie some strange things begin happening. Cast and crew go missing, the director is writing something on the walls, and Phil's mom isn't looking so good. When filming the climax of the movie, something goes horribly wrong and Phil is attacked by a all-powerful eldritch abomination.

Phil then finds himself flung twenty years into the future, now turned into a living skeleton cowboy. Turns out Yellow Cap Donovan was all a plot by the Producer to summon a Cthulu-like god to destroy the world. Since something went wrong during the filming, all that happened was Frost was turned into the creature's avatar and Phil was cursed by dark magic. With the film foiled, the creature must now take the longer route to freedom. Now Frost and many of the film's cast and crew are weeks away from winning the Presidency, and Phil finds himself America's most wanted.

Though he is now a skeleton, a side effect of the curse is that he can do some pretty cool magic tricks with a revolver. Aided by his repentant and alcoholic mom and the other half of YCD's cast and crew, Phil must now take down his former co-star to save the world. And this time he has a lot to complain about.

I got the idea from reading up on the King In Yellow. Obviously, the Pluto story comes first, but I thought I'd throw this out, even though it's still a rough pitch. I'm thinking about setting it in the early 1900's.

 

[Grocer Man]

Sorry for the double post, but it's been so long I doubt anyone cares.

This is a DC/Marvel crossover idea I've had for a while. It's basically a look at a merged DC/Marvel universe from a historical perspective. It'd start in the late thirties and early forties, where the Golden Age is in full swing with teams like the Invaders and the JSA living in the same universe and interacting with each other. The entire point is to examine what a merged universe would be like, starting from the 1940s and moving into the present day. For example, the first arc would revolve around the heroes having a much harder time with WW2 then they originally did, since Hitler has the Spear of Destiny, the Nazis are much deadlier with the Red Skull's leadership and having freaking War Wheels, and an Atlantean Civil War has broken out betwen supporters of Namor and Aquaman.

It'd be about the Marvel and DC universes interacting, for better or worse. Some aspects would go very well together, others would cause conflict where there originally was none. (Like Hawkeye gets adopted into the Green Arrow family, and the aforementioned Atlantean Civil War. And just imagine the crap that would go down when Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths happen at roughly the same time.) The characters would grow old and die as the story moves forward in time, and others would take up their legacies. (More then a few would be children of a crossover ship.)

I might write it as a mock-academic book as a framing device, with quotations and newspaper articles to add atmosphere.

PS: I've been thinking about the plot idea in the above post, and I'm seriously considering condensing it until the only thing left is the plot with Phil's mother. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I find that's the most interesting aspect of the story to me. She loses her son, goes insane, spends the rest of her life taking over the family business of organized crime, then has to deal with the consequences when her son returns and she desperately tries to become the woman she once was.