May 24, 2011

Ideas on Tuesday 14: NOT National Lampoon’s Teenage Vacation

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

This is a BIZARRE idea, but vacations are places where really exciting things happen in lots and lots of YA/teen books, though it usually has something to do with beaches, bikinis and suntan slathered male bodies and how the one relentlessly pursues the other (the bikinis and slathered bodies; though the BEACH pursuing both might make an interesting horror novel…) (http://io9.com/5801452/your-next-ocean-vacation-could-be-on-an-abandoned-oil-platform).

So we have a buncha bored teens (aren’t they ALL bored…or nerds?) with their wealthy parents on vacation. Of COURSE, they get into the usual trouble pursuing beaches and each other. During one of these hot, hot make out sessions on a lower deck of the platform that has had minimal “vacation primping”, a light appears underwater and pretty soon a UFO hovers over the lower deck of the platform. Shaped like the ship from THE INVADERS, a door opens and a ramp extends. NO! there are no aliens inside! But there IS a black rectangle of seething nothing…

image: http://jobacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/oil-rig.jpg

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