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.
H Trope: giant monsters
Current Event: http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/11/science_of_godzilla_2010.php
I have always loved Godzilla. I should say that I’ve always been terrified of Godzilla. The picture above I find more frightening of all of them. Don’t know why but I think it has something to do with the back-lighting.
At any rate, “Godzilla as gigantic pet and powerful force for good” was done in the latter part of the 1990s with the cartoon TV show, Godzilla The Series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla:_The_Series), so I don’t want you to do that all over again.
So how about this: Godzilla is getting old. Radioactivity has made it sterile (and besides, no one has ever seen Mrs. Godzilla; the rehash 1998 implied that Godzilla was parthenogenetic (it could self-reproduce by cloning), but let’s skip that and make ourselves an elderly Godzilla. Let’s also postulate that the monster isn’t stupid; say give it the native intelligence of a 5-year-old kid. He’s gentle now, kind even, but not particularly keen on taking on the Japanese navy again by invading Tokyo; or the US navy by invading San Francisco.
A couple of kids deep sea diving through the commune they live in on an old oil drilling platform stumble across the sleeping “monster”. It swallows them ( a la the whale in FINDING NEMO or the Book of Jonah) then spits them up on a coral atoll. There, having learned a sort of pidgin English/Japanese, it talks to them, asking that they help it die a peaceful death. Web-savvy kids every one, they come up with a plan. Throw in an obligatory evil scientist who wants to study Godzilla and doesn’t respect kids, and you might have a short story here. Something like, “Saving Godzilla”…
Image: http://rarerborealis.com/wordpressblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/godzilla2012.jpg
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