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.
I’m doing something different today – I’m taking the Trope of divination (usually associated with fantasy, soft magic) and adding same CURRENT EVENT and doing a different genre for each idea. Last week was Fantasy; this week, it’s Horror…
H Trope: divination (especially water (how Stephen King got his start)
Current Event: http://www.britishdowsers.org/whats_on/water_divining_dowsing_group.shtml and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre_(book)
Between Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama; in the former Republic of West Florida, a separate and sovereign country with its own Constitution, ruled by the first and only Governor Fulwar Skipwith – Connor and Caroline Perdido, brother and sister and descendants. Annexed and invaded by the United State of America, it was one of the smallest victims of the new American Imperialism.
Connor and Caroline don’t CARE. Both of them want to escape their tiny town of Perkinston, nestled between two arms of the De Soto National Forest – Connor would have commented, “You mean squeezed like the neck of murder victim in the hands of a strangler!”
Caroline rolled her eyes and said, “You don’t have to be so dramatic.” Staring into the gloom and fog that wrapped the city, she sighed, “Except that you’re the most dramatic thing this burg has ever seen.”
Heading for their karate class in nearby Wiggins, Caroline is practicing driving – Connor’s already got his license – on their way. It’s foggy, but that’s normal. They’re pretty much zoned out when everything STOPS being normal. They see an old man on the side of the road. “Is he hitchhiking?” Caroline asked.
“Weird time to be hitchhiking,” said Connor. “It’s raining and miserable.”
“No, that’s just you. But then you’re always miserable.”
“Ha, ha...” The man on the side of the road turned toward the ditch, pulling what looked like a giant slingshot out from under his coat. He held it out in front of himself and it looked like any stick. Suddenly the point arrowed down. The man looked startled then appeared to struggle against the stick. The ground snapped open and he disappeared. “What the heck!” Connor exclaimed.
Caroline slammed on the breaks, echoing his exclamation. The car skidded a little on the wet road and came to a stop. There were no other cars in either direction. The two piled out of the car and ran back to the spot where the man had been. “What’s that?” Connor said, pointing to the ground. A jagged crack pulsed red in the rising shadows of the De Soto Forest, the sunning falling toward dusk.
“No idea. It was like the stick pointed down and the Earth...ate him.”
The ground tremble slightly, the crack opened and with a roar and a cloud of steam...
1 comment:
You might want to update the Current Event and H-Trope, unless the theme is dowsing again (which it very well could be, I suppose).
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