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beccaelizabethSo far today I've discovered yesterday's food choices were unfortunate, done the laundry, and got this month's Fortean Times.
FT is made of win, just in general. It's especially useful for anyone looking for plots for any modern weirdness type fiction. The stories can roughly be divided into 'high weirdness things that happened', 'useful cover stories for high weirdness things that happened' and 'proof that humans really are dumb enough to believe the cover stories'.
See this month in the False Alarms feature:
This FT favourite dates from 1983. Police in Halesowen, West Midlands, were told that a safe had been abandoned by the roadside. A panda car went to the scene and an officer stood guard for an hour until detectives arrived to dust it for fingerprints. Traffic division sent a Landrover with towing gear and uniform branch sent beat constables who heaved and strained as the Landrover pulled. "That's when we realised it was a Midlands Electricity Board junction box, which was cemented into the grount," said a spokesman. D. Telegraph 16 May 1983
... the cover up part of Torchwood's job is easier than it sounds.
I've only read the news bits and the book reviews so far. The actual articles are for after lunch. But there's a very promising article about a (hoax) UFO invasion and entire-lack-of-cover-up.
FT is a great bunny generator. The thing that has to happen before it turns into a story is you have to figure how it happened to your characters. And the thing that helps to make it a *great* story is to figure the emotional core of it, how it's relevant and important to your characters. Where's the Theme?
Buffy was about high school and college and growing up. Killer clowns would only become a Buffy story if it was tied to some emotional landmark or development. Like Xander's face his fears moment. On Supernatural the same image had a whole different relevance - the guys are travellers and outsiders living a life most people think is weird, so that's their overlap with the clown deal.
Dresden Files were all about second chances and being right on the line when it comes to falling to the darkness. Good intentions and dark deeds. Killer clowns seems unlikely to fit there... but maybe someone did a bad thing once and then ran away to hide in a circus and now their dark side is trying to pull a Jekyll and Hyde on them when they put on the clown face but they're trying to fight it back.
God knows what Torchwood's killer clown moment would be like. Probably focus on the slapstick, the fall down get up again knock each other over thing. Torchwood as a bunch of clowns. With deadly results.
So you know, plot bunny + characters + theme = story.
FT can give you the bunnies, canon has the rest.
FT is made of win, just in general. It's especially useful for anyone looking for plots for any modern weirdness type fiction. The stories can roughly be divided into 'high weirdness things that happened', 'useful cover stories for high weirdness things that happened' and 'proof that humans really are dumb enough to believe the cover stories'.
See this month in the False Alarms feature:
This FT favourite dates from 1983. Police in Halesowen, West Midlands, were told that a safe had been abandoned by the roadside. A panda car went to the scene and an officer stood guard for an hour until detectives arrived to dust it for fingerprints. Traffic division sent a Landrover with towing gear and uniform branch sent beat constables who heaved and strained as the Landrover pulled. "That's when we realised it was a Midlands Electricity Board junction box, which was cemented into the grount," said a spokesman. D. Telegraph 16 May 1983
... the cover up part of Torchwood's job is easier than it sounds.
I've only read the news bits and the book reviews so far. The actual articles are for after lunch. But there's a very promising article about a (hoax) UFO invasion and entire-lack-of-cover-up.
FT is a great bunny generator. The thing that has to happen before it turns into a story is you have to figure how it happened to your characters. And the thing that helps to make it a *great* story is to figure the emotional core of it, how it's relevant and important to your characters. Where's the Theme?
Buffy was about high school and college and growing up. Killer clowns would only become a Buffy story if it was tied to some emotional landmark or development. Like Xander's face his fears moment. On Supernatural the same image had a whole different relevance - the guys are travellers and outsiders living a life most people think is weird, so that's their overlap with the clown deal.
Dresden Files were all about second chances and being right on the line when it comes to falling to the darkness. Good intentions and dark deeds. Killer clowns seems unlikely to fit there... but maybe someone did a bad thing once and then ran away to hide in a circus and now their dark side is trying to pull a Jekyll and Hyde on them when they put on the clown face but they're trying to fight it back.
God knows what Torchwood's killer clown moment would be like. Probably focus on the slapstick, the fall down get up again knock each other over thing. Torchwood as a bunch of clowns. With deadly results.
So you know, plot bunny + characters + theme = story.
FT can give you the bunnies, canon has the rest.