The Idea Box: write365

One of the things I was most afraid of when I "agreed" to this project was the possibility of not having anything to write about. As it turns out, I needn't have worried--after shaking out the dust from my imagination, I found a few workable concepts. Let's open the Idea Box!





PUNCHLINE
The Cowboy was a pretty big deal when he started appearing on the streets of Beacon City, but his popularity didn't really take off until the emergence of Punchline, the city's first costumed supervillain. Their battles made headlines for years, but the emergence of bigger threats and more powerful foes pushed Punchline out of the spotlight, causing him to hang up his guns.
That all changed after the Cowboy died while defending the city from a monstrous beast from another dimension. By virtue of being in the right place at the wrong time, Punchline finds himself anointed the city's new savior. He quickly discovers that he's got some awfully large boots to fill...

I've been using the Beacon City setting, and Punchline, in different things for about a decade now. Most often, it's been an RPG setting--I used it for campaigns in the DCU RPG and Mutants & Masterminds. Punchline was my character of choice in Equinox (a competitive writing game in a supers setting; great fun) and is also the star of my one published story. This is probably my strongest concept, as I've already done a lot of world-building for it...though admittedly, it's something of a reboot from the other Beacon City stuff I've done. Ideally, this would be done in comic book script format, but I don't think that way...so I'm hoping I can do it in a way that can be easily converted to script.


SCATTERED
Three young men set off on a cross-country quest to honor their fallen friend--and to distribute his remains according to his last wishes. Along the way, they learn more about themselves, each other, and the friend who sent them out on this mission in the first place.

A modern adventure tale of self-discovery. I don't know if I like this idea as much as when I first started thinking about it--it has a few glaring issues that didn't occur to me a few years ago--but there's still potential.


ACROSS THE AGES
A condemned man swears an oath of love so strong that the fates grant him a chance to make things right. But he's not the only one who relives the story, and the other players have their own agendas. What's to stop history from repeating?

This story would let me use a wide array of settings, though the characters would basically remain the same. Hopefully I can avoid the "damsel in distress" routine, though. (Also, I had a narration trick in mind for this one that I liked, but eventually decided it was too gimmicky and besides, I'm not sure I could make it work for a whole story.)


GILLS
No synopsis here, as I never got far into planning this one. But basically, an 18-year-old kid leaves home and joins the crew of a pirate submarine. I'd planned to write this as a short story for a steampunk anthology a few years ago, but that was when I'd screwed up my shoulder and had to stop exercising, which led to me kinda giving up on everything. Wouldn't mind taking a look at this again.


HERE THERE BE DRAGONS
One night I was reading one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, when the thought popped into my head: "Terry has been knighted. Does this mean he gets to carry a sword and kill dragons?" Out of that spun the idea of a special dragon squad of Scotland Yard, and a midwest US detective who gets drafted into it. Bit of a mashup of ideas--Keen Eddie meets Men In Black by way of King Arthur.


I'm sure there are other ideas boxed up in my head, but these are the ones that would be best suited for novel-length works (or in Punchline's case, an ongoing comic book.) Chances are that most of my writing this year will be related to these concepts.