Matt's story idea

I realize that it is technically Sunday, but as far as my circadian rhythms are concerned, it Saturday. I've been thinking a lot about what I want to write my next story on, and I can only keep thinking about focusing on the media. I think the advent of the 24 hour news cycle and the polarization of our media outlets is very interesting. This interest has led me to consider writing a story about a man who is obsessed with consuming media. Perhaps I wil cause him to lose his connection with reality, or perhaps I'll turn the idea on its head and have him recognize the absence of true "reality" within his/our lives. Who knows what will come of this though. I could be swimming in the deep end with this one. Let me know what you think, or suggest any ideas if you have them.

Story Idea

So many possibilities are running through my head, but I want something really creative, something that's out of the ordinary. I was thinking of writing about a middle aged guy who is a police officer in San Francisco. The one thing that differentiates him between any other cop in San Fran is that for transportation he uses a longboard to catch crime on the streets. This police officer is a character that the reader probably wont like, but will find very funny, because of the ways he goes about catching crime. He will be one of those ass hole cops,  that the reader, which will be you guys, can relate to because we all know that the UNH and Durham police are a bunch of douches. This police officer while be so gnarley at longboarding. I'm talking he knows all the tricks in the book, and yes he has a large fine mustache that when bombing down a hill, its golden wings will flop back into a hellish dance. All the cops of San Fran hate him because of his recent front cover stories in the San Fran Times of him busting college students and regulars off the street.

Story Idea 2

Calvin is watching his family deteriorate. The family business, a once proud and growing music store in North Conway New Hampshire, is not adjusting well to the new media age. The stress of the monthly bills added to his parent’s already rocky relationship is causing Calvin to hate his living situation more and more every day. Calvin's Dad is constantly being berated by real-estate agents and larger companies to sell this once thriving store, but it’s the not the store the big-names want, it’s the property. Calvin's Dad doesn't want to see the music store razed just to be replaced by the next big money making store of the times.
Calvin finds refuge working for a local ski mountain as a ski instructor with his younger brother Simon. They both spend as much time away from their home as possible due to the stress. The one thing Calvin hates more than anything is how he is always surrounded by rich people. His neighbors in North Conway, the people he shares the road with on the way to work, the students he teaches at the mountain. Money surrounds Calvin every day, yet he has to watch his parents retirement savings dwindle to nothing. Calvin is taking the spring semester off from school so he can continue to save money but he knows the minimum wage he's making at the mountain will do little to soften the blow of his college costs. If Calvin can count on anything, it’s the tips he gets from his student’s parents. One day Calvin will receive a tip worth more than anything, a tip that could save his parent's lives, or give Calvin a reason to leave the ski-town once and for all.

-Ian Vogler

Story Idea

Ok, I'm not sure how much I like this story, but it came to my head really vividly so here it is, with potential to change a bit.

Lily is a junior in college who wakes up one Sunday with the worst hangover she’s ever had. Almost as soon as she's up, she starts trying to recall the events of the previous night, but it’s evident she blacked out. Her roommate, Jill, is not in her bed and she texts her to make sure she’s okay, but gets no response. She does the same with her boyfriend, Connor. Throughout the morning between vomiting and lying in her bed with a cloth over her pounding head, she slowly gets flashes of the party she was at. She begins to realize she made a fool of herself, in her drunken state she went up to people she barely knew and acted as though they were best friends, giving them advice on things she had no idea about, and even criticizing people on various things they were doing (i.e. a kid trying to flirt with a girl and failing, Lily feels the need to tell him what he did wrong). She was by far the drunkest person there and is horrified at the spectacle she made of herself. Going through text messages, she sees she texted some of her friends from high school, and, to her horror, her high school boyfriend who she hadn’t spoken to for two years.  She texts her roommate again, desperate for her to come home and tell her just how bad the damage really was, but right when she’s about to send it she sees the promise ring Connor gave to her on the floor and has a final flashback; when looking for her Connor at the party to take her home, she walked in on him and Jill hooking up in an upstairs room. She vomits, and shuts the phone without sending the text. 

Story Idea

My story will take place in northern Maine. It will follow the life of a logger who seems to follow the same routine religiously. Everyday he logs, eats, and plays with his dog. But what the reader wont know until later in the story is that he is also a cereal killer who regularly kills hikers that he fins on a popular trail in the woods. I am going to use his logging as a way to symbolize the killings while not directly saying that he is doing it until near the end.

~Emerson  

Kelsey's story idea

I don't quite have all the plot points mapped out yet, but I want to write a story from the 1st person perspective of an old man, Norman (70 or 75 years old). Norman has a massive superiority complex, but has never vocalized it. He comes across to others as friendly and modest, but every time he looks in the mirror he sees the greatest man who ever lived.  His ego isn't necessarily a bad thing, because he looks at it more as if he simply has the power to do many things that others can't, and sometimes he thinks his brain has a higher capacity than others'.  The only indication of this complex is that his favorite past time is striking up conversations with telemarketers who call his house.  He believes that they enjoy when he does this, because, hey, he must be incredibly wonderful to talk to, being so awesome and all. But really they mostly just try to shrug him off and get their jobs done.
Until one day, a telemarketer calls who sounds sad and worn out to Norman.  Norman tries even harder than normal to converse with this stranger, who Norman guessed to be a middle-aged woman. This first time she calls, she ignores whatever it is he's talking about (not sure what his topic of interest will be - maybe he'll have some sort of odd tidbit of information that he'll use on each telemarketer or something). A week after this call, the phone rings and Norman hears that same sad voice on the other end, and once again starts talking to her very casually. She may hang up or something this time, but she'll eventually call back again, and eventually start opening up to Norman, too. At some point something will click in Norman's brain that his life is nothing that spectacular compared to this woman's. Not really sure exactly what will come of this, but something really awesome will happen, I'm sure.

Story Idea

Ian (I know it's the same name of my last main character, but I've had this idea for a story for a LOT longer than my last one and they are completely different people!-hope that's alright. Can work it out, if it's not) and his grandmother are on a plane to visit Ian's grandfather in Florida when the plane takes a detour into the Bermuda triangle where they land on a massive island inhabited by many people and extraordinary technology. The passengers are told that it is for their safety and the safety of the rest of humanity. That is all they are told. The island is concealed by a one way force field that (the government created it) not only hides the island from the outside, but prevents people from leaving. Ian and his grandmother are forced to work in this new society and they find out that it is a corrupted, horrible place. Ian's grandmother dies shortly after from (still thinking over different options) and Ian is recruited to work directly for the government because he is extremely smart. (hint: REBELLION)

Hope you guys like it!

-Nicole

Sam L's next story Idea

Guy on a train. The train ride is a symbol of how/where his life is going. The man is going home (from his awesome job that he loves) to his wife and kids. His wife is horrible. Their son is a demon. The man will sit next to someone on the train and tell him all about it. You can tell that the man doesn’t want to go home, the train is going the opposite direction he wants it to, his life is going the opposite way he wants it to. The passenger will ask if the man ever considered leaving his wife? He admits that he has, but finds it safer to stay. She would take his house, all of his stuff, and he would have to pay alimony. “Even so,” advises the passenger, “it’s better than living a life you don’t want. You should do what makes you happy.” The train reaches the protagonist’s destination. He says goodbye too his new friend and gets off the train. His wife and demon child are waiting for him. She is being bossy and mean as ever,, and the child is being very obnoxious and disobedient. The protagonist makes his stand on the way to the parking lot. He tells her he’s leaving her. She gets very angry, takes her kid, and leaves screaming, “I’ll see you in court!” The man smiles as she leaves. He walks back to the ticket counter, and purchases his ticket to go back to work.

I'm also thinking the guy has some feelings for a co-worker that he has kept to himself for a while now, but at the end he will be happy and free to purue her. He will have nice things to say about her on the train ride.

Story Idea:
Joe Frilk, a husband and father of two teenage daughters wants to take his family to their old summer home in Cape Cod which they haven't been too in a few years. He wants to go for about a week and have them all fix up the house together. Joe feels his family is drifting apart so he thinks a week together in Cape Cod will help them out. While they are there things escalate when he finds one daughter smoking pot and the other progressively getting sicker from her eating disorder. His wife is distance too, (I need to figure out why she is distant could be work related, or something that happened recently) I will focus on different scenes like one day when they go to the beach and the daughter with the eating disorder leaves to go workout. I need to think of some other scenes to lead to the climax like catching his other daughter smoking pot. I might throw in some flashbacks too of when the family was in Cape Cod and they were closer. The climax will come when they are having dinner one night and his daughter won't eat. As the tension escalates fighting breaks loose between all the family members. I want to end my story with Joe working on the house the last day they are there, showing he won't give up on his family.

Story Idea

I am thinking of having my story base around a character who is struggling with her family not being religious. She is a college student who's parents and brother mock religion even though she herself has faith. She is from a wealthy town in Connecticut and it will take place on one of her vacations in late fall. I am not sure about the set up of the story yet but I know I am going to try to write it in third person. I want to make the family's mocking comments borderline comical but still be able to feel the hurt and confusion it causes the main character.

Next Story Idea

My idea so far is very basic and I know I need to elaborate but here goes:
The main character, Tess, is entering her sophomore year in high school.  All summer long, she has been working at as an ice cream scooper at a local ice cream shop.  Her best friend, Alexa, has been away on a mission trip to Georgia with her church all summer.  Alexa and Tess have been best friends since kindergarten and do everything together.  Their houses are only separated by a small patch of trees and brush, but over the years, a path has emerged.  Alexa and Tess are about to reunite before starting their sophomore year together.  Little does Tess know, Alexa has drastically changed over the duration of the summer.  She cares more about hanging out with the right kind of people and her image than before.  I want there to be a huge betrayal, but I'm not sure what I want it to be yet....I know this is pretty basic, but I think I can make it work well.

Very Preliminary Story Idea

Here's what I'm thinking: still much to sort out and all that: It's about a young man who has decided to kill himself. He then tries to find happiness and meaning in life one last time. This final adventure of his, I'm thinking will be the bulk or focus of the story. There will maybe be some flashbacks? The ending...that is where I feel I have to do the most work. Like I said, very preliminary, but I think it's got potential. I think it'll go from the city to the forest and possibly back to the city for setting. Contemporary times. Age... probably college (early 20s). Point of view...I do not know quite yet which I will choose.

Story #2

The story follows a single character as he travels from northern New York state, through Vermont to Boston. He's in his late 30's, about six foot tall, solid build. He wears a nice suit with the collar unbuttoned and a tie hanging loosely from it.He is on a business trip, but the work is left vague. Its revealed that he has a drug problem, as he repeatedly sniffs a small glass vial, but he thinks about quitting and goes long periods of time without using. He is driving late in the day, so he decides to spend the night at a motel.
He carries a small suitcase into the motel room, and leaves his larger leather suitcase in the backseat. He drinks from a bottle of vodka that was in the suitcase and watches TV from his bed, trying hard to resist the temptation of the drug. Once he's drunk, he forgets about the vial and decides to take a shower before going to bed. After stepping out of the shower, he notices a news flash on the TV. A man was kidnapped in the town he had just visited, in upstate New York. The man is shaken by this. Even though he didn't know the person, he becomes increasingly paranoid. The crave returns and he goes out to the car to retrieve the vial. When he does this, he notices the leather bag, and moves it to the trunk where he figures it will be safe. The man brings the vial back with him to the room where he locks the doors and checks the windows, but doesn't use the drug until the next morning, when he leaves the motel.
The drive through Vermont is long, and a close call with a police cruiser reveals that the man works for a criminal organization and is just as paranoid about the police as some other force that seems to be tracking him. For the rest of the drive the character panics silently, but resists using the drug, which is constantly in the back of his head.
He reaches Boston and pulls into a small parking garage just outside the North End. He exits the car with his suitcase in hand, and opens the trunk to remove the leather suitcase. A car screeches behind him, catching his attention as he removes the suitcase. The car pulls up beside him and a large bearded man steps out. The man jerks the bag out of the trunk and it thumps on the ground. The bearded man comes over to the bag, opens the top part-way, releasing a foul stench. He looks at the man, nods, zips the bag closed, and hoists it into the backseat of his car. The two exchange money and a few words, then the bearded man leaves. The man walks away with his suitcase in hand and opens the top of the vial. Its empty, so he tosses it down an aisle of the parking garage and exits down an emergency staircase.