Has This Been Done Before? And other questions

I've got this idea for a story in my head. It's about this little isolated valley community. It's like Arcadia in terms of technology and most people living there either farm for a living, herd goats or as vendors at the local market. It is a semi-Utopian community with very little in the way of crime or disease.

The story begins with a young boy and his friend discovering a cave that nobody else knows about in the woods and they begin exploring it a little at a time, gradually working their way deeper into the cave.

Eventually, they find that the cave leads to a secret facility with monitors showing surveillance footage of the community and the surrounding area, documents and notes left by the staff working there, and a diary of someone who found the cave before they did and explored the hidden complex and the final entry stops abruptly, as if something took him as he was writing.

They try to tell the others what they saw, with nobody believing them no matter what they say even when they show them them the diary,so they make one last trip back to the cave to get more evidence. They are caught and sent to a "repair ward" where they are brainwashed using a variety of methods into forgetting what they've seen over the course of several weeks.

The story ends years later with the boy, now grown up, no longer remembering anything as his daughter runs up to him talking about a cave she has found.

The main question I want to ask you guys about this idea is whether or not something like this has been done.

I'd also like some insight on whether I should reveal it's purpose or just hint at it and let readers draw their own conclusions, as well as your opinion on what would be a plausible reason for the hidden facility's existence and it's function in relation to the village.

Sounds a bit like The Truman Show.

Hmmmm...well, if nobody in the town "believes" them, then I'd hazard a guess and say that everyone's already in on it - they can play innocent for the sake of protecting whatever's in the cave. There's no telling what the townsfolk are up to, but there's plenty of potential to be had; maybe they're researchers sealing up a failed experiment or something in the cave. Of course, the biggest question would be why the main character's been left in the dark...

I can see the similarities with The Truman Show, but there's no reason why that should stop you. As long as it's interesting, it doesn't matter; just follow your instincts. I'd wager you already have a plan of where you plan to go, so I'm more than willing to trust you on that front; still, to answer your question I'd say "keep the cave's insides a secret". There's probably a ton you could do with that, and the whole "fear of the unknown" aspect is something you could play up.

Thanks for your help so far. I was thinking about the function of the facility and what it has to do with the village and I got this idea, The village is an experiment in creating a utopian society and the facility is there to keep it going.

It sounds a little like Wicked, with a certain story about an evil witch being sealed in a cave and awaiting a time when she could leave and live again being referenced throughout the story (it's a fairy tale told within the book) and at the end, it's mentioned again, leaving the reader wondering, "Could this be refferring to Elphaba? Is this...some sort of Mind Screw that actually is being played out by the story?" But not enough to make worry.

I like it!

Incidentally, I had a thread similar to this (in the vein of "has this been done before" - I normally hate to self-promote, but might someone mind taking a second look at it? https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=12989371720A25460100&page=1#4

Sounds like that one M Night Shyamalan movie from a few years ago. The Village?

Anyway, it could be compelling if you can give a good reason why the community has been isolated and wired for sound. Otherwise it just strikes me as yet-another "oh no everything we know is wrong!" story a la The Truman Show and/or The Village.

edited 2nd Mar '11 12:02:27 PM by NativeJovian

• The Star Trek The Next Generation episode Who Watches the Watchers had this, except the locals believed the person who'd seen behind the curtain and misinterpreted it.
• In the Webcomic Fantasy Is Dead, the baddies are a Henchmen Race reprogramming locals in a futile attempt to rebuild their creators' civilization.

edited 2nd Mar '11 1:56:28 PM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

Thanks for the input so far. I've changed things around with the plot outline. It now goes like this:

• There's a village
• The boy finds a diary belonging to his grandfather who went missing
• The boy and his friends find the cave and explore it
• They find the facility
• Something attacks them and they just barely escape
• Weird things happen in the village
• One of the friends goes missing
• Village panics, remaining two friends go looking for him
• They get caught, brainwashed, the diary is destroyed
• The three kids are returned to the village, everything goes back to normal
• One generation later, the girl finds the cave

That's the basic outline of the new plot, is this more or less original than the first one?

And some of the things I'd like to mention are first, in this version the children no longer try to inform the others about the cave, instead keeping it a secret as they gradually explore it.

Second, what would be a good way to set up this plot twist in an original way? What would be a good, subtle method of foreshadowing?