Who else does this?

I've found that one of my favorite means of coming up with an idea for a story is to pick the place where a more conventional genre work leaves off. For instance, two ideas I've recently come up with (although I probably won't write them) is a modern fantasy work set about 20 Minutes in the Future after the Masquerade has come off, and a story that picks up immediately following a failed but nasty Alien Invasion along the lines of the Independence Day stereotype. Frequently, I do this by planning out a fairly conventional plot, though not a Cliché Storm - these are not parodies; and turning that into the Backstory. I don't necessarily approve of the idea of works conceived of entirely off of playing with a genre - but I've always had that interest in seeing the parts of the story we never get to see (mostly, I think, to keep Like Reality, Unless Noted).

So, I'm curious: does anyone else do this sort of thing in their writing? If so, what genres have you "picked up"?

edited 13th Apr '11 10:46:31 PM by nrjxll

The story I'm currently writing takes place about a century after a First Contact story that's vaguely described but we never see.

The next story I plan to write inverses this, ending right as everything is set in place for a traditional cliche The Hero's Journey scenario to happen.

edited 13th Apr '11 10:50:16 PM by PDown

At first I didn't realize I needed all this stuff...

I wrote a novel-length (95,000 words) story (that I'm currently hoping to get published) about what happens after a hero gets Victory-Guided Amnesia. It's set ten years after their original victory, and while she was a Friend to All Living Things Child Mage kid hero then, she's a Knight in Sour Armor Jerkass now, and reacts in a rather... abrasive fashion to being told about her past exploits. Hilarity Ensues.

It's also got an Indirect Sequel on the back burner, which is about (essentially) a standard Shōnen Kid Hero who wanted To Be a Master... and became one. However, during the fight that won him the title, he inhaled some spores from his mushroom Mon, and gained the ability to understand 'mons. And, from speaking to them, he then ends up learning just how corrupt the world he rose up through is.

edited 13th Apr '11 11:20:36 PM by FreezairForALimitedTime

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

I come up with a lot of ideas by thinking about some of the things more conventional works leave out.

e.g.:

• Writing the kinds of people and archetypes you see in Real Life, but rarely or never in fiction. I could give examples from my own stuff, but I'm tired.

You can also make entire plots and casts out of aversions and inversions of common tropes.

• I like deconstructing tropes - not always in a Darker and Edgier way - then seeing if you can turn the pieces into new plots or new stories entirely. Let's say a character who's watched too many action movies tries to jump headfirst through a closed window. Where would this lead him?
  • Most likely to a hospital bed, with glass being picked out of his stupid face. Now what stories could this become?
    • You could give the hospital staff A Day in the Spotlight, or even a Spinoff Series, in which they snark their way through the day while treating tens of patients who've watched too many action movies.
    • He could fall in love with a nurse.
    • His time in the hospital could give the Big Bad the time he needs to finish building the Doomsday Device.

That kind of thing.

Of course, all of these have been done somewhere, but they've been done less than the cliches.

edited 14th Apr '11 12:22:10 AM by Wheezy

Project progress: The Adroan (102k words), The Pigeon Witch, (40k). Done but in need of reworking: Yume Hime, (50k)

Sounds cool! Don't know why but I get a Slappy Squirrel kinda feeling from the character you've described. Hope you get it published! There have been instances where I've done that though. Nothing special though, just one off exercises. Like what happens after the Prince saves the Princess from the dragon?

She rides his ass of course

edited 14th Apr '11 12:23:14 AM by AtomJames

Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.

One of my favorites was a sort of collateral Cthulhu Mythos story. What do you do when your best friend joins a cult, loses his mind, and gets himself sacrificed? How do you deal with his family?

Under World. It rocks!

: If you have an e-mail address, I could send it to you. The first one only—the Indirect Sequel is, as I alluded to, not actually written yet. And there's another indirect sequel which I'm writing right now (just in case, y'know, but also for my own enjoyment) in which the main character is... well, I'm not sure what trope she's subverting/deconstructing, but I know it is one. (Many people around her believe she's a type of legendary sorceress, which hasn't been seen for a thousand years, and she could make many people prosperous and all that, but she knows, as do a number of her friends, that they're grossly misinterpreting the kind of powers she does have. But she's too much of an Extreme Doormat to correct anyone.)

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

Sort of in the same vein: I have a habit of writing rather conventional stories and then going back to them, sometimes months or even years later, and thinking 'What happened before/after that as a cause/result of this story?'