spacemutineer

I've been craving pretty desperately to dive into a new short story, but so far have come up dry for good ideas. What I do have rolling around in my head is either too complex to make into something relatively short (sub 2000 words, I would hope) or just simply not kicking me into gear at the moment.

I've been trolling

shkinkmeme for days for ideas, but that's been bone dry as well. Is there anywhere else to look for quality prompts? I have found little. I've been reading, hoping that would spark something for me, but so far nothing.

In the meantime while I search for something that really strikes me, I'm trying to fiddle with some partially written bits I came up with previously. Maybe one of them will catch for me. The first is actually (somewhat ludicrously) a western of all things. There have been a couple of prompts for westerns on the meme and since I love to try new genres, I've been tooling around with it. I like it to a degree, but currently it is long on atmosphere and short on plot. The other fragment I'm playing with is about Holmes as a scientist, which is an idea I am extremely attracted to. I think I have a good understanding of where I want to go with this one and I do like it quite a bit, but it's just not flowing for me at the moment. I'll try some stream-of-consciousness brainstorming today; see if I can't jostle myself out of this writer's block.

I'm currently tinkering with a new story idea. It has some meat to it, which I like, but would require a large amount of work. I don't know if I'll use it or not. Thought of putting it on the kmeme, but it's much too involved an idea for that. Although it is rather slashy.

Anyway, the idea is this: Some gentlemen show up at 221b from the British government. They tell Holmes his brother is missing and they need him to come take his place for something important, which they will not describe. When pressed, they say that Mycroft has run off with his mistress.

Now, Holmes knows right away something isn't right. Mycroft is gay. So either the government men are lying or Mycroft has gone off with a strange woman for unknown reasons, willingly or not. Either way, it is a potentially very dangerous situation for Mycroft. And for Holmes too, because if the government men are lying, what do they want Holmes for? Are they really government men? Is there even really a woman at all?

Suddenly, he has to be very careful who he can trust. He has to talk his way away from the government men and figure this out. Even Watson is a serious problem, because while he is trustworthy, homosexuality is still illegal and Holmes has a number of reasons he'd rather not broach the subject. Not the least of which is the fact that Holmes is gay as well and has been hopelessly in love with Watson for years now.

As of right now, that's what I have. I don't even know what route I would choose through the story. It has a lot of interesting possibilities, though. What I especially like about it is that is has a real mystery at its heart. The slash is brought about incidentally from that mystery. That always appeals to me. Anyway, the idea is free. If anyone wants to tinker with it, please do. I'll keep playing with it too. We'll see where it goes.

(On a side note, I'm also being called by a meme prompt for a bad ending verion of the Devil's Foot experiment... the imagery there is already percolating in my head. Have to consider that one too if I can, maybe tonight. Too much IRL stuff coming up. This whole month is a mess.)

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Entries tagged with ideas

Update 4/6/11: In need of a prompt

Update 3-2-11: a new story idea

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November 2021

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