An alien in her organic pet like ship crashes on a desert island. After the ship dies the Alien must protect it's "backup", until it hatches and they can both escape the island together.
Again the wording of this could change but I think I'll stick with this story if I can.
Hi Ciaran,
ReplyDeleteOkay - so - an alien has an organic transport which crashes, but the organic transport carries with it an egg, which will hatch to become the alien's means of the desert island?
I think this idea has potential - but have a think about some of the principles re. making stories work - so 'conflict' based scenarios and 'ticking clocks' and goals.
As I think about your words, I'm somehow reminded of the ending of the original Planet of the Apes, when the human realises that the alien planet of the apes is actually earth in the future. For me, there's something interesting about the seclusion of the desert island and the alien as a means of cutting this character off from some kind of world or reveal that your story might express in some kind of twist?
I'm not having much success at thinking up a good twist. If there is a highly emotional moment it would be the ship dying. Due to the time limit I would have to scrap this story to have one with that kind of twist.
DeleteI think you should relax a little more about having 'more ideas' - keep everything a bit less fixed, and then it won't feel so unsettling to have to move things around. How about scrapping your alien ship idea completely (not because it's bad, but because you've had it already and it's safe in the ideas bank) - try and sweat your words a bit more - for example, 'alien' might describe a character who was different to the world he finds himself in - it doesn't mean necessarily he's come from space. You know there are these birds and insects etc that lay their eggs in the nests of other creatures, and let the mother hatch them, even though it's a different species; maybe your characters are animals on a desert island in this sense - a story about a mix-up where an 'egg' from a different species ends up in the nest of some other species - it would be an 'alien' then, right? Perhaps it could make for a comedic short - a snake that thinks its mother is a parrot - and wants to fly like a parrot and doesn't understand why it can't?
ReplyDeleteTalking about a mix match of species, why not create your own creature that's a mix of species and say he's an alien - you could have a lot of fun with that, I found a character design book in the library on it too and another that talks about animalistic characters.
ReplyDelete