Startling Gazette!!!

These are ideas for a story I came up with a few nights ago. Nothing much as far as actual text goes, but I do have some pre-writing jibba-jabba I'm going to add. I'm transferring what I've got so far from another website because I like this one better.

This is the beginning to a story idea I came up with tonight.  It kept me from falling asleep; so, I see that as fairly important.  Been a while since it's happened; so, I'm kind of excited.  Expect more soon.

 

Got the idea from playing "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness."

 

An old man in his late 80s resides in a mental institution for something, paranoid dilusions?  As part of his therapy and rehabilitation, he spends at least an hour a day with his doctor just chatting.  He's a bit goofy and a bit of a loon, but has a good memory.  He recounts stories from his youth when he was involved in his older brother's newspaper.

 

The story is told from a retrospective voice in the first person.  Occasional mental reminds, foreshadowing, comments and such fill the stories from 75 years earlier.  Starting in the summer of when he was 7, he began delivering and advertising his brother's paper.  His older brother is in his mid 20s (22-24), and finish journalism at a college about an hour away.  He came back to town to run his own paper and do the stories he wants to do.  He rents out and lives in the old newspaper office from the earliest part of the town's history.  He does the investigating, reporting, and typing.  His younger brother helps with certain "activities" and sells papers on the corners around town.

 

The family has a history of being investigative.  Their grand father was a detective for the police, and their father is a local P.I.  Their mother is the local physician in town, and will evnetually have a few epidemics on her hands as the story progresses.  His older brother will specialize in stories that are so unbelievable, his paper is though of like an early tabloid.  His stories seem more like a fantastical account of actual events that the town's main newpaper covers with more "factual" appearances.

"An earthquake struck yesterday causing several sections of a farmer's land to collapse into the earth."
...as opposed to...
"Sunken ancient temple sinks further causing cave in to top level below local farmer's land."

 

Each story would be around an hour's read, linking to the docter's time with the eldery man as he recounts the events.  Each hour's read wouldn't complete finish a story; some would last a few sessions.

 

I'm still not sure about how silly these stories will be.  I will probably insert a little silly without thinking, and just carry that on through.

 

 

I continued to get ideas while I was trying to sleep.  I think the order of the therapy sessions with the doctor would be best if they weren't in chronological order.  Or rather, the ideas aren't arriving in a chronological order.  If I decided to publish this in a polished manner, I might try to keep the sessions that run over their time in order.  Then again, maybe not.  Here's what I've pieced so far:

 

Date: July 7th, 2001 (completely arbitrary, haven't researched enough yet to know when I want things to be.)

Dr. Nicoli Merlot

Session 6 with Patient # 8675-309 (It's that number on the wall!)

Patient has been complaining lately of a re-occuring nightmare.  I will bring up the nightmare for more details today in the hopes of possibly finding a "memory source" as with the other nightmares of which this patient is typical. 

 

blah, blah, blah...  the patient retells his nightmare of being pushed into a dark void and falling for a length of time before arriving back at the top of the void, only to be pushed in again.  It reminds him of a well he was exploring with older brother.  A farmer in his childhoood town had a rumor about a well that wouldn't hold any water.  It was working fine the previous week, maybe a little lower than normal.  After 2 straight days of rain, his well was bone dry.  He goes with his brother to investigate and is lowered into the well with a miner's helmet to see what the bottom of the well looks like.  The boy finds an opening in the masonry leading to a staircase leading down.

 

This would start the story of the two exploring the ruins under the farm.  They would be half flooded near the bottom floors due to the recent rain storm.  Not sure what they would find down there, but there would be a narrow escape back to the well and a climb out barely in time to avoid the well caving in.  Local papers refer to the event as an earthquake that caused a cave in on the farmer's land, but the older brother would publish his account of the ruined structures.  No photography would be available, but maybe a few rubbings/rendered drawings of the surfaces or wall markings would be the only proof.

 

My other idea to include with this was of the older brother's friends whom he met at college and how they could be used as experts when something came along he needed help with.  For instance, he thinks he's found an old house with a ghost present.  Since he can't see the ghost and doesn't know how to detect it, he asks his friend from who is going for a double Chemistry/Physics degree.  I know enough about science that I could wing a few explanations here or there.  His friend explains why we can't see some forms of energy and lights, relates that to prisms, and decides if he had the right kind of prismatic material, he should be able to create a pair of glasses that would allow the wearer to see things that would not be detected by the normal human eye.  This would result in a pair of goggles with multi-colored lenses.

 

 

 

I came up with a possible title this morning on my way to class.  "The Startling Gazette!!!"  I'm not sure about the "The" though.  It seems a little pompous to give it a "The."  This isn't any old startling gazette, this is THE Startling Gazette!!!  I do like the 3 !, I'm keeping that.  I see the older brother's printing as more of a pamphlet/magazine.  A front cover with Startling Gazette!!! across the top with an exploding graphic behind it.  A series of comic book-like panels depicting parts of the adventure cover the front with little dialogue/thought bubbles giving details and peaking an on-looker's interest enough to grab a copy. 

 

For the empty well/underground ruins story, I've got an idea so far. 

 

Top graphic of Startling Gazette.  A large S with the text gradually getting smaller to the right.

 

Starling Gazette!!!

 

Below that and to the left is the first panel.  A verticle panel covering one third of the width of the page.  It depicts the older brother rapelling down the well.  An upward angled shot from below him.  You can see his rope leading the light at the surface.  He looks over his left shoulder downward wearing a miner's helmet with a light shining his way down.  There would be a small caption in a though bubble near the panel saying: "A Mysteriously Dry Well..."

 

Covering the other two thirds of the page's width would be another panel showing the pillars, masonry, and underground "lair" of the abandoned area below the farm.  Not sure what it looks like inside yet, but I have the idea of a 3-4 times the older brother's height sized ceiling, stone pillars from the ground to the ceiling, and the older and younger brothers walking together with their helmet lights shining on the heiroglyphic-marked walls.  The caption here would read: "An Ancient Underground Structure Below a Local Farm..."

 

The last panel would be horizontal across the bottom of the front cover.  It would show the collapsing ceiling, falling brick work, and tumbling pillars to the left.  To the right, the older brother is mid-stride as he bounds up the stairs to escape the cave-in.  He'd be running toward the "camera" taking the shot so you could see the look of desperation as he tried to escape.  No helmet in this one, I'm thinking I'll make him lose it some how.  The caption for this panel would read: "A Cave-In and a Daring Escape..."

 

At the very bottom would be larger print with that extra bit of enticement. 

 

"What Lies Beneath Brandon Davis's Farm?  How Old Are The Ancient Ruins?  Read This Issue of The Startling Gazette to Find Out!!!"

 

I just realized how much of a throw back this sounds to the 1970s Batman tv show.

Reviews

[Jonhoi Vaughn]

Nice. It's really creative to make a story from an old man's presence in the institution, it's brilliant to let his mental illness give insight. It seems that the family is quite industrious. Is the family of great significance here? I like the way you make the characters a little eccentric (they'll fal into a story architype that way), because all this baby needs is intricate character development and i smell a best seller award! It's a good idea to not place the old man's memories in chronological order, that'll prevent it from being stale. This looks like a very promising project. I also get the impression that the story will sway from one persona to the next. The idea is commendable. Nice one.