As I mentioned in the introduction, I'm not very good at
finishing my stories. I'd like to think that I'm good at
coming up with the ideas, but when it comes to getting down
to work and actually doing something about them...well I
suck!
What I've done here for the first time is to gather all the
ideas that I've actually written down and put them together
in some sort of chronological order (but since this is
based on my own memory, it's very likely to be wrong).
While all of these ideas have had something written down
for them in most cases this is now lost. This 'something'
can range from 2 or 3 lines of a very basic idea to 30 or
40 pages of notes and or completed scenes. In many cases
I've long since lost the files/sheets with the ideas on.
Those that I do have I've no plans to put up the more
complete stories I do have, there is to much work copying
(some is written down using odd things called pens and
paper :} ), correcting and formatting, for ideas which I
will probably never finish. And in any case some ideas
where dropped because I didn't think they where workable.
Anyway here are the ideas, starting with the earliest.
End of the world/love story
This idea has been going around in my head
almost forever. It pre dates my use of computers even, so
most of the work I have on it (and that's a lot, maybe 40
pages!) is written the old fashioned way. However for all
the time I've had the idea, I still don't have a title for
it! Hence the lame name above.
As you might guess the details have changed a lot over the
years, but the basic idea is that we have 4 singles (2 men,
2 women) living on a frontier world of some future human
empire. Each has had some sort of major personal lost in
the recent past and is coming to terms with that. They find
each other (2 women are twin sisters) and fall in love. The
back drop to this otherwise 'Mils and Boone' sounding story
is that some non-corporal alien life are destroying the
planet for unknown and unfathomable reasons.
The bits of the story I've done (I didn't work in story
order in those days) have been rewritten at least 3 times,
but the characters are now stable in my mind. Of the idea's
I've had, it's this one I've come back to again and again.
I really would like to complete this one. I see this as
ending up as full length novel and maybe my first published
work?
Justice
Unlike the above the title for this story came
straight away. Also this was written entirely on a computer
(an Atari ST!). The story was told from the point of view
of a man kidnapped by aliens and put together with an human
(a woman) and 3 other aliens to pass judgement on another
alien race. What exactly they where judging the race on, I
was never quite clear, I gave up on this idea before I got
that far. However they had all been chosen due to the fact
that their homeworlds where all close the the home of the
species under judgement
This was only ever going to be a short story and I guess I
got about half way. It was rewritten once and I did have
the files (albeit in propriety format, unreadable on my mac
or PC), until an unfortunate hardrive formatting accident!
The inside
This idea only ever got a very little written
down, but I have worked on it a lot in my head for a long
time. So much so that it is this story which formed the
basis for the story I'm currently working on Shadow of the
citadel.
The basic idea was that a very intelligent, slightly cold
and detached investigator (a sort of Sherlock Holmes type),
is called to investigate a murder of a worker by some
biological, living, machinery. This machinery is inside a
living creature that floats harvesting some sort of
valuable gas from a gas giant planet. In the setting for
this story organic, living technology is the norm and
hardware that we know today is rare. I wanted to create a
gothic medieval feel to the story, where the organic
technology is not understood by most and is created and
maintained by almost magical and very mysterious
characters.
The story was going to end with the investigator finding
some dark plot by these controllers of organic technology
and those who rule the rest of this world. The dark gothic
feel, the medieval type of setting, the conspiracy and even
the name of the investigator all ended up in the Shadow of
the citadel, which is hopefully going to be next finished
work!
The reds and the blues
Only a working title this one. Again very little written
down, but lots of work done in my head. The basic idea was
in the near future just after man has achieved star travel
a new Earth like world is discovered. This world was once
home to two great civilisations which appear to have wiped
each other out in some sort of war. Since no records that
the explorers can understand have been found, they call the
two civilisations the reds and the blues. The explorers
find no traces of any survivors but they do find lots of
weapons. It's decided that any weapon or weapon technology
they find will not be recorded or tested in any way, but
instead destroyed. They believe that man already has all
the weapons he needs (I did decide this for sure, but the
story could have been set at the end of human war). The
military get wind of this and go to the world to retrieve
the weapons. Just as the military take over, both the red
and the blues return in some non corporeal form
The only thing that I ever wrote down for this idea was the
opening paragraph, which was a description of one of the
battle fields the explorers found. This paragraph, with
only minor re-writing, became the first paragraph of
Alone
Symphony in Cyberpunk
Another working title. This idea is another idea that I've
worked on and off (mostly off) for a very long time. The
basic idea is that in the near future an artificial
intelligence built to run a mega corporation has become
truly self aware and is making preparations to leave Earth
and join with other AI's that it has contacted in deep
space. The story was going to be of epic length and be told
from the point of view a lots a characters that where
unwittingly pawns of this god like AI. The stories of the
characters would weave in and out of each other with the AI
character only coming in directly in to the story towards
the very end.
This story would be very complex to write, because of all
the different characters and plots, which is why I've never
got beyond the ideas and character stage. This one I would
like to finish some day, but I suspect it might take a good
few years to pull this off the way I'd like it to work!
Doctor Who Story
I've been a fan of the series for as long as I can
remember, so it was only natural that I should turn my hand
to writing a story involving the Doctor. I did get a quite
a few pages done on this one, but this is unlikely ever to
see the light of day as I don't have rights to the
characters
Anyway legal bits aside, the story was set in the 7th
doctors era (Sylvester McCoy, the last of the 'classic'
series). The basic idea was that the TARDIS was being
drained of energy by some sort of non corporal being. The
energy drain critically effects both the TARDIS and it's
crew (Ace was the companion in this story), so the Doctor
finds the nearest place to materialise. This happens to be
a huge star liner which just happens to be the venue for a
summit between a government and a former terrorist
organisation, in the process of giving up it's arms
The Doctors arrival brings the energy 'vampire' (as I
described it in my notes) with him which cripples the ship.
Just as this happens a rouge terrorist cell takes control
of the ship and hopes to use all of the high rank officials
as hostages.
As you can see the idea was almost complete, only lacking a
resolution! The ideas for this came mainly from the times I
wrote it (spread out over 3 or 4 years!), events like the
release of Nelson Mandeala, the I.R.A campaign of terror
and first cease fire. I was trying to deal with big issues
which are probably even more relevant today, like terrorist
and if they should ever be forgiven and difference between
them a freedom fighters
Maybe one day the story will see light of day in a
different guise?
The Secret Life of Ideas
Unlike the last story this was only ever a vague idea. I
took as the premiss that idea's are not 'had' by people but
rather 'caught' by them. That is to say an idea is a
non-corporal 'thingy' swimming about in the ether which can
get caught in some ones mind.
A very abstract idea to be sure, I didn't really have a
story to fit around this. The closest I got was some one
using some sort brain scanner seeing the same pattern in
two different people separated by a short distance.
I didn't really work on this one for long (about a night
maybe!) so perhaps there is a good story there, but I can't
find it
Drug story
This is another idea that I've had running around in my
head for a long time. At one stage this idea was going to
be combined with the Symphony in Cyberpunk story since they
had similar settings. However I think this idea had enough
worth for a separate story. Basic premiss here is the
reality is maintained by consensus, that is we see the
world as it is because almost the whole world see's it that
way. The Drug the story is based around, like many others,
is an hallucinogen, however the drug also increases the
telepathic potential in users. The effect of this is that
an experienced user can direct the hallucinations of
others. Get enough users together and they begin to
perceive a new reality. When this reality can perceive it's
self it becomes self sustaining.
All heavy stuff. The story revolved around increasing
strange events surrounding some sort of drug den. Like the
symphony story, it would have been told from 4 main
characters points of view (a user, a police officer, a
reporter and some one else!). The story was also to have
featured two recurring places/characters, the Traveller and
the house of many doors. A lot of work was done on the
characters and basic out line and I even completed a few
scenes, but again I think this is one that I can't do
justice to (yet!)
The Heavens Afire
This story is little more than an idea. I've got the
opening paragraph done and some vague ideas sketched out.
The story opens with a series of disasters in the world. A
few see these as signs that the apocalypse is at hand. In
the middle of this a young woman, with no memory of her
past appears.
The story would have been told from the point of view a
police officer working on her case. As the story unfolds
more apocalyptic disasters happen as well as increasingly
strange attempts on the woman's life/
What is actually happening is that two very powerful, non
corporal alien (maybe!) races are fighting each other, this
accounts for the apocalyptic events on the earth and in
fact all over the universe! The idea suggested in the story
is that these creatures are what are perceived on Earth as
Angles and Daemons. The woman is in fact the crystallised
form of a increbley powerful living energy weapon that if
used would probably end all of existence! The weapon was
hidden by it's creators because they feared that either
there 'side' would get desperate enough to use the weapon
or that the 'other' side would capture and use it. She is
totally unaware of this as the story starts but dose figure
things out as it progresses.
Another epic length story this one. The basic idea does
sound very much like the Dawn character from Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, but I think (I can't 100% sure) I had the
idea before Dawn appeared (season 5).
I've always wanted to do a story with a biblical angle to
it. I did have a slight biblical angle to one version of
Datascape, but I removed it. I'm not a religious man at all
(I'm an atheist), but there is a lot of good material in
the bible. I just need to find a story I can cope with the
scale of!
I've been reworking this idea of late and I've got a new
'angle' on it. It's significantly different to the idea
presented here, but I'm not going to go in to details here
and now. I hope to have it finished some time towards the
end of 2007.
The manor house
This is quite a well developed, with about 20
pages of story completed. I'd worked on in on and off
(mostly off) for years. The idea as it stands now will
never be finished, but I do love the setting so I'm sure it
will see the light of day in another story.
The setting was an English country manor. This particular
manor is owned by a Russian business man. His company
writes software specifically for scientists and as a large
summer thunderstorm approaches he is holding a launch party
for some new piece of software. Lots of top scientists have
been invited. Apparently organising things in the guise of
the business analyst, mr grey is the traveller. Also
gatecrashing the party is a young lady that seems to know
both the traveller (personally!) and what is going to
happen. She wants to stop it.
As the storm hits things start to happen, like ghosts being
seen and the scientists starting to go in to some sort of
trace. Also the house becomes surrounded by some sort
impenetrable barrier. What is actually happening is that
the traveller is using the scientists to power some sort of
natural time machine to take the house back to...
Well I never did work that bit out. I know that his motives
are good and that the young woman try to stop him, sees
this in the end. Together they are able to achieve what
ever aims he had.
Two reasons I stopped working on this idea, firstly I
didn't come up with a reason for the travellers plans and
secondly, it was obvious to me that the story was based on
a Sapphire and Steel story (for the very good reason it
was!)
Re-occurring people and
places
Through my incomplete works (and one completed one), I have
some regular characters that pop up from time to time. The
idea is to link in some subtle and mysterious way all of my
stories. That idea hasn't yet worked out since only one
finished work has included one of the characters. There
will however more references to these characters, but since
most ideas haven't made it yet, the details do belong here
The Traveller
This character is a very distant and very mysterious
character that is only ever seen in the backgrounds of my
stories. Very little is ever given away about him. He is
almost certainly not human but looks like a tall grey or
white haired man. The only story which really features him
in any great detail is The Manor. He is the observer of
accident in Life's Edge and appears in the
background for my ideas of the drug story, the route
and Symphony in cyberpunk. The idea of this distant
watcher playing in events from the edges, always
working for the common good, is clearly inspired by
The Doctor. This caused a problem when I came to name
him (which strangely I only did while writing this!),
since I wanted to suggest this link with the name
without being overly obvious. The Traveller is the
best I can come up with at the moment, but it is a
work in progress. Like the character him self. I do
have lots of ideas about the character which I want to
use, so they won't appear here, (sorry!) However since
I want to keep the character mysterious in the extreme
it's unlikely that any thing more than the barest
minimum of these will ever make it on to the page.
The House of Many
Doors
This may seem more like a place than a character, but the
idea was that it would be come a character in it's own
right through several stories (some of which I'm still
working on). The house is an old gothic house in some run
down part of an unnamed modern town. The house is empty and
has been for some time. It's not suffered the normal fate
of empty buildings in this part of town (become squats or
getting destroyed by vandalism) due to the fact that it's
haunted. Well that's what the locals think anyway. In fact
the house is part of interdimensional conduit called the
Route. This conduit touches many worlds and times. On each
world it appears differently, but they are all linked by
doors, gates or arches. The route was to feature heavily in
my 2006 NanoWriMo entry, The Route. I had names of
other places along the route, like the tower of gates,
the plane of stones and border inn. This setting has
even appeared in my of D and D adventures as a way of
getting the characters between two campaign worlds.
There are lots of stories to be told about the house of
many doors and the route so I'm not going to say to much
else about it here!