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Short Story idea

A

AmateurD

Hello guys.

The story is about a writer whos is obsessed with his new book. He has photofobia and spends most of the time in the room trying to get it finished. He is stuck and still has no ideas for the end of the story. He is so obsessed that the main characters enter in your insane reality and each one of them will try to convince him to write the glorious end for herself.
My idea is that in the end the writer is the protagonist of other person story but i still dont know the ending.


What do you guys think? Confused? Cliche? Thanks
 
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There is the potential to cut back and forth between the real writer and the main character or you can completely bring the real writer into existence at the end of the story when the realization is made. Make the entire story 3rd person until the end when he discovers then switch to first person (the real writer speaking now) and explaining why he chose this ending. The entire story could be the real writer telling the story of how he wrote the fake writer's existence to a bunch of friends, thus giving a chance to cut back and forth between the two's perspective
 
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CHamburger it's not their friends who are over him. It's the fictional writer story characters who appear in the room and start bugging him about the ending ( because each one of those characters want a glorious end for itself)
 
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AmateurD said:
CHamburger it's not their friends who are over him. It's the fictional writer story characters who appear in the room and start bugging him about the ending ( because each one of those characters want a glorious end for itself)
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So if you look at it, it's kind of like 3 different levels of characters all trying to craft their version of the perfect ending
 
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That's even better because now they're figmants of his imagination. How long is it? If its long what are ypu to have the fictional writer do in between? Comi those are awesome ideas. That'd be aweome. the audience wouldn't ever really know.
Like I said if its too long you're gonna need to amp up the fictional writers action. Even taking a Shit as long as it fills times and builds story. Ypu should try to make him appear as real as possible so the aufience will be hit by ypur twist.
 
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Chamburger well I have a lot to think about but definately not too long. All i can say with sure is that I want it to be black and white with touches of madness and mystery. If all of that it's a story written by another writer i think i can fantasize a little.
 
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I like the photophobic (intensely sensitive to light) aspect of the story. I'm photophobic and work at night. The windows in my house are all tinted and my bedroom is blacked out. If the main character is severely sensitive, he would have his entire house blacked out (think aluminum foil curtains). If that's the case, he would never see the outside. Plus, every time he opened the door just a crack, the light would be physically painful and cause him to close the door as quickly as possible. The other two characters could talk to him on the telephone, making this a one actor and one set film that would be very inexpensive to make. The conclusion could be that he opens the door to go outside and all that is there is pure, blinding whiteness "like an empty page".

Best of luck to you.
 
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Lucky Hardwood thanks. I like the ending and it can even be night but when he opens the door, he sees something like an empty page as you said.
Having him talking on the telephone would really be inexpensive but I dont know if it can work that way.

Also thanks for sharing that part of your life. It must be really difficult.


How is your room in terms of lighting? I mean, can you support well the lighting of a lamp?

Thanks.
 
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I can handle light fairly well. It's just direct sunlight that is particularly painful. I use lamps and have no problem watching TV. Bright fluorescent lights can be painful. Someone very sensitive would only use incandescent lamps and would have them on dimmers. As a setup, you could pan around the room showing the aluminum foil covering the windows and state that the room is very dimly lit. When the other two characters come over (maybe together) and knock on the door, the main character could go to the door and put on a pair of really dark sunglasses before opening the door. When the door opens just enough to allow the other characters entry, there can be an intense white light bursting through the opening that makes him cover his eyes. That would be foreshadowing for the ending, but at the time it should be seen as his reaction to the light. One of the other two can run into the coffee table and ask if he can make it brighter. He then turns up the dimmer, but keeps his sunglasses on. That establishes his photophobia without saying it. At the end, when you reveal the pure white nothingness, you can start with the brightness way up, blinding the audience, then reduce the luminosity to a viewable level, but still showing nothing but white. The dimming of the light would mimic a person's eyes getting used to the brightness. You could even have him turn around to look back at his house and have there be nothing there. Since his house only exists on the inside as the creation of an external writer, there would be no exterior. Alternately, you could have just the view through the open doorway into his living room surrounded by the white nothing.
 
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An idea on how you can imply that your main character is not the author of his own destiny is that, while struggling with the ending, he says, "I wish my characters would just tell me the ending." just before the knock on the door.
 
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It's an electrical device used to dim lights by restricting the flow of electric current to the bulb. They are mostly built into wall switches with either a rotary knob that you turn or a slider to set the light level. Really high end dimmers have digital displays with specific lumen levels. You can even get ones that you can control with your computer or smartphone. They are also available built into extension cords for table lamps and such. See this website http://www.lutron.com/Products/StandAloneControls/Dimmers-Switches/Pages/DimmersSwitches.aspx for products and their descriptions.
 
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