Brainstorming - CannRomCom

CannRomCom is the nickname I just made up for my cannibal romantic comedy. I'm not sure that's entirely accurate; the cannibal in question may not actually be a human being. I haven't decided.

I was despairing of thinking up a good premise for this story and doubting whether it was even worth trying to brainstorm until last night. A vigorous 30-ish block walk got my brain working, as 30 block walks often do, and I decided that the MC should be a flesh-eating monster, along the lines of an X-Files critter I vaguely remember. That was a very helpful revelation for me; I still don't have a lot of the plot or any of the ending down, but I feel like I might actually be able to write this.

So. X-Files flesh-eating monster. I was debating telling the story from a neutral third-person perspective, first person of the MC, or possibly first person her best friend, who gets bits and pieces of the story at a time. I'm thinking I might go with the third option because I have in mind a funny (well, to my reckoning) opener where the narrator is confiding to MC that she's thinking of going to therapy.

It goes something like... "For what it's worth," she told me, "the decade I spent in therapy taught me two things. One, as a flesh-eating monster, I was just as entitled to my life and my happiness as anybody else. Two, everybody else is entitled to their lives as well." MC stopped going to therapy shortly after she had these two revelations because, as you might suspect, her therapist was trying to get at the root of her delusion that she's a flesh-eating monster. Considering that she really is a flesh-eating monster, clearly their relationship was doomed to stagnate.

MC's thing is that her cannibalism (or whatever it is) is only roused during sexual ecstasy. That's fortunate for most of the people in the world, but, since she had her revelation that she can't eat people without their full, informed consent, it's unfortunate for her sex life. Where it goes from there, I haven't quite decided, but I really like the premise. And I think I like the narrative I'm leaning toward, that of her friend. We'll see what comes of this! If I ever get it on paper (after which I'll immediately hate it), I'll even try to muster up the courage to workshop it.

Brainstorm - UFPE short story

Another idea for short stories I had is from the ten free cities along the coast of the UFPE continent (which so far lacks a name). I could even write a short story for each of them, on the personality of the cities and their wacky inhabitants. I had forgotten the name, so I checked the past entries: Ten Notches of the Glittering Scythe. I do like that, though I am skeptical that all those free-spirited, free city libertines ever agreed to call themselves one thing, fearsome as the name is. Or maybe they didn't agree? Maybe there are just as many names as cities?

I think the thing to do is to base each one very loosely on what I know of existing cities, which in some case is little more than seeing calendars with pictures of them. But it would be easier to keep their personalities straight that way. A full half of those could be based on NYC boroughs, if I wanted to go that way. Well, I don't think I will, but it's a good thing for me to keep in mind, in case I run out of places to base the cities on.

So NYC (could be further divided) and Paris are the obvious ones, since I've been there. San Francisco is another good one and LA because I've at least known people who've spent a lot of time there. Las Vegas would be zany fun to write. Something like Rome would be great and then St. Petersburg, (-berg?) which I know of vaguely because my mother spent a summer there. What else... Beijing was the center of Olympic stuff recently, so I may recall a little bit of that stuff. And of course, crazy crowded neon Tokyo. Excellent!

Now to do something with this. Hmm.