Hello and thank you for attending!
I'm floating two ideas that may end up only being one idea, due to their semantic proximity to each other.
I appreciate you taking the time to read and I eagerly await your feedback!
Hello and thank you for attending!
I'm floating two ideas that may end up only being one idea, due to their semantic proximity to each other.
Anomalous housing developments that are perpetually 'under construction'. They pop up in business-park/strip-mall towns; gated communities with a single complete "show house". The rest are just tyvek and plywood, clearly unfinished, and yet, people come and go from these neighborhoods, swearing that they live there.
A city council meeting is met with an anomalous housing developer. The developer is giving a presentation on a new housing proposal. The naming on each slide is inconsistent, but is all some variation of XYZ Acres/Creek/Gardens/Homes/etc. It details a fractal suburban sprawl plan, but details it in excess, giving example after example, McMansions et al. This meeting has been going on for 6 months, but nobody has noticed. (They're leaving to go to the bathroom, to get food, etc. but they come back.) They do not notice how long it's been going on. The Foundation has to cycle out agents to keep monitoring it for signs of ending or change. The presenter is non-stop, of course.
I appreciate you taking the time to read and I eagerly await your feedback!
Okay, I know I didnt give this a lot of time so I apologize on that front. Shall we get started? (Keep in mind, theres a reason why I explicitly critted your two concepts separately)
Anomalous housing developments that are perpetually 'under construction'. They pop up in business-park/strip-mall towns; gated communities with a single complete "show house". The rest are just tyvek and plywood, clearly unfinished, and yet, people come and go from these neighborhoods, swearing that they live there.
Ooh, I actually like this premise. The idea of random-ass housing developments suddenly appearing, not to mention unfinished, gives me a lot of different emotions. You can do a lot behind this premise. Ultimately it's up to you, but having this turn into a mystery plot, or trying to invoke a fear of the unknown could work really well. Of course, you'll also need to do some "worldbuilding" behind this (I guess it's more like "neighborhood-building" but you get the point.) But at the same time, I can see potential 2 pitfalls:
You'll also need to be careful with "people swearing they've lived there before." If you generalize this too much, it may sound a bit compulsive. You'll need to ask specific details, maybe even having the housing-complexes effect a wide area or maybe even being percieved as something else by those people (that gets to be a bit much but it could be played off nicely.) Theres more I'd like to discuss about this particular idea in general but I'll wait until you cleared up my previous concerns from above.
A city council meeting is met with an anomalous housing developer. The developer is giving a presentation on a new housing proposal. The naming on each slide is inconsistent, but is all some variation of XYZ Acres/Creek/Gardens/Homes/etc. It details a fractal suburban sprawl plan, but details it in excess, giving example after example, McMansions et al. This meeting has been going on for 6 months, but nobody has noticed. (They're leaving to go to the bathroom, to get food, etc. but they come back.) They do not notice how long it's been going on. The Foundation has to cycle out agents to keep monitoring it for signs of ending or change. The presenter is non-stop, of course.
This one I could see working, it would just be a little "iffy" (but only in the terms of it being used alongside your first idea). Having a perpetual presentation happening that basically amounts to nothing sounds like something that could be super funny. I also like the added detail of all the slide names being inconsistent. The concept itself would likely work, but there are also a few issues I have with it as well.
I'm floating two ideas that may end up only being one idea, due to their semantic proximity to each other.
Remember what I said above? Heres the honest truth, I'm not quite sure how you could make these ideas work collectively and still be fun to read. That's my personal conclusion (take it as you will). My biggest concern, if you did try this, would be the simple overload of information, not to mention the fact that by doing so opens a lot of errors thematically (referring to the second idea, as I assumed that this presentation amounts to nothing, and the first idea would not parallel to that well at all). To me, it sounds like a sugary cookie cake that's so rich with sugar that it's hard to swallow after a few bites. Youd also be juggling with two distinct narrative paths that would be "competing" with themselves for reader retention. That, to me, sounds like it would make a small disaster for these very interesting concepts.
Let me know if you have any comments or concerns!
JakdragonX This is really not adding much beyond your personal enjoyment of the ideas or not.
I don't see any actual substantive critique of the idea, just some vague advice. Most of your comments are about a potential draft's pitfalls rather than dealing with the actual ideas.
Try to be a bit more focused in the future. This is not a disciplinary post.
Alrighty!
So I think your best bet is to combine the two ideas in to one larger one, because the second feeds in to the first.
The things I'd like to see fleshed out before I can greenlight is more the why than the how. I think you've got a solid hook with the idea of the eternal meeting (That's horrifying for anyone who works corporate jobs), but there's no indication for why this is happening.
I'd suggest either grounding it with a GoI/Canon to give it some depth, or coming up with a central reason for this phenominon.
Overall, 95% of the way there. Address the "Why" and I'll GL.
Cheers
Concurring with magnus here, the two disparate ideas seem to be missing something: each other!
A dual pronged story here between the fractal expansion of these Tyvek developments and the distraction of the city planners in this endless meeting seems like a great foundation for a narrative. That being said, I think it might be a hard sell on this housing developer. Magnus mentions bringing in a GoI or a canon and that got my gears turning a little bit. Why not try to tie these developers to the rising Undervegas canon? Maybe the demons are trying to expand out of Paradise City a little bit to get into the real estate game? This seems like exactly the kind of thing that those entities would do and are capable of doing.
Talk to Rounderhouse about it sometime, I really think the idea could work.
I am summoned.
I like the ideas in a void, personal opinion. As for tying them into Undervegas, it's totally possible - but you'd be facing a bit of a tonal disconnect, I figure. Based on your pitches I feel like you were going for an inexplicable, spookyish atmosphere with them, the unnerving sense of something being wrong. Undervegas is staunchly comedic in tone, with banter and dry humor, punchlines on the weird shit that goes on in the city. That said, I could totally see this being made funny — Foundation investigations reveal the houses are very shoddily built, dialogue logs of agents in the meetings asking increasingly inane questions to the presenter, and everyone else not realizing anything is wrong, the Foundation learning what astoundingly shitty not-particularly-demony reason they're doing this. It's really just a matter if whether you want to take it there or not.
Okay, so I came here from IRC to critique this idea, so here we go…
Okay, so the idea itself, I could definitely see working if we were to put a comical twist on it, at least in my opinion, and here is how we might be able to do that:
There is very little that is bad about this, and the only thing I can find is what is below this…





