Monster House

Summary:

I just need help and lots of it

Monster House

CountAbra 19 Sep 2020 14:24

Seeking Greenlights: Yes
Page Type: Tale (since this is best for this I been told)
Genre: Horror

Elevator Pitch: A cottage that causes intense fear for anyone approaching it, activating the fight, flight or freeze.

Fight - the person enters the cottage and never seen again
Flight - If the cottage senses the person is gonna flee, it will use anything to lure the person into the house. Eg if the person is an animal lover, the cottage will emit a noise of a cat or dog
Freeze - Subject hallucinates an image of somebody close to the subject run out in a panic, in the same fashion as Shelby did. The image will be afflicted with a similar wound to Shelby. After this an unknown force drags the image into the cottage and the image’s voice begs for help.

Central Narrative:

+ show block

Cast: Shelby, Zack (Shelby’s boyfriend)

Context: Zack plans a surprise weekend in a forest cabin for Shelby, so they can work out their relationship issues and so Zack has an opportunity to propose.

The house was created by a fight between Zack and his ex and the tension between Zack and Shelby aids the house to grow

Shelby arrives at the cottage, Zack is already there

Zack get hit by a rock (from the house)

They hug, awkwardly flirt and try to talk their issues out. This seems to work.

Black out, Shelby goes to the basement after Zack saying the fuse box is down there

Shelby trips over the corpse of Zack’s ex (the owner of the cabin)

She alerts Zack, she thinks he did it. Zack has been the only other person in the cabin apart from Zack’s friend

Shelby packs up her stuff and leaves in a panic. She goes to the police, telling them what she saw. The team of officers that go to investigate, all go missing (POV of one officer’s body cam will show this)

Zack has also gone missing.

The effects of the cottage first activate between the last plot point and next one

More people go missing and all the missing person’s cases surround the cottage. This brings in the Foundation who contain it

Members of the team of armed guards start disappearing

The surrounding wall starts becoming destroyed

‘Shelby Graham’ starts being written on the windows.

The cottage is set ablaze by an unknown source. The cottage regenerates all damage. This is the cottage showing off it’s abilities.

The missing guards are found dead in a nearby loch.

Dr Rowe interviews Shelby

Shelby stands on the porch and the house becomes extremely violent, revealing it is alive.

Hook: Zack’s disappearance, this provides mystery to the identity of the murderer. Also the house’s spit fed abilities creates tension.

Additional Notes: why The cottage represents the discourse and issues of Shelby and Zack, personal and as a couple. Shelby will be the main focus of the story.

Edited - the crits are from the previous versions

Last edited on 10 Oct 2020 15:54 by CountAbra Show more

Re: Monster House

Marcelles_Raynes 20 Sep 2020 02:53

On behalf of the Team of the Oinks, I shall be looking at this post!

Let's dive in, shall we?

The idea feels, as you've mentioned in the "Additional Notes", somewhat underdeveloped and very straightforward. The fight or flight responses seem very direct, with little room for any really strange stuff to happen. As in, we the reader could have surmised what would happen in each given scenario based on our own pre-existing knowledge.

The plot seems a bit contrived (after all, how did two more people enter the house without suffering the anomalous effects? And if they did, why didn't they both die as you've stated they would in the Elevator pitch?), the characters don't seem like they have much depth to them as of now, and the central narrative as a whole does not seem compelling. You can remedy this by making us empathize with Jack and Shelby. They are human after all, and they have a relationship with one another. Show us their banter and how they interact with one another. Maybe they're in a rough spot and this cabin is one of the ways that they're trying to use in order to get back to a good place. Maybe they're just on vacation. I do not know, but they need to have more depth to them.

Don't lose hope on this. It just needs a bit more polish and development. I wish you the best of luck!

---

~ M.D.R.

Re: Monster House

Quadraginta 20 Sep 2020 14:27

Marcelles_Raynes has already covered the crit, so I'll pop by to give encouragement instead.

+Let us start the motivational talk!

Hook/Attention-Grabber: I have no fucking idea here

Additional Notes: I feel like I’m wasting space posting this since this idea is very underdeveloped and the idea forum (as I see it) is to post ‘developed ideas’ to see if they are worthy of green lighting.

We've all been through this feeling. Trust me. I nearly gave up on several occasions, but then I thought about all the people who kept pushing themselves and kept stretching their imaginations and brains and kept seeking critique until they succeeded. When I saw that, I just kept going.

It's a process. At times, agonizing, other times, infuriating.

Very rarely is the first iteration of an idea the most successful. You think of an idea, have people tear it apart, build it back together once it gets #rekt, show it off again, have it torn apart again, rinse and repeat until fewer and fewer people tear it apart. Even when something succeeds, some people will still hate it.

So, I encourage you to rethink your attitude (because ngl, some people will be very unwilling to help someone if they essentially say, "hey my idea sucks, I know it, FML, but help me anyways.") pick your chin, keep fleshing out this idea until it kicks ass and you have something beautiful and something to be proud of.

Please don't give up. Trust me. The process is worth it.

Seeing your completed product make people happy is a beautiful feeling and I want you to feel it.

Sorry if I got sappy there.

I hope my motivational #Quadtalks helped you out in some way.

Have a good day, friend.

👍

EDIT for bonus motivation.

I'm happy to see you continued to pursue this idea and decided not to give up.

Keep at it!

:D

MORE EDIT:
Oh woukd you look at that! You got two Greenlights! What did I tell you about not giving up, eh? ;D

Last edited on 26 Oct 2020 05:10 by Quadraginta Show more

Re: Monster House

Pedagon 21 Sep 2020 05:42

Hey CountAbra!

Sorry it took so long. I'm moving still and have no wifi so I have to do these on my phone and it takes a long time…

Firstly, you should absolutely take the advice from Quadraginta because you don't have a bad idea! Writing is a process that takes time and effort to grow! You'll get there and I know that because you keep improving through time!!

+ Elevator Pitch

This is a cottage that causes anyone approaching it extreme fear triggering the ‘Fight, Flight or Freeze’ Reaction. Different scenarios occur depending on how the subject reacts.

Fantastic summary! Simple ideas are usually really good because they let the anomaly take care of itself and let you focus on the rest of the article. Don't worry about making this more complicated. Things to consider are: Is it getting near the house that triggers the responses or something else? Does it cause people going near the house to experience their default fear response or does the house influence which effect they experience?

Fight: Subject enters the cottage and dies

Simple and satisfactory! No issues

Flight: Subject runs from the cottage and is stuck in a loop. Constantly coming back to the cottage until they enter, expire or get help.

What causes the loop to end? At what point does the person stop fleeing and decide to go through the fight response? Why does getting help cause the effect to stop? What causes them to keep coming back to the cottage? Does the house influence their mind to keep bringing them back?

Freeze: Subject hallucinates a young Caucasian female running out the cottage. This hallucination is used to try and play on the victim’s empathy. Then fight or flight.

This is where you should expand upon in the central narrative because this is what opens you anomaly up to your described narrative. Everything else makes sense in simple terms but this is the complicated part of your idea. As such, I will address this part in the Central Narrative critique below.

+ Central Narrative

Shelby discovers a body in the basement of the cottage

How does Shelby connect to the cottage? Does this narrative occur while the anomaly is contained or before containment?

and confronts Zack who denies he did it

Why does she confront Zack? What makes her think Zack did it?

Shelby packs her stuff and leaves in a panic, she goes to the police telling them what she saw, a team of officers go to the cottage and all go missing.

Interesting development! Does this happen in an event log? Discovery log? Something else?

Zack was never thrown in jail but has also gone missing. More people go missing with all cases relating to the cottage which brings the Foundation’s attention.

These are really interesting moments because they shift the reader's beliefs that Zack did it to confusion and speculation that something else is going on. So what is really going on? How do these two characters connect back to the anomaly you are describing? What do YOU think is causing the anomaly and why do YOU think it uses Shelby's appearance in its effect? These don't need to be explicit in the article, but you should have an idea of what is going on.

I'm looking forward to hearing back from you! Every time you share this idea with me it develops more and more. Know that you are not the same author as when you first started writing it and that you are experiencing the same frustrations that a lot of authors experience when they first start!

-Brian :)

Last edited on 24 Sep 2020 02:25 by Pedagon Show more

Re: Monster House

Pedagon 15 Oct 2020 19:36

Based on my many discussions with CountAbra on Discord and reading the drafts, proposals, and ideas conversations I happily give my Greenlight to this idea!

My advice: Telling the story from the perspective of Shelby as the narrator is really powerful. This could let you explore an anomaly from the perspective of outside the Veil and how humans experience these things (Capone comes to mind). Can't wait to see it develop :)

Re: Monster House

Cerastes 04 Oct 2020 00:16

Posting as requested to jot down my IRC thoughts.

So as I mentioned, the backstory will be essential here, as you said the key concept would be the struggles of relationships. So, characterization will be an important part of the article. Instead of tweaking the backstory to fit the anomaly, change the anomaly to fit the backstory you envision- but as you mentioned, you still have some work to do on fleshing out the narrative.

Re: Monster House

Cyvstvi13 07 Oct 2020 10:12

As it is, this article works itself towards the more traditional sense of narrative writing with all the common affordabilitites that come with such a style.

It seems like a loosely woven narrative surrounding the emotional angst of young lovers where the SCP itself is just a narrative device to further this core narrative. By itself, this isn't really a problem, there's plenty of articles that mainly deal with a central narrative that goes beyond just the SCP itself.

What specific emotions are you aiming to instill in the reader? Fear, terror, or something more mundane or uplifting.

Last edited on 14 Oct 2020 12:58 by Cyvstvi13 Show more

Re: Monster House

CountAbra 25 Oct 2020 19:56

Fear is the main emotion I want to make the reader feel. Even if that fails, if the readers feel uneasy and the atmosphere is tense it’s a win

Re: Monster House

cybersqyd 07 Oct 2020 15:27

hm. Honestly my biggest concern with this is it feels…kinda grand and complex, and idk. I'm torn: this feels like it would be a lot more effective as a narrative with more focus: really tightening this down on the interaction between spooky house, Shelby being spooked and Zack; and like, really raising questions like "did Zack do this deliberately? Is he aware of what the house does?" and then hinting towards answers.

I kinda feel like dragging in a lot more people just, leads to this becoming more complex and having more characters to characterise without adding much to the plot; whereas a more intimate story revolving around a spooky house and Shelby/Zack's relationship and how the house affects it, and how Shelby's discovery of Zack causing this affects their relationship too?

I guess my big question here is: what do you expect a reader to get out of this? How are you wanting to really scare us?

Re: Monster House

CountAbra 07 Oct 2020 16:11

My aim with this is to scare or put the audience on edge. I plan to do that by creating a tense atmosphere and the ‘oh shit’ moment is revealing the house is alive and responsible for this shit that happened.

Zack getting hit in the back of the head is one of the events that I plan to use to create a tense atmosphere. It’s more like a “Who did that?” and the discovery of Zack’s ex’s corpse is the thing that is meant to encapsulate the most tension and a lot of questions is arised like “Was it Zack, if not who was it? Shelby but…”.

Going back to the characters, including the house there are 3 characters that aren’t kill fodder. The cops and Zack’s ex are just kill fodder, you don’t need to know much about them nor care much about them, the ex girlfriend to a lesser extent but still.

Re: Monster House

RadioactiveRADS 09 Oct 2020 19:09

After talking in the ircs, I greenlight this.