Where Ideas Go To Die

Summary:

A derelict facility containing some unusual anomalies

The Nexus of Forgotten Thoughts (re-revised) (Greenlit!)

ZG1906 21 May 2021 02:57

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: Article

Elevator Pitch: A collection of unrelated reality-bender writers who aren't aware of their connected ability, have accidentally formed a large facility from their collective conscious. The facility contains all of their ideas in some form of physical manifestation. The catch? They're not all "good" ideas. In fact, most of them are the throwaways and ideas abandoned by writers who just gave up on them (i.e. writer's block, buried by crit, young writers, death, etc. stopped the work from being finished).

Central Narrative: A facility is discovered by the Foundation which contains a large assortment of anomalies similar to the Department of Abnormalities. All of the information would be presented in a combination of exploration log format and "experiment/research notes" recovered from the facility by the Foundation agents, which are a manifestation of the notes and thoughts of the writers who were working on the "anomaly". As the agents explore, more anomalies are discovered and some are found to have disappeared. Some entire wings are found to be connected with a specific person. Research into the names mentioned in recovered documents reveals them to be otherwise perfectly ordinary people.

Hook/Attention-Grabber: The "anomalies" in this facility are comprised of a bunch of the "half-baked" and unfinished ideas that are being anomalously added to the facility's "collection". The overall narrative will be focused around the struggles of new writers and what happens to a complex idea when a writer forgets about it.

Additional Notes: This is largely inspired by my want to see good ideas grow and watching them start to shine, only to see them die (got deleted, cold-posted and removed, never officially posted anywhere, etc.) because an author gave up/decided to scrap it for something else/put it on a backburner indefinitely for whatever reason. I also want to incorporate a few of the ideas from the wiki that have met this fate, along with a few of my own into the "collection" as a metafictional nod to the wiki community.

Last edited on 07 Jun 2021 10:06 by ZG1906 Show more

Forum Criticism Team - Captain Post

Zyn 24 May 2021 06:08

Since this thread was on page 6 of the forum listing with no feedback yet, this is a quick reminder from staff for the author. Please remember to contact reviewers directly to request feedback as needed, if you haven't done so already.

This thread has information on reaching out to reviewers: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-13282692/how-to-get-more-reviews

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Re: Where Ideas Go To Die

fabledtiefling 24 May 2021 06:26

There's some promise here, I think. Not entirely sure about this as a Hub, at least not without a starting point. A Tale or SCP is more in your interest here!

A few questions to consider here-

Where do these ideas come from? How do they wind up at this facility? Why are they coming here? How do the ideas taking form in this facility effect the people who came up with them?

I think potentially moving away from this as a "place where 'dead ideas' go" and more of a "place where concepts creative people abandon go" might be a better hook. The idea of unfinished narratives taking form in one location and having some abnormality due to their unfinished nature might be really interesting!

Keep working on this, you have some good bones here.

Re: Where Ideas Go To Die

ZG1906 28 May 2021 21:27

original premise

So my original plan was to have an initial anomalous location discovered by the Foundation. It wouldn't be a main lister, more like a tale at first, following exploration of the facility and explaining the initial location. The "article" would end with a sort of organized log of the anomalies (ideas) which have been found in the site. I sort of wanted to leave their origin a mystery, but imply that when they "disappear" it is highly likely that they are being spit out somewhere else and sometimes change to be more complex/strong, etc.

In practice (and the reason I initially felt like this fit the mold of a hub better) was that I wanted the "dead ideas" to be the concepts that have been given up on by wiki writers, presented in a way that they can be offered up by the original creators and used by other writers who want to try their hand at it. This is largely why I don't want it to be a "main-list" anomaly. Its more like a nexus for the pieces that have some strong potential but otherwise would fade into the aether. Like an "SCP foster home."

So the actual piece would start with a sort of intro tale that explains the use of the page "in-verse" followed by an out-of-verse explanation and then some sort of table representing all of these ideas with any relevant information as though they were found within the facility.

If any of the works are rewritten successfully, then the entry could be updated and linked out to that article to help generate exposure. Nothing has to be linked back, though, and the "link" could be literally just that, or explained as some sort of implied connection made after the entry "disappeared" from the site. This way, the page is able to stand on its own without acting as the "authority" over the idea, just offering a place to have new life breathed into them.

As someone in IRC put it, it kinda like a collection of writing prompts, but built in-universe.

So I've revised the idea and taken it more in that general direction. I agree, this has more umph as a story with an actual narrative and I may have been shooting a little to high with the original concept. I've put a bit of thought into the underlying premise and I think I've got some ideas for actually fleshing out the narrative of the facility itself as an article. If it does well, then I could easily expand the idea into some Tales about the writers and how their powers manifest as these anomalies within the facility.

I would love to know what you think with this version ^__^

Last edited on 05 Jun 2021 23:27 by ZG1906 Show more

Re: Where Ideas Go To Die

fabledtiefling 07 Jun 2021 01:07

Could you clarify one last thing for me? What do you mean by "Article leading to tales"?

Re: Where Ideas Go To Die

ZG1906 07 Jun 2021 03:54

The idea is for an SCP article, but I've had a bunch of ideas for exploration logs and tales from the perspectives of the writers that I want to write separately/stand-alone based on this idea. I will change that in the post.

Re: Where Ideas Go To Die

margssentif 06 Jun 2021 21:48

Greenlit. The whole idea is great, and I can see it becoming successful, not really anything bad I can say about it. Make sure to contact me for crit when you're done.

Greenlit

Re: Where Ideas Go To Die

ZG1906 07 Jun 2021 10:04

Thank you! Absolutely!

Re: Where Ideas Go To Die

fairydoctor 07 Jun 2021 04:39

This strikes me as pataphysical. Which on the wiki is essentially "4th wall breaking" or a narrative that riffs off of "the writer".

Anyway, I really like the premise! Greenlight

Re: Where Ideas Go To Die

ZG1906 07 Jun 2021 10:05

Pataphysics are something I've just recently got into, and the metaphysical articles are some of my favorites, so I'm glad this sounds like it will fit right in >_< Thank you!