Saturday, September 12, 2015

Versus

The /writingprompts subreddit offers, as its name implies, story ideas for budding writers. Today I noticed an amusing story prompt game has been posted: use Wikipedia's random article button until you get three names. The first name is the protagonist, the second the antagonist, and the third the reason they're fighting. I'm going to try out this game right now.

The protagonist is Stephen Geller, a novelist and screenwriter. The antagonist is Alexander Hollaender, a scientist. They're fighting because of Edmund Griffith, the bishop of Bangor.

Considering Hollaender died in 1986 and Griffith in 1637, crafting this story presents some challenges. Were I to outline it, I might imagine something along these lines...

Aging novelist Stephen Geller is working on a biography of Hollaender, but he discovers something he doesn't like about the man - Hollaender, it turns out, had an irrational hatred of Griffith that coloured his research, and Geller finds it difficult to build a sympathetic portrait of Hollaender given this revelation.

Not exactly riveting stuff...


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