Now I've read the last idea I put up even that seems too crammed for a one minute story and after a chat with my mum I've simplified it some.
An old pensioner is digging around his cellar trying to find something to stop him being bored. He stumbles across an old pirates costume hat and is struck with an idea; something that will allow him the adventure he is looking for. He goes about making a minature ship/boat on the table in the cellar using wood parts found around the cellar. He stands back to look but isn't happy with it. He goes about improving it ending up with it being nearly the size of the table. Again he is not happy with it. This repeats a few times until eventually the ship/boat is too big to get up the staircase to the doorway. The pensioner is struck with an idea and starts to fill the cellar up with water to make the ship/boat easier to get out of the cellar. He then uses a grappling hook from his old days of mountain climbing to ease the ship/boat out of the house, attaching the ends of the grappling hook to the boat and his car out front. He then drives the boat down to the river where adorning the pirate costume hat and the rest of a makeshift costume he heads down river to the open sea....
2 comments:
Hey Emma, I like the sound of idea, it seems it could be quite funny with the boat getting to big. instead of filling the cellar up with water maybe with alcohol from the barrels in the cellar, thanks for the suggestion with the lumberjack hitting a photo booth with a trombone it help with my final part of my first plot idea. :)
hey Emma,
There is definitely something beginning to cook here - the idea of the elderly character is interesting. I'm wondering if maybe you could go a bit more 'high fantasy' with this - a bit more 'Narnia'. Right now, you've got your character being the pirate, but what if your main character isn't the pirate. Okay - so I'm pretty much thinking out loud here; but what about...
Act 1
It's a boring rainy sunday afternoon - and your main character - a young boy/girl is exploring the cellar of their house - at which point they find an old pirate map. Suddenly, they are sucked into the map, find themselves on a pirate ship battling an evil pirate...
Act 2 - stuff happens - a grappling hook is involved
Act 3 - more stuff happens, child returns to cellar, it's all over - or is it?
See what I mean?
The thing about your latest story is that you've got a lot of back-story to show - i.e. what the pirate costume is doing there, how he feels about it, his life as a mountaineer... There is, however, a nice sense of poignancy about your story - this guy sailing his ship into the sunset.
The point about the grappling hook, is a pirate ship might have one anyway - for ensnaring and boarding other ships etc. It sort of makes sense that they'd have one.
Just a thought - maybe you can combine these two ideas; let's say that it is an old man who comes down to the cellar; maybe there's an old pirate ship in a bottle - something from his childhood, and maybe it's amongst lots of things - like pictures of his family, or his wife (so we know he's all alone). Maybe he sits in an old chair down there (because maybe the cellar is like his den). Maybe, as he looks into the bottle, we hear the sea, and suddenly, bam, he's on a pirate ship, having this amazing adventure, involving a daring stunt with a grappling hook (what else!), and he's having a great time - and then, finally, we see him - come Act 3 - slumped in the chair, back in the cellar - and he's passed away, the ship in the bottle on his knee - but he's smiling, because he had one last adventure?
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