I've been developing framework of a book. It is basically an 'And Then There Were None' parody. I've been thinking of various things and brainstorming but I'm having trouble coming up with an original place where these people are trapped. Any ideas?
On the rooftop of a fictitious skyscraper which can't be spotted from the ground (since it's too high). Also the top floors are science labs where rabid baboons run rampant. Did I just steal the latter from the movie "Shakma"? Assuming I don't have to be too serious in a parody, but I don't know the rest of your framework. I've used prisons, caves and islands (even islands on different planets) but none of these are very original of course. Perhaps if you can't find an original place to get stuck, make it an original circumstance. Some Star Trek places come to mind too; "the void" which is a subspace-enveloped empty part of space, and a planet where time passes at an accelerated rate. I don't know what exactly you're looking for, but there you go
Lost in a jungle. Last survivors on a cruise ship that "went bad." Trapped in a collapsed cave or tunnel. Inside a submerged ocean lab with no way to get to the surface (or space station). Trapped in a jar by an alien child.
Locked into a mall at night. The (pick the political party you dislike most) national or party convention. Hundreds of people surrounding them, but they're the only ones who can think. Under the stadium of a huge arena during a major game, but can't find their way out (h/t This is Spinal Tap)
Keep the island: Christmas Island, yeah and have it over Christmas, make it all Agatha Dickensy where strange visitations and a death occur. A Christmas Carol and murder mystery mash up. The first of these visitors a partridge that's managed to nest in the island's only poisonous pear tree. Or...more seriously, how about Antarctica? You know these scientist types who get couped up over winter. A cabin-fevered killer.
This is a seriously isolated place. I remember about a week ago reading that there was a rescue attempt being performed on sick crew down there. A few days later I checked to see how it ended up and was shocked to learn that it was still going on. It's easier to rescue someone from the space station than the South Pole. A submarine or battleship. A parking structure after a natural disaster. If the future is acceptable, you could have them be trapped inside of a smart structure. Think HAL from Space Odyssey.
An office party where the other people have gone home, and a snowstorm/rainstorm prevents them from being able to leave.
Pretty difficult to come up with an original idea for this. The best I have is they are on the end train car, say a Pullman style and are having a private party, give orders not to be disturbed, etc. While the train ascends a hill their car becomes disconnected, rolls back down the tracks, hits a switch, not sure what they are called, to a side track that takes them miles away from civilization, like an old deserted ghost town in the desert.
A maze that keeps changing. A cemetery late at night and the gates are locked and there's no way to scale or climb over it.
This actually happened to my ex husband. Him and a few others were locked in overnight when they were helping set the store up. (It wasn't open to the public yet)
If I was locked in Wal-Mart, the 'And Then There Were None' would likely apply to the beer aisle, then the pizza aisle.
Tourists trapped in the deepest chamber of an Egyptian pyramid when their guide collapses from heart failure and maintenace workers shut off the lights and automatically close all the inner doorways -
A flat section in the middle of a mountain valley. A landslide prevents them from scaling down the mountain due to the cliff that's there now.
Little Big Horn, after closing? Along the same line... a Civil War battlefield park, after closing? I love the Locked-in-a-Museum-at-night premise, but, ya know... that's been done a few times.
