I'm really stumped on this theme given by a short story competition: A little knowledge can be dangerous. Could you guys help me out with a few ideas? The keys to my idea generator are missing.
The protagonist finds out some information they use to their advantage and someone else expense? The guilt creates a conflict as they try to put it right with the lease amount of hurt?
If a little knowledge is dangerous, why is ignorance bliss? Sometimes the best way to explain something is to take the opposite approach or disprove it all together. I would argue all day long that a little knowledge is far better than none at all and that all assumptions based on old wive's tales don't end well.
They say we come across atleast 6-8 stories ideas every single day. But most of us miss it because we aren't paying attention. I came across this one today and thought I'd pass it along. I read it in the news - so its based on a true story. An old woman in Italy in her 70's is found dead at her breakfast table. She lived alone. Noone knew she was dead for 4 months. Neighbours assumed she had moved away due to the pandemic. This happened in a small town in Italy in 2020 but you can pick any country/city/time. She was discovered when authorities were called because a tree from her backyard fell into the neighbour's yard that she was discovered. You can take this story into a hundred different directions. Who was she? Where was her family, did she even have any? How did she die? Is anyone going to come looking for her, what's their motive? Was she part of some strange group or cult, where are they now? I would open the story with the tree logging company driving up to her street. 3-4 workers start preparing to remove the tree with equipment while the boss raps on the old woman's door, no answer. Maybe the door is ajar (to avoid delaying the hook), he goes in and sees her sitting at the table frozen....he immediately calls the police....neighbours are alerted....what do they know about the old woman.....the story starts from there.... Possibilities are endless. If you do end up writing about this, I'd love to read. I'm too wrapped up in my current story atm or else would have taken to this one myself. Good luck!
Well, you need two elements for this. 1) What is meant by knowledge? 2) What is meant by dangerous? There is typically an unavoidable third element, and that's the MC. You can of course write a story without an MC, but he/she is probably going to be there. I suppose I would start with them. It depends on the story. So I would start with, "Who might learn something?" There's obvious answers and then there's the weirdly specific possibilities. For the danger, who is it dangerous to? The MC, their family/friends/coworkers? What is danger really? Physical, psychological, some sort of emotional loss? I'd dwell on these things, choose a starting point (even an obvious one). A student learns a secret code from a book. Then you try permutations An acolyte learns a forbidden chant from a hymnal A new ager learns the true power of crystal auras from a dimestore paperback and so on, etc. Mine are involving reading because of my starting point. Shift the starting point and you'll reach different targets. You'll deal with the danger the same way. Use permutations. Then, because character is going to drive the story, I would give them a desire that was destructive to themselves. It involves the knowledge somehow. Since the plot is set for you, you kind of have to do these circumlocutions to twist the story into form. So maybe that helps? tldr: find your basic forms, build permutations off them for a unique plot This new-ager/alcolyte/danger talk reminds me of this story: "The Oarsman." (That whole collection of short stories is outstanding.) I've seen it on youtube, but I could only find it read on Vimeo.
