I’ve had a very odd idea kicking around in my brain for several years now. I was a really screwed up teen who probably would have fallen into the incel camp today, and though I finally grew out of it, I wasted a lot of years and was a decidedly late bloomer. I’ve thought about writing about that period of my life, but I don’t want to do a straight memoir, mostly because moping in my room feeling sorry for myself doesn’t make for a very good story. So, I started thinking about ways to write about someone who was similar to me, but more interesting. And after a bit, it hit me. Debbie is a geeky teen girl with similar home life and mental problems to my own. The difference is, instead of just moping, she finds a solution of sorts—she starts screwing the family dog. She rationalizes it as just “different” and “misunderstood” rather than unhealthy and weird, and the relationship becomes the crutch she needs to get through life without going crazy. Eventually, of course, the dog gets old and dies, and she finally decides to do the growing up that she’s avoided and start dating (with amusingly catastrophic results and honest personal growth). So, I’m torn. Debbie is fully formed in my head, I can hear her voice, and I know I can tell her story in an interesting way. But a story about bestiality is almost certainly unpublishable (yes, it has been done, but only very rarely). And even if I do beat the odds, do I really want to be known as the guy who wrote the dogfucking book? Not so sure about that. I have plenty of other ideas to work on that have more potential for mass appeal—but every once in a while, Debbie pops up from the back of my head and says, “Hey, remember me?” Maybe I will tell her story someday, but not until I get a few others under my belt first.
That's messed up, but books and movies about dolls and sex toys have been made and are probably publishable. I did see a movie where this woman, I think she was drunk, briefly licked an animal's private parts (maybe she did more) on a dare or something. It wasn't shown, of course. It caused a lot of problems and her mom basically disowned her. That's what most of the movie was about, the character trying to recover from the shame.
Yep. Lolita is proof that no taboo is so great that you can't write about it (and definitely a book I'd need to finally read before tackling this, if I ever do). But you have to be damn good to do so. Exactly. There's so much fascinating psychological drama in the situation and its long term consequences that I really would like to explore. But, like I said, I don't know if it would be worth the effort.
I don't think it would be publishable today though. But I think a story about someone developing a sexual and emotional attachment to a inanimate object might be.
Oh, thanks for reminding me. I know of at least two films in that vein that I had intended to see but never got around to: Her and Lars and the Real Girl. I don't think either is at all sexually explicit, but they do seem like they explore the loneliness that drives such unhealthy behavior in interesting ways. Whether I write the story or not (probably not), I do want to see them.
Just last night, I came up with an idea of a con man psychic working with a bunch of other scammers but he really is "psychic" because he experiences time backwards. I just couldn't figure out how to make that the main protagonist without giving it all away.
I think the story would still work if she didn't actually screw the dog. She can stick to masturbation, but have a strong emotional bond to the dog. You can still work out the "crutch" part there. Maybe she comes into a situation where a boy asks her out, but she is so scared and awkward about it, that she finds an excuse and rather goes for a walk with her dog because it's "safer". Just an idea, though...
Anime is already way ahead of you on that front, Chobits is one of the more mild ones but I'm sure there's others. Hand Maid May is another one. Video Girl is another one (though I'm not sure that counts)
Oh, yeah, I'm sure there are ways I could soften it, but I'm not terribly motivated to do so. Part of the attraction is simply the challenge of writing the taboo effectively, and without that, the setup becomes less interesting to me. This thread is probably the most writing I'll ever do about the idea. Thanks for the suggestion, though! Honestly, I think the main reason the idea has stuck with me is just that it was one of my earliest ones from when I started to take writing seriously and didn't really know what to write about. Now that I have more story ideas than I'll be able to write in my lifetime, I'm much less attached those early concepts. Part of growing as a writer, I suppose.
His name isn't Merlin, is it? Hmmm... Just thinking about your concept, maybe you could embrace giving it all away and let the reader enjoy the weirdness. I'm thinking of a structure in which you alternate chapters from the pov of your con man and his marks. The marks' chapters move forward in traditional linear time, but the con man's go backwards, like in the movie Memento, and they meet in the middle at your climax. I imagine that would be tough to write, but it could be awesome if you pull it off.
I once had an idea which I called "The Ball Gag." It was set in a dystopian world where particular members of society, by law were forced to wear a ball gag whenever leaving the house. I couldn't find a way to make it work, but the idea was that the gag was supposed to represent members of the LGBT community being constantly silenced while also having the image of sexual promiscuity attached to them simply for existing.
I know no one would believe me today.... But I had a pretty detailed outline for a story called "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" and then I found out there was a book (and at the time soon a movie). To be 101% clear, I am NOT remotely saying the author got his the idea from me. In fact it's impossible because his book was already published when I was still outlining. It's funny because even though it was the same premise his story was very different from my outline. I had a lot of other historical characters from the era in mine, and mine was more 'serious' or you could say more 'crazy' lore. But it was a really weird idea...
I had a lot of weird ideas, but to be honest, whenever I came up with something completely absurd, I just wrote it and stuffed it in a closet, occasionally showing it to close friends that would maybe get the joke I was going for. For example, I have a short story on my computer called "trash" - It's about a guy who hates having to segregate trash, so he just starts dumping all of it into a single can instead. This leads him to uncover the "trash gods", creatures similar to grim reapers, who serve the governments and hunt people for these sorts of things. The joke would be that despite the MC's general distaste for trash, his entire life would be centered around it - to the point, he would count the hours between each time his mum would ask him to take them out. It's supposed to be a parody of the weird anti-LGBT rhetoric that is going on in Poland right now, and how some nationalists there spend more time thinking about gay sex than actual gay people. I had one idea that was too weird to write though - it would be a story about a group of researchers who recently got into conspiracy theories. They would use their connections in order to look for proof that UFO really exists, and aliens regularly visit earth for sinister purposes. As they would get closer to uncovering the mystery, the word "harvest" would start popping up more and more, but nothing else would suggest anything of value is ever harvested from the earth. Finally, it would turn out that humans are just cattle for those aliens, and earth is one big farm that's supposed to produce.... poop. As in, human faeces. The aliens would point that out of every civilization they ever encountered, humans not only produce the most of this valuable resource (which, by those aliens would be used as a fertilizer) but created an entire infrastructure/culture around eating, and therefore, pooping. Never really did anything with this idea though, since the only joke I have for it is a pretty shallow poke at consumerism. Still, in a way, the concept is kind of funny for my internal 12-year old...
A science fiction novel where aliens visit us and discover that the men's whiskers that get caught in electric razors is a powerful spice and hallucinogenic. They will pay anything for it, ANYTHING! And this creates an incredible new market for what is normally thrown away. People, being people start force feeding men as young as 13 male hormones saving, not only men's shavings, but diluting it with women's shavings as well, resulting in a lower quality product because the male hormones impart a unique attribute that women simply can't match and remain women. This causes a near state of war between the Aliens and Humans. And to resolve it, the hero must traverse the minefield of feminist and leftist politics, whose proponents would rather risk war by forcing the aliens to buy women's shavings as well as men's. I think it is obvious why I would never try to publish something like this.
