Can you take two random ideas and make them into a good story?


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I liked the interview Jim Butcher did a while back where he described an argument with a friend that a good author could take any ideas no matter how overdone or unrelated they may be and make them into a credible book. To prove his point he asked for two random ideas that don't work together at all. His friend came up with "Lost Roman legion" and "Pokémon" and that's where this series "Furies of Calderon" began.

For this thread come up with two random ideas that don't seem to go together, and I will try to come up with a story from them. I recall seeing a thread like this before.


That was the immediate example I thought of upon just seeing the title. Also "Furies of Calderon" is the first book; "Codex Alera" is the series name ;)

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

1. the deep and abiding moral conflict confronting a paladin living under a lawful-evil true and rightful monarch.
2. flatulence


The title of this thread is contradictory to the intent. You ask if “we” (“can you…”) and then you declare that it is you who will build the story. I am confused. Also, I can come up with a story from any elements, the decision about it being “good” or not, would not be mine.

Sovereign Court

IRS Auditors knocking on your door at 7AM and Girl Scout cookies (especially Thin Mints)

OR

String Theory and Teletubbie Zombies

OR

Remnants of a Paleolithic settlement and String Cheese


zylphryx wrote:

IRS Auditors knocking on your door at 7AM and Girl Scout cookies (especially Thin Mints)

OR

String Theory and Teletubbie Zombies

OR

Remnants of a Paleolithic settlement and String Cheese

I liked your ideas of String Theory and Teletubbie Zombies, because they aren't too wordy. I can work with that. I think if you reworded the first set to IRS Auditors and Girl Scout Cookies, it would work better. I need to research String Theory more, because I don't know a lot about it. Remnants of a Paleolithic settlement and String Cheese? Maybe if it was just Paleolithic settlement and String Cheese...


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Inscrutable Deity and Goblin Acolyte.


Midichlorians and Jar-jar... what?


Mauve and less than 207.

Silver Crusade

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Richard Wagner and a lycra banana hammock.


Hunter S. Thompson on a binge + Grumpy Cat

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

http://creativitygames.net/random-word-generator/randomwords/2

Rhinoceros, envelope.

The Exchange

Dyson Sphere + China in Space = Space industries


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Goblin lawyers and corporate America!


The Circus and Farming


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Jack Rift wrote:
Goblin lawyers and corporate America!

Awww no, not another documentary.


Celestial Healer wrote:
Richard Wagner and a lycra banana hammock.

Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works.

Silver Crusade

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Farael the Fallen wrote:
Celestial Healer wrote:
Richard Wagner and a lycra banana hammock.
Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works.

Stop trying to instruct a music history major on the works of Wagner and start figuring out a way to work a Speedo into your story.


nate lange wrote:

1. the deep and abiding moral conflict confronting a paladin living under a lawful-evil true and rightful monarch.

2. flatulence

The people were starving. The crops failed and Pally-man felt helpless. All his training was useless against this simple threat. But then a savior came. EvilMonarch came and he was more than a man. His touch brought the crops to life and the people were fed. Pally-man was grateful, but he became disturbed as EvilMonarch took over and people began to almost worship him with a slavish devotion. Pally-man also detected a strange scent to the people who ate the crops. He investigated and found that EvilMonarch was just a puppet to a strange fungal creature living in the soil. It infected the food which when digested by a human released a powerful gas that numbed the will. EvilMonarch and FungalElderGod brought an age of peace and prosperity, but at the cost of freedom...


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Vic Wertz wrote:

http://creativitygames.net/random-word-generator/randomwords/2

Rhinoceros, envelope.

He was known by many names. Some called him the Collector, the Preserver, some called him the Folder. He played by differently rules. Reality seemed to not fully apply to him, but this allowed him to continue on his task. He traveled from world to world stepping across the vastness of space in a single step. He sought out the species about to end. He sought out miraculous beauty just as it was about to end. Instead of letting a species end he would find the last few and preserve them. He had a gift for folding things up. Not just paper of sheets, but anything. He could take anything and fold it up shifting it from three dimensions to two. He would fold up the last few animals in a species and stick them in an envelope, preserving them for eternity, never letting the miracle of their existence fade from the universe. He took these envelopes and stored them in unassuming places. On Earth he had a old house on a hill. It was the perfect place until neighborhood kids stole into his place on a dare. They rifled through his things and one of them took something. A small little envelope labelled "Western Black Rhino of Africa". The folding man now has to search out this troublesome child and retrieve his rhino in an envelope.


Hide and Seek.

Silver Crusade

Farthingale and pizza.


Thompsons and Thompsons.


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Random Wikipedia entry.

Random entry on Deviantart.(click at own risk)

The Exchange

New Red Dawn movie + Mole Machines: North Korea decides to forego nuclear missiles for a five mile deep Subterranean City and mole Machines which they use to tunnel beneath the USA and red dawn its cities by dropping them into huge holes.


yellowdingo wrote:
New Red Dawn movie + Mole Machines: North Korea decides to forego nuclear missiles for a five mile deep Subterranean City and mole Machines which they use to tunnel beneath the USA and red dawn its cities by dropping them into huge holes.

Yellow and Dingo


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Twilight trilogy + 50 Shades of Grey

I've always wanted to make a black hole that destroyed a civilized world. {crosses #7 off bucket list}

Spoiler:
"It's pronounced 'bouquet list'." [/Hyacinth]


Professor Farnsworth, Scientist wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

*slow clap* Not a reference I ever expected to see on these forums. Well played.


IRS Auditors knocking on your door at 7AM and Girl Scout cookies (especially Thin Mints)

It was 7 am when the young girl, Evie, heard the knocking on the door. Her mom, Beverly, was passed out on the couch after a long night of drinking, so the little girl knew she wasn't going to wake up. The knocking continued, so she asked, "Who is it?"

"We are IRS agents. We need to speak with you immeaditely." Evie looked through the side window and she saw two stern looking men in gray suits.

"My mom told me not to open the door for strangers," Evie said.

"We are not strangers, little girl," one of the men said, "we are IRS agents and we need to talk to your mom immeaditely. Wake her up for us."

Evie did not want to wake her mom up. The last time she did that her mom got really mad and she gave her a bad spanking. That was not going to happen again.

"No, I am not gonna wake mommy up. Go away!"

Evie ran into the kitchen to get away from the men, who were still knocking. She was hungry, so she ate the rest of the Girl Scout cookies. They were thin mints, and she loved them. She used to be a Girl Scout until her mom got the divorce and stopped taking her.

Finally the knocking stopped, and Evie was glad. After she finished the thin mints she watched TV for a while until her mom woke up. She looked really tired, and her eyes were all red.

"Did you eat breakfast?" Beverly asked.

"Yes mom, the girl scout cookies."

"That's good, but there's no more food left. I don't know when I can get some more."

"Its okay mom, I can get some more." Evie said, smiling.

Beverly smiled too, then she ran into the bathroom and Evie heard her throw up.

The Exchange

Orthos wrote:
Professor Farnsworth, Scientist wrote:
** spoiler omitted **
*slow clap* Not a reference I ever expected to see on these forums. Well played.

Really...I kind of half expected Ol' Flower Bucket to be loitering here in the Guise of a Slaad.


Bill Lumberg wrote:
Mauve and less than 207.

The holographic map of the surrounding space was composed of white circles and lines to give a scale. The asteroid they were mining was green, their distant home base was red, the various dots represented mining skiffs, and their own, the Agincourt, blinked mauve. Smythe stood staring at it.

"Chen, where did the Plataia go?"
"What? Wasn't it homebound? Around... here..."
Chen looked at the map again. No sign of the right tag. Debris strikes were common, and dangerous, enough. He pressed a few buttons on the holo table, searching the historical data for when the Plataia had last been visible. There. Between the asteroid and the base. He muttered under his breath.
"There you were... that is eight hundred fourteen seconds ago. Where did you go?"
Chen tried to keep calm. He hated the shorn-down budget that had made the computer system increasingly unreliable. If it was really down to missing distress calls or disappearing skiffs, it was time for him to move on as soon as possible. He projected the irregular sphere where the Plataia was most likely to have ended up.
"There, Smythe... don't worry. We should be able to find it pretty easily. It's radius is less than... two hundred seven k. Just keep calm, okay?"
He knew full well that the kind of damage necessary to disable the positioning or comm systems on the Plataia meant that there were no survivors. He also knew Smythe's wife had been on that skiff.


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Sissyl wrote:
Bill Lumberg wrote:
Mauve and less than 207.

The holographic map of the surrounding space was composed of white circles and lines to give a scale. The asteroid they were mining was green, their distant home base was red, the various dots represented mining skiffs, and their own, the Agincourt, blinked mauve. Smythe stood staring at it.

"Chen, where did the Plataia go?"
"What? Wasn't it homebound? Around... here..."
Chen looked at the map again. No sign of the right tag. Debris strikes were common, and dangerous, enough. He pressed a few buttons on the holo table, searching the historical data for when the Plataia had last been visible. There. Between the asteroid and the base. He muttered under his breath.
"There you were... that is eight hundred fourteen seconds ago. Where did you go?"
Chen tried to keep calm. He hated the shorn-down budget that had made the computer system increasingly unreliable. If it was really down to missing distress calls or disappearing skiffs, it was time for him to move on as soon as possible. He projected the irregular sphere where the Plataia was most likely to have ended up.
"There, Smythe... don't worry. We should be able to find it pretty easily. It's radius is less than... two hundred seven k. Just keep calm, okay?"
He knew full well that the kind of damage necessary to disable the positioning or comm systems on the Plataia meant that there were no survivors. He also knew Smythe's wife had been on that skiff.

Nicely done!

Now I feel bad about not doing the same for Celestial Healer and his request for a lycra banana hammock. The best I could do was burlap.

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