Is this really that great?

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

I had a dream awhile back that took me about two seconds to come up with a plot for a book of it when I woke up. I told a teacher about it, and he thought it was a great idea.

In the early 23rd century, Earth's ecosystem is on the verge of collapse. A yound vagabond notices that a series of tatoos dotted over his body is starting to change; the dots are starting to move to his midsection. As far as he can remember, he has always had them. At the same time, he has a vision of a firestorm covering the entire planet and wiping it clean, leaving Earth a dead hunk of rock.

But somehow he knows he can stop it.

He starts to amass a cult of followers- he is sayingt he can save the Earth and rejuvenate it, but only a few will survive to see the new age.

A general in the Armed Forces takes notice of the cult and its followers. What worries him is that they don't seem to be fanatics, but good people who genuinely want some sign of hope. It worries him that he is attracting a large crowd of sane and stable people.

the leader takes a crowd of people about hisown age, saying they must join him on the holy quest.

He watches his group, and suddenly, some of them start to glow white. The glow stops, and only he sees it. He is left wondering what this means.

Meanwhile, the general on a routine inspection of his field troops' capabilities watches them execute a pack of homeless people who refuse to be relocated. A man dressed similarlyto the bums steps forward, and applauds their brutality. The man is told to stop moving towards them, but he ignores the command, and is shot in the head. He immediately gets up and chides the humans for their lack of creative thinking in solving an unusual situation- and for attacking a potential ally.

The cult leader soon realizes that on his quest through a series of wastelands that the glow he saw meant that allwho had it will die in the quest- and the girl who he has started to fall in love with was one with a glow.


That's the basic premise. For most of the dream, I was either the cult leader or the man who survived getting shot in the head. The other plot elements I got where that the cult leader was looking for a reactor that aliens had left somewhere below the surface that would revive the dying Earth and wipe out most of its cities- and its population- in the process. Yes, it sounds a lot like Total Recall crossed with the Genesis device.

What came later after I made sense of it all was that the vision of the firestorm would be what would happen if the reactor was not repaired- it was damaged and if not turned on manually in time, it would let loos a huge explosionn of energy that would kill the entire planet.

The great moral quandary is that it is inevitable that about 90% of the Earth's population is doomed; it's either that or all. The cult leader is revealed to be tormented by how unfair it all is that he has no other choice. billions will die no matter what, and the only thing he can do is make sure its not the entire human race that dies in the process.

Many other plot elements- such as the tatoos, who the superhuman was, why the reactor was built, I worked out later.

But I was surprised by how favorably my teacher commented on the idea; I should mention that the man is my acting teacher and that he knows quite a lot about plotting a story.

Does it really sound that great? I will rather gleefully not make the characters so clear cut- even the ruthless general isn't as one-dimensional as he seems, and the cult leader is more of an anti-hero. It will be hard to define who the bad guy really is in some cases.

[Sea Skimmer]

Honestly my brain shut down before I could even finish reading this thing. What I did read I disliked.

[Dalton]

I actually think it's pretty cool. Reminds me of Stranger in a Strange Land.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

Honestly my brain shut down before I could even finish reading this thing. What I did read I disliked.

It would be helpful if you could tell me why. I can't expect to please everybody, true. But if a mere summary of a story whose details I have yet to cement and research bored you, I would like to know why. But I understand- its one of the weirder things I have come up with ( and I have never come up with a story-at least not recently- that can be summed up in a few sentences), and would have to be fleshed out on the page or on screen to make sense. I just don't understand how it can be thought of as "bad" or "unlikable" since it's the summary of a book with very few details so far. But me personally, if I was reading this, I would not like or dislike, since there's not enough to do either. I would just offer advice.

Here's a quicker version of it- the world as we know it is about to end, one way or another. It cannot be stopped. A quest begins to make sure at least a small part of humanity and the Earth itself survive it.

And I've never read Stranger in a Strange Land, Dalton. To me the whole dream was rather surreal and the written product would probably reflect that. Was Stranger the same way?

[Pcm979]

It has definite promise.
The only things that seem a little strange-
Why glowing tattoos that move?
Why doesn't headshot guy save the world himself?
How can the reactor thingy save Earth yet be able to give one guy convoluted messages on how to use it, and work out who it's going to kill beforehand?
Does the glow on the people who are going to die mean that only humans will be killed? If not, then why don't plants and animals glow too?

Overall, it sounds like a good yarn.

[Dalton]

And I've never read Stranger in a Strange Land, Dalton. To me the whole dream was rather surreal and the written product would probably reflect that. Was Stranger the same way?

Kind of. It was about a kid born and raised as a Martian, and has insane mental powers and eventually becomes a cult leader on Earth teaching other humans how to do what he can do. Oh, there's also lots of sex and nudity

[Jason von Evil]

I liked it.

[Raptor 597]

It was good. Though it jumped from place too lace quick. I dunno if you want too flesh it out or not it depends.

[Skelron]

I liked the ideas there, obviously as an outline of your ideas it's a little thin on the ground, but it has a great deal of potential. As mentioned you need to explain the whole dreams, headshot man etc, but thats something best left to the sory itself. (perhaps even half way through it.... no need giving all the answers right away, a question like 'how did they do that! what do's this mean?' is a good question to have the reader's thinking about.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

Now that I think about it, the visual style that a movie version of this would attempt would probably be along the lines of a "David Lynch meets anime."