Writers Block Battering Ram discussion

This just came to me in the shower when I was thinking of rewrites for something I wrote a long time ago;

set a century or so in the future, the government is totally corrupted. They (motive unclear- need help with that) keep telling the public that other countries are going to drop A-Bombs on us, etc., to keep everyone scared.

It gets to the point (need to work on that, too) where there are human sacrifices and such to keep everyone alive. Everyone, of course, thinks they work becuase we have not been blown up yet.

Main character is one of a group of kids rescued from said human sacrifices, who slowly figure out what is going on.

Maybe one or more of them gets caught and hears something? I can't figure anything out past that. Any ideas?

sounds like a good goverment conspiracy story. I'd make one of the kids not rescued from being a human sacrifice, but actualy the prodgidy of a powerful goverment offical who got mad and ran away. He/she would have heard all about it at home.

That's just too easy, I guess. I have one character- June, though I'm working on the name- who is a Japanease American but it's a little like Japanease internment there- because, of course, Asia is supposedly plotting to blow everyone up, and her parents could be spies. O_o. And a kid wouldn't run away, because the only well off people are in the government. A kid is a good idea, though. I'll think about that.

I'm using some of my fanfiction characters. This idea started out as a rewrite of my Percy Jackson fanfiction, where the Titans take over the world, but I'm tired of FF.

Cross between 1984 and State of Fear by Michael Crichton.

The government/media/legal/bureaucracy machines of the world are in collusion to keep their populace in a constant state of fear by brandishing the idea of "the enemy". This because global warming (our current irrational and baseless fear) has finally been exposed as a complete myth; so the machine now extracts human sacrifices to enforce a state of guilt-ridden compliance in every subject. Every other government machine is doing exactly the same.

The identity of the sacrifice is decided by weekly national lottery. One of the protagonists is the son (or daughter) of a top Government official. Let's call him Fred. He is chosen to be a sacrifice. This is meant to be a great civic honour - you are dying to protect your country/way of life. Fred's father, who knows exactly what is going on, bribes a poorer family to substitute one of their children instead.

Fred finds out about this and runs away, wracked by guilt. He discovers the ubderground moevment and shares his information with them.

So you have the public, ridden by collective guilt; Fred ridden by personal guilt; Fred's father ditto; the poor family haunted by the memory that they killed one of their children for money; and an establishment that keeps enforcing new rules and regulations to keep their subjects in an ever tightening vice of control.

Your story then is about the movement's struggle to bring this story to the attention of a public that just doesn't care. Perhaps Fred's father could actually incite a nuclear strike to bring the whole sorry sham to an end.

Is that the story of State of Fear? or an idea? *is confused*

because if it's not the plot of State of Fear, that might work... I was trying to think of an ending... I suppose everyone dying and the world ending wouldn't work...

it could also get to the point when the public stats to question the point. If they were not attacked with one sacrifice a month, why are they being scared into doing more? keep in mind the people doing the killing really believe in this.

have you read the short story 'the lottery'? It is so freaky.

That one is about a drawing for human sacrifice. and maybe the government is choosing based on random things, that happen to point towards people that irk them. Maybe they should have started out with the traditional stuff- say, virgins,- but then people would figure out their criteria and then it would be hard to find any- so much for abstinence- but that would just be weird, so...

you could try people with bad genes. Sort of like natural selection, but not.

but it's not as big a sacrifice. You know how peope a few centuries ago would see a drought and round up a dozen virgins to kill? That wouldn't work as well for the story, because that's not the point, but just saying.

Okay.

State of Fear by Michael Crichton - the basic premise is that global warming is a complete myth foisted on the public by government/media/legal profession so that the media can create more scare stories to sell advertising, governments can respond to the publics demands for more controls, green taxes etc, and the lawyers profit by suing the asses off polluters, industry, car owners and so on.

This global warming thing only started when the Iron Bloc collapsed, making Russia no longer the dreaded enemy. There was a 'fear vacuum' which was filled by global warming. Then of course, there was 9/11 and the new scare became terrorists.

Wow thats cool. My dad would love that book.

Yah, problem is, global warming IS real, so... and the newest scare is economy. They're cutting $1billion from our public schools- good bye, Media Literacy, Keyboarding, Tech Ed, and Engineering! *sob*

and yes, I'm lucky that that is the biggest way the economy has impacted me.

so, I might be able to work Fred in. What name do you think is good for a kind of stuck up son of a major politician?

Climate change is a reality. Global warming is an unproven hypothesis, and it is very convenient how facts which make it less than likely are ignored. I'm also very sceptical when the guy who originally came up with the idea, James Hansen, is in charge of the GISS data, and has been caught manipulating that data to suit his purposes on at least three seperate occasions. It is also interesting that the IPCC, which is a political organisation, changes the reports of its hired climatologists to make the position much bleaker than it actually is. Human Induced Climate Change (HICC) is a myth.

Most of the Antarctic is actually getting colder; central US is getting colder; central Europe has not appreciably changed in over a century;Arctic and Antarctic ice has been melting for 6000 years since the end of the last ice age; sea levels have shown a rise of about 0.2 cm in the last decafe - in the Atlantic; the central Pacific has actually seen a drop in sea level over the last two decades.

But enough of the rant - it's one of my pet bugbears. If you want, I'll post a link to a magazine article I wrote on it last year, which goes into more detail.

Your stuck up son of a political figure could be called something like Winslow Yordan III (which simplifies things, 'cos then his Dad could be Winslow Yordan II). I've just Googled and he doesn't appear to exist.

Winslow is good- I've heard the name somewhere, but I can't remember... Yordan. That sounds good, but I might make it "Dordan." I dunno.

I just can't figure out how to get to the ending... urgh.

What's the ending?

I don't know! Somehow, the US government has to get overthrown, and everyone has to find out, butI don't know how.

Have the group do it. Or help with it. Or it could be another group of rebels. Or another country could do it. Or- never mind. I'll stop there, but if you need an idea, I have many more.

I know. The group would definatly help do it, I just can't figure out what needs doing.

Here's an idea;

the chief guy, Greg, who lost a daughter near the beginning and saved all the kids living in the underground, get's caught

the general public hears about this and everyone who has lost a family member to the government is in sympathy with him

Eden (main character, 'the shadow' in first chapter) and Peter (other main character)blow up temples, save other kids, etc.,

The group underground grows

they bribe the govenor to let Greg out- govenor having lost a nephew

then maybe at some point the government comes and invades the underground but most of them get out in time

the general public impeaches the president, but he refuses to step down- is almost a civil war, which somehow (need more details on that) ends up with Greg killing him (President: name to be determined)

Can anyone think of ways for that fight to auctully happen?

Here's my prologue/first chapter

If you were looking around the Pike Place Market area of Seattle on February 12, 2584, you likely have missed the shadow, crouching against the wall. It is all but invisible on the rainy days Seattle is prone to.

You would not have seen it quietly slip down the roads, past the tall, obsidian temples as it wound through the streets.

What you would have heard are the screams. Coming from the black obsidian temple to the shadow’s left, they went on and on. The screaming, and the begging.
You would have heard the abrupt silence.

The shadow paused outside the door, but moved on, not letting herself think about the moment when she, too, had been under the knife. When she, too, had almost been sacrificed to keep China away.

But people had been there for her. There was no one for the child in the temple right now, as he lay there, dying. Oh, there were prayers, there was holy water, there were songs.

It was still death.

If you had looked closely, you would have seen an outline against the brick walls lining the streets. But no one looked around any more. People would mind their own business, trying to blend in with the crowd, eyes down. Leaving their children inside whenever possible, but knowing if they were called upon, they could not refuse to give their children without facing their own demise as well.

No one wanted Asia to attack. It had been predicted by the government for years, kept at bay by only the human sacrifices offered to the gods on a regular basis.

The shadow slipped down what had been first avenue, away from the water.

If you had been there, you would not have noticed.

Yah... I have about ten pages so far. I'm posting most of it on WWW, but... yah.

Anyone have any ideas?

I'm deleting the spam.