Have you ever had an idea you never made for one reason or another?

glenn-fletcher

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Don't worry, I'm not trying to steal anybody's ideas here. I just think "stories that could've been" are really interesting. I recently posted a compilation of rough drafts and old first chapters, and I wanted to know if any other people kept their old ideas in mind.

Outside of the ones I have posted, I've always wanted to make like a sci-fi comedy thing or like a big crossover of all my favorite series. But from what I've seen, stories like that don't get a lot of traction, at least on this site. I've also tried writing multiple things where like people would submit their OCs because I just like writing other people's characters, but I've just never been able to finish a story like that.
 

Wintertime

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I had a story about a 'god' that was banished from 'heaven' and was flung into our universe. His cage. As the years went by, his essence had created the known universe; and he was relegated into a human form. Didn't know where to go with it, so I scrapped it. Still good premise, need to refine some stuff. Who knows.
 

YuriDoggo

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I have a few stories (serious novel types) that I started but ultimately converted into short stories because I felt I wasn't good enough to continue. Among them is a story about a real world being access through a VRMMO.
 
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I had too many to count, but most of them are pending.

I really want to write stories with evil characters, that filled with broken, psychopathic motives and downright amoral actions. Plus points if the plot itself was made totally pointless, so it's all about depraved human beings descending limitlessly to the abyss. A complete nonsensical, nihilistic narrative who doesn't even try to create a redeeming quality.

The reason I hadn't written so was--it might get me even more depressed than it's worth.
 

Ninetailed_Furball

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Isekai yuri romance, with a play in basic fantasy tropes. That was an idea I have stored in my computer but due to some criticisms in the use of first person, has been gathering some dust.
This one sounds so much like one I've been playing around with lately if you add a bit of harem to it. I keep getting encouragements to make a yuri series, and this keeps becoming the best candidate I have despite how lame the premise sounds once I try saying it out loud.

That said, the one I want to point out for this thread is a story inspired by Skeleton Knight in Another World. Except it's about a dark elf, in a world without dark elves, and she ends up starting a giant war between the major factions while bumbling around trying to stop the extreme racism going around in the world.

I've actually written like 80k words of it, but I got stuck with having no ideas for the next arc or two before getting back to planned content. I want to finish it someday, but every new idea I come up with keeps pushing that further behind, including another story that got paused due to IRL, but is actually kinda close to being able to finish if I can make the time.
 

Phantomheart

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This one sounds so much like one I've been playing around with lately if you add a bit of harem to it. I keep getting encouragements to make a yuri series, and this keeps becoming the best candidate I have despite how lame the premise sounds once I try saying it out loud.

That said, the one I want to point out for this thread is a story inspired by Skeleton Knight in Another World. Except it's about a dark elf, in a world without dark elves, and she ends up starting a giant war between the major factions while bumbling around trying to stop the extreme racism going around in the world.

I've actually written like 80k words of it, but I got stuck with having no ideas for the next arc or two before getting back to planned content. I want to finish it someday, but every new idea I come up with keeps pushing that further behind, including another story that got paused due to IRL, but is actually kinda close to being able to finish if I can make the time.
My story would be somewhat similar to the tone of sarcasm and the covering of madness in The Death Mage Doesn't Want a Fourth Time. I don't want to divulge too many details, but in the 12k words that I've written so far, the MC is a very devoid person, having grown up in a loveless household and in a world that she can't seem to understand. One day she wakes up in a world full of magic and wonder, but she chooses to live in the forests, far away from people. The local 'knight prince' comes to fall in love with her because of her singing voice, and proposes. But the 'prince' is actually a princess. It's both angsty and fluffy as it follows the adventures of the two girls and how affection and kindness can help someone out of a dark place in their life.

It got me bummed when the first few people who read it stated that the concepts were much too confusing, and since the novel reveals a lot of my own personal history written through the characters, I felt personally attacked and have left the story idea to rot away. I hope to continue it one day, but with how people don't like real life depictions of depression and anxiety, it's hard to decipher my thoughts on whether I ever will be able to release it to the world.

I've gotten horrible feedback before, and I've put my heart and soul into characters before, but the MC has a lot of my own personality traits and some referenced nightmares and events that I don't want to divulge to others again as a vulnerability. I had a real bad panic attack after some comments about it in the workshop channel on the discord server, so it's hard to ever think about publishing the story, especially on SH.
 

Azrie

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I have three concepts that I want to write but can only choose one until I get more time... Rip

One is about earth being destroyed and the only society surviving now resides on the skies or whatever, and we follow through mc who stumbles upon something rather odd. Maybe earth is not as inhabitable as other people lead it to believe, yet there is something hidden there. (Sci-fi, post-apocalyptic: Super brief summary, and there is 0 detail about the real story but that's the general setting)

Another one is about a demon lord that reincarnates into modern earth and is entitled etc etc, and then finds about MMOs and other stuff, and insert LitRPG heavy stuff.

And another one is based on the video of "Rules for Rulers" by CGP Grey. Good video.

Anyways, while I did provide like 0 detail on two. Thing is, two of them have no real outline and would be written as it goes by, and the first one is meant to be an actual story with mystery and stuff. I have dumped a lot of ideas but in the end, they are just variations of these three.
 
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I have three concepts that I want to write but can only choose one until I get more time... Rip

One is about earth being destroyed and the only society surviving now resides on the skies or whatever, and we follow through mc who stumbles upon something rather odd. Maybe earth is not as inhabitable as other people lead it to believe, yet there is something hidden there. (Sci-fi, post-apocalyptic: Super brief summary, and there is 0 detail about the real story but that's the general setting)

it reminds myself of Zeal Kingdom in Chrono Trigger lol
 

Kotohood

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I had one story where two men. A high ranking officer and a normal low ranking army men had a heart to heart talk after realising that they are going to die.

They were fighting this advance alien race that totally decimated their company. I wanted this to be a one shot and I have been planning on doing it for a while now. But I can't decide if I want to leave as an open ended ending or a happy ending or end it with both of the men dying.

Edit: For all those reading this in the future. I've actually completed the story hooray!
 
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Ninetailed_Furball

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My story would be somewhat similar to the tone of sarcasm and the covering of madness in The Death Mage Doesn't Want a Fourth Time. I don't want to divulge too many details, but in the 12k words that I've written so far, the MC is a very devoid person, having grown up in a loveless household and in a world that she can't seem to understand. One day she wakes up in a world full of magic and wonder, but she chooses to live in the forests, far away from people. The local 'knight prince' comes to fall in love with her because of her singing voice, and proposes. But the 'prince' is actually a princess. It's both angsty and fluffy as it follows the adventures of the two girls and how affection and kindness can help someone out of a dark place in their life.

It got me bummed when the first few people who read it stated that the concepts were much too confusing, and since the novel reveals a lot of my own personal history written through the characters, I felt personally attacked and have left the story idea to rot away. I hope to continue it one day, but with how people don't like real life depictions of depression and anxiety, it's hard to decipher my thoughts on whether I ever will be able to release it to the world.

I've gotten horrible feedback before, and I've put my heart and soul into characters before, but the MC has a lot of my own personality traits and some referenced nightmares and events that I don't want to divulge to others again as a vulnerability. I had a real bad panic attack after some comments about it in the workshop channel on the discord server, so it's hard to ever think about publishing the story, especially on SH.
I actually really like this idea and hope someday you'll get the strength to finishing it or rewriting it.

If you're worried about people getting scared away from too much depressing bits at the beginning, you can always spread it out. Just have a bit at first, then reveal more and more through flashbacks and references.

That said, I've personally gone through my own share of dark times, though admittedly not nearly as bad as many others I have heard/read, and often just stop reading a story midway because they get to me too much. Even still, I'm attracted to them and can't help but go back eventually to finish them, and those sort of things keep showing up over and over in the stories I write.
 

Llamadragon

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99.9% of my story ideas never get materialized.

One character in particular gets recycled a lot, to the point where I could write a whole adventure story with her different iterations as the whole character cast. I guess my current favorite version is this outdated one, at this point rather ridiculous by design:

A not-at-all-humble fisherwoman lives in a not-at-all-humble fishing village, fishing for sea dragons for a living in a Heavy Metal universe. When her girlfriend gets killed and eaten by said dragons, our heroine is framed for her murder and runs off into the world with a gargantuan chainsaw and a talking motorcycle, meeting and eventually dating the ML, then becoming the focus of one of the biggest bets in the countrys history, the bet being which one of them will manage to kill the other one. Both of them decides to bet everything they own on themselves, but after they finally have couple therapy and settle their differences, they realize that all their financial assets are forever locked in a stagnant betting pool.

Anyways, they do some further adventuring and kill some more dragons together before the ML resolves some of his terrible emotional deficiencies and realizes he always wanted to be a painter. The MC tames a sea dragon, rides off into the stormy waves with the talking motobike and together they open a restaurant catering to mermaids.
 

Scribbler

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Nope, I come up with my best ideas in the moment/while I'm writing.
 

queenofthefuzzybugs

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I have a story that's been in various stages of development since I was twelve (keeping in mind I'm in my 30s now). When I think about it now, it's a pretty corny story premise: alien prince disguises himself to investigate corruption on a colony world made up of humans. Female lead bumps into him, stuff happens, they fall in love, she's brought back to his world where she finds out he's actually a prince, more stuff happens, they get married, and then some stuff happens. The end.

If I was going to say why it's been in "development hell" for over twenty years, it's probably because 1) I could never decide what was in the "stuff" portion of the story. :sweating_profusely::sweating_profusely::sweating_profusely: I'd write it out to a point, then find something not-quite-right and have to start all over again. And sometimes I'd get to a certain point and go completely blank and couldn't figure out how to continue. :blob_facepalm: 2) I didn't know how to end it. I've been thinking about this stupid story for twenty years and I STILL DON'T KNOW. :blob_teary::blob_teary::blob_teary: Even if it's hella corny, if I could just think of a decent way to end it... ugh... :blob_cringe:

I still want to figure this story out. Even a corny as a hell story has hope if you write it well and give it a satisfying ending. I can do it, I really believe I can do it! It just may take me another twenty years... :blob_awkward:
 

Kotohood

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I have a story that's been in various stages of development since I was twelve (keeping in mind I'm in my 30s now). When I think about it now, it's a pretty corny story premise: alien prince disguises himself to investigate corruption on a colony world made up of humans. Female lead bumps into him, stuff happens, they fall in love, she's brought back to his world where she finds out he's actually a prince, more stuff happens, they get married, and then some stuff happens. The end.

If I was going to say why it's been in "development hell" for over twenty years, it's probably because 1) I could never decide what was in the "stuff" portion of the story. :sweating_profusely::sweating_profusely::sweating_profusely: I'd write it out to a point, then find something not-quite-right and have to start all over again. And sometimes I'd get to a certain point and go completely blank and couldn't figure out how to continue. :blob_facepalm: 2) I didn't know how to end it. I've been thinking about this stupid story for twenty years and I STILL DON'T KNOW. :blob_teary::blob_teary::blob_teary: Even if it's hella corny, if I could just think of a decent way to end it... ugh... :blob_cringe:

I still want to figure this story out. Even a corny as a hell story has hope if you write it well and give it a satisfying ending. I can do it, I really believe I can do it! It just may take me another twenty years... :blob_awkward:

Just keep at it!
 

Bronzeapollo

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That is pretty much to my own dismay this whole account. I have a habit starting the stories but I lost motivation to continue them. But even then there are stories that I don't bring myself to write the first chapter to.
Here are a few that I have openly accessible,

"I just wanted a normal life. All this being special stuff wasn't my passion. But everywhere I turned it all the same. My wishful dream of a simple life was drifting away with every past second. I hate it, but I'm this world's MC."

"So I sit locked in a room, a simple pen and pencil in hand. Endlessly writing themes but never finding the endurance to finish them. With each word being filled with my passion and soul, eventually it will go dry. For it to get pulled out with a tear and tossed in a bin never remembered besides by my regretful self." "This is my journey from stories that I started full of passion, to paragraphs never revisited. To a final novel praised to the heavens. My least favorite of them all? The one praised as a great."

"A man awakens everyday to find himself having forgotten everything while he slept. He forces himself to stay awake so as to not lose himself, but he can't stay awake forever. All the connections he made are lost. Follow his story, for by the end, he will have forgotten it all. "

"From the peak of blacksmithing in a fantasy world, Jupiter is transported to the modern time of Earth. There are no longer quests, there is no longer a point to his existence. He is now forced to find his way in this new world with nothing to his name and a profession not inherently worth anything. To be at the peak and fall down to the valley is a tough experience to swallow. Jupiter may not be able to do it."
 

GDLiZy

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I have like twenty ideas but didn't make it into stories because I'm busy with the current one, and didn't want to drop any of the stories for the others.
 

Ninetailed_Furball

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I have a story that's been in various stages of development since I was twelve (keeping in mind I'm in my 30s now). When I think about it now, it's a pretty corny story premise: alien prince disguises himself to investigate corruption on a colony world made up of humans. Female lead bumps into him, stuff happens, they fall in love, she's brought back to his world where she finds out he's actually a prince, more stuff happens, they get married, and then some stuff happens. The end.

If I was going to say why it's been in "development hell" for over twenty years, it's probably because 1) I could never decide what was in the "stuff" portion of the story. :sweating_profusely::sweating_profusely::sweating_profusely: I'd write it out to a point, then find something not-quite-right and have to start all over again. And sometimes I'd get to a certain point and go completely blank and couldn't figure out how to continue. :blob_facepalm: 2) I didn't know how to end it. I've been thinking about this stupid story for twenty years and I STILL DON'T KNOW. :blob_teary::blob_teary::blob_teary: Even if it's hella corny, if I could just think of a decent way to end it... ugh... :blob_cringe:

I still want to figure this story out. Even a corny as a hell story has hope if you write it well and give it a satisfying ending. I can do it, I really believe I can do it! It just may take me another twenty years... :blob_awkward:
No matter how corny the premise is, it's what you do with it that determines it's quality and appeal. If you really think about it, Star Wars is space monks fighting generic evil and bringing peace to the galaxy. LoTR is chosen one goes and unites the world against evil and becomes king while some kids take a field trip across half of the world to throw a retired uncle's memento into a fire. Game of Thrones is everyone's an asshole trying to get the shiny.

The premise doesn't really matter too much, even my own story's premise was originally just guy reincarnates and tries to treat it like retirement while everyone keeps causing trouble for him.

What you have to do is actually spend the time to work it out rather than just idly think about it here and there. Sit down, plan out the major plot points, describe your characters, and just make your mind about things, then put pen to paper. That's it.

@Bronzeapollo The secret to writing a story is to persevere. Just start something then keep on writing. No matter how stuck you get, or how bored you get, find a way to keep on putting words to the screen. If it becomes hard, spend some time planning to make it easier. If it gets boring, try to figure out how to make it more interesting.

You'll never move forward if you don't put in concentrated effort into writing. Personally, I have like 20 stories I dropped in the last two years alone. But the second I posted a story, I started to grit through the hard bits and now it's over 50 chapters and almost a quarter million words long. What I did isn't that special either. It's just persevering through the tough bits and enjoying the ride the best I can.
 

Scribbler

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I have a story that's been in various stages of development since I was twelve (keeping in mind I'm in my 30s now). When I think about it now, it's a pretty corny story premise: alien prince disguises himself to investigate corruption on a colony world made up of humans. Female lead bumps into him, stuff happens, they fall in love, she's brought back to his world where she finds out he's actually a prince, more stuff happens, they get married, and then some stuff happens. The end.

If I was going to say why it's been in "development hell" for over twenty years, it's probably because 1) I could never decide what was in the "stuff" portion of the story. :sweating_profusely::sweating_profusely::sweating_profusely: I'd write it out to a point, then find something not-quite-right and have to start all over again. And sometimes I'd get to a certain point and go completely blank and couldn't figure out how to continue. :blob_facepalm: 2) I didn't know how to end it. I've been thinking about this stupid story for twenty years and I STILL DON'T KNOW. :blob_teary::blob_teary::blob_teary: Even if it's hella corny, if I could just think of a decent way to end it... ugh... :blob_cringe:

I still want to figure this story out. Even a corny as a hell story has hope if you write it well and give it a satisfying ending. I can do it, I really believe I can do it! It just may take me another twenty years... :blob_awkward:
I'm still very amateur in writing, but when I try to contrive a way to get to a cool reveal or moment I usually can't. You want the unimportant series of events leading to the climax to be as or more interesting than the climax. You want to make the reader think the unimportant bits are important too. And you can't do that as a writer when you're too focused, or when you prioritize a future scene over the next scene. I'm not describing my point well.

The most I've planned for a story is a chapter. No more. But sometimes I literally have no idea what happens next. It's not that I can't think of anything at all, but I can't think of anything that would feel right or satisfactory. So I do the one other thing I can when trying to write, I write. And as I'm describing character actions and dialogue it all just coalesces and materializes.

I think what you need to do is temporarily forget about what you want to write and simply write what you need to write. Try to feel it out instead of thinking about it, or something like that.
@Bronzeapollo The secret to writing a story is to persevere. Just start something then keep on writing. No matter how stuck you get, or how bored you get, find a way to keep on putting words to the screen. If it becomes hard, spend some time planning to make it easier. If it gets boring, try to figure out how to make it more interesting.

You'll never move forward if you don't put in concentrated effort into writing. Personally, I have like 20 stories I dropped in the last two years alone. But the second I posted a story, I started to grit through the hard bits and now it's over 50 chapters and almost a quarter million words long. What I did isn't that special either. It's just persevering through the tough bits and enjoying the ride the best I can.
They must have their own reasons for being bored of their stories. It could simply be that they thought of something better or they found a bunch of continuity errors or a number of other things. Though consistency in a single story is definitely important for potential readers. It's a bit hard to motivate someone when you don't know what they are. Or in general, it's hard to motivate someone when/if they feel unmotivated.
 

Ninetailed_Furball

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I'm still very amateur in writing, but when I try to contrive a way to get to a cool reveal or moment I usually can't. You want the unimportant series of events leading to the climax to be as or more interesting than the climax. You want to make the reader think the unimportant bits are important too. And you can't do that as a writer when you're too focused, or when you prioritize a future scene over the next scene. I'm not describing my point well.

The most I've planned for a story is a chapter. No more. But sometimes I literally have no idea what happens next. It's not that I can't think of anything at all, but I can't think of anything that would feel right or satisfactory. So I do the one other thing I can when trying to write, I write. And as I'm describing character actions and dialogue it all just coalesces and materializes.

I think what you need to do is temporarily forget about what you want to write and simply write what you need to write. Try to feel it out instead of thinking about it, or something like that.
The trick is to do the reverse. Don't try to make an epic reveal or something, but just sprinkle little clues here and there, then do the reveal however it takes to make it natural (not subdued, but just doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere). The point isn't to shock your reader, the point is to make them feel clever for figuring it out five chapters ago and looking forward to seeing how their guess turned out. This is something that a lot of film directors get wrong and get bashed on quite often (The latest two main Star Wars movies are a massive example of this, got GoT does some similar crap as well).
They must have their own reasons for being bored of their stories. It could simply be that they thought of something better or they found a bunch of continuity errors or a number of other things. Though consistency in a single story is definitely important for potential readers. It's a bit hard to motivate someone when you don't know what they are. Or in general, it's hard to motivate someone when/if they feel unmotivated.
Fundamentally, I believe this is wrong. You don't get bored of something because you thought of something better, but because you didn't change the original thing into something good. This applies to everything, not just writing stories. If what you're doing isn't making you happy, finding something that does is often futile if you don't know what it is that'll make you happy. Instead, it's better to find a way to enjoy what you're currently doing.

I've heard of a story about an ordinary janitor who rated insanely high on a happiness index. When a bunch of scientists interviewed and examined him, they found out the secret was because he found his job fulfilling because he understood the impact he was having just by cleaning the place up. He found meaning where others couldn't or didn't try, and thus, he was happy.

Working towards a goal is much better than changing the goal constantly because you decide that you don't like it as much as a new goal you just came up with.

(Not, I'm not advocating to just get some random minimum wage job and tell you to be happy about it. Just that happiness can be found anywhere, just as you can make any story premise interesting if you put the effort into it)
 
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