--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > Taking a complete break from FFL and its sillinesses, I went out for a > walk with my dogs and, while on it, came up with a plot for a scifi > story. Because I've already copyrighted it, I'll share the idea with you > while it's still fresh in my mind. > > The story is set in a slightly alternate reality to our own, because > even when "suspending disbelief" normal people in our reality could > never imagine that such things could happen. In this alternate reality, > people who have developed long-standing grudges against or hatreds > towards someone they obsess on, but who cannot afford socially to be > perceived as being as obsessive as they really are, recruit proxies to > do their hating for them. > > They seek our weak-willed, weak-minded, needy people and suck up to > them, buttering them up with praise and compliments and flirting with > them shamelessly and giving them lots and lots and lots of attention. > Which is, of course, the very thing that needy people feel that they > need. > > After a period of doing this, the recruiter introduces the concept of > the Dharmic Enemy, the person who represents all of the things that he > or she considers -- and thus by *assumption* the newly-recruited needy > person considers as well -- the antithesis of all that is holy and > spiritual and lofty. > > The new recruits are taught to chant holy...uh...chants. (I can't think > yet of what to call them for the actual short story, but maybe "mantras" > or "yagyas" or something Newagey like that.) The chants list the evil, > terrible, horrible, lower-than-the-lint-in-a-snake's-navel qualities of > the Dharmic Enemy, and are taught in a kind of call-and-response, > I-stroke-you-when-you-get-it-right manner. And, of course, in this > alternate reality, it works. The new recruits get so *into* chanting > these holy mantras/chants/yagyas to dispel the evil, terrible, horrible, > lower-than-the-lint-in-a-snake's-navel Dharmic Enemy from their midst > that they eventually wind up doing it on their own. > > Then the recruiter just kicks back and allows the new recruits to do his > or her hating for him or her. > > Think this story idea would sell, or is it too far-fetched even for the > scifi market?
Are you sure you are not lifting this from an unpublished Kilgore Trout outline? Perhaps the recruits could be induced to buy expensive pills or potions that would heighten their experience of hate, such as abhorrence capsules, or anathema pills, or antagonism syrup or jam which you could put on your malignity biscuits or waffles. Special food and dress would help cement bonds between like-minded recruits, for example the golden cloak of execration. And then there are reading materials such as the malediction sutras and the psalms of contempt. Dark venom aromatherapy, revulsion body lotion, incendiary toothpaste, and draconian shampoo could be additional branded items. You need to flesh out the world these characters inhabit, not just what their behaviour is going to be. Will they live in Nemesis architecture, and eat from revenge brand cookware?
