Please help, if you would

Ok, so I need a little help from the ATS community. I'm writing a story concerning a narrator not of sound mind, who recounts a story of how he came to certain conclusions on the world. I started writing it in the style of some frantically transcribed post you may see on sites like this, and so far I like it. But, I am kind of writing as a tribute to this culture in which we find ourselves, this assortment of individuals who just love to speculate. That being said, I'd like to know what major points you all think should be expressed if i am to honestly portray a person like ourselves, but one whose mind is crumbling.

Just as some background, the story features a man who is convinced that he is experiencing a sort of time slip centered around death and rebirth. Please, if you have any opinions on this, share them. I will appreciate it.

You should check out some of the post by Mr Mask, sums up the culture of ATS quite well

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Wow, it sounds awesome! I wish I had something to contribute
But it's something I would definitely read

reply to post by RatoAstuto


Where's the beef?

Got a sample?

reply to post by RatoAstuto


Make a sort of progression in the storyline, like the five stages of grief, but make it the five stages of conspiracy lunacy.

Starts out by just questioning things that do not readily have answers.
[e.g. He places his glass down, turns around to close the fridge door, turns back around and the glass is back in the dang cabinet!]

And the final stage is that he is so self-deluded and paranoid by having to use highly skeptical answers that it causes him to lose everything he has been trying to save all a long.
[e.g. He loses his family and is locked up in an asylum by trying to chase the answers - he is cuffed to a bed and then at the end - he time slips and he is back at the fridge and the glass is on the counter this time.]

eta: For research you should watch Number 23 and Butterfly Effect like 100 times.
eta2: Oh and add him saying "glitch in the matrix" that's a pretty common expression for when weird time slippy things happen.
eta3:Each stage of the lunacy could be written in prologue form like Donnie Darko directors cut. So you know what to look for in said chapter/scene.

reply to post by RatoAstuto


Yeah, post up a snippet, a few paragraphs and we can see where it's going. Even some detailed background on the characters would give a bit of further direction.

I once saw a movie called Jacobs Ladder which I believe may be similar to your plot. Maybe if you tracked that movie down along with the Manchurian Candidate, a conspiracy based thriller, that may give you some leads to follow as well.

If you know anybody who smoked drugs in the 60's, well hey, you've got a live subject right there.

Otherwise I'm sure you've got plenty of original ideas to create a masterpiece.

I recently bought a second hand book on writing novels and it is helping me write mine.
NOVEL WRITING
If you track a copy down, I hope it can help you too.

Good Luck and keep us informed of the release date.

Here's a sample:

Ok, alright, I'm going to put this # down and get it out of my head. This may be a long story, or it may be real short, I don't know it depends on how frantically I right. Hmm, frantically, now there's a word I've never used before. Haha, it's funny how writing does that; makes you want to talk in a way you don't usually talk. Well, not you specifically, you're a computer screen. Or, well, I guess someone may read this someday, if I save it... well, I guess if you are someone and you are reading this, stop, I didn't mean for that. But anyways, here we go.

I'm pretty sure I'm a superhero... yep, definitely.

You see, I don't die. Or well, I do but I come back to life. Like, not coming back to life Jesus style, where people knew it happened, or zombie style where I eat people, but just regular. And I mean regular as in I just wake up afterward and I didn't actually die, but I did and people don't even notice that I am basically a walking miracle.

Holy #, that sounded really egotistical. I am not what you may call an egomaniac wrapped up in some self propelled delusion; I've already ruled that out. No, if anything, I'm seeing the world far more clearly than anyone else I've come across... which is also something an ego-maniac might say, but I assure I am not. I'd tell you my therapist told me so, but I'd just be lying for humor's sake. My therapist has said no such thing.

No, what my therapist told me is that I'm living out a self propelled delusion and that I should take medication. I tried that, at the beginning, but the drugs didn't make the thoughts go away, the awareness; it just made it so I don't care. Not about them or anything else. So I stopped the meds, then I dumped the therapist. I started researching on my own, delving into some strange websites with stranger stories, some of which would have been unfathomable had I not lived through what I have learned – well, am learning – to deal with. Some still were. But I learned as I sifted through so much useless information to find the true gems, and I think I have figured it all out. You see, what I think is happening is that....

But then, that would be getting ahead of myself, and I should start from the beginning. This won't work if I just throw my theory down and don't review the lead up. I have to get all of it out, have to see it and read it and decide what it is, fact or fiction. All I know right now is that it's tearing my #ing brain apart wondering what's going on. So I'll do it right; I'll make like Phil Collins and begin at genesis.

It all started with Gary Coleman. He died after a seizure,. He had a seizure, bopped his head whilst falling down and bam, dead. Am I right? Am I? AM I?

Oh yea, computer screen, right. Well, I am. Right I mean, for I have found nothing on the web disputing this fact. What I have found disputed, is the fact that he died in 2006. Everything I have found about his death says 2010. But I call bull#, because I remember, ok! He died in 2006. I remember because I was watching my first episode of Wheel of Fortune with Drew Carey as the new host, and I specifically remember him making a comment about what a big loss it was. I remember it.

And yes, I know memories are malleable, and subject to error and all that. I was ready to believe it at the beginning, to. Ready to right the whole thing off to an error in the system, so to speak. But it happened again....Not Gary Coleman dying, obviously, but a similar event. Well, it actually happened before Coleman's death, but I was reminded of it afterward. I was driving to work, right, and White Wedding (the Billy Idol song) came on this classic rock station I like. It was the first song I ever learned on guitar, and I started to drift back to those simple days of my adolescence in that far off yesteryear of 1978, when I turned fifteen and my parents bought me an electric guitar. As soon as I picked up making chords I went for the song with a vengeance and picked it up so quick you would think I had wrote it. Apparently my friends did the first times I played it for any of them, because they claimed to have never heard the song nor of anyone called Billy Idol. Not that weird, right? I mean, maybe I was just lucky to have found out about such a hot act before most. Thing is, I'm recollecting all this about Billy Idol, and next thing I know the morning disc jockey on the rock station comes on talking about how we're rocking to the eighties and how White Wedding helped propel Idol to fame.

“Well, he's right about the last part,” I thought to myself, just chalking it up to a disc jockey too busy to check his facts. But Then I'm like, “Hey, disc jockeys aren't #ing busy.” And then I remember the Coleman thing, so I had to check it out. I get on the internet once I get to work, and blamo! There it is in black and white, White Wedding came out in 1982. Everything in me says the fact is error, for a musician remembers getting his first instrument, even a mediocre one. So, that being said, I took the next logical tep in my journey for the truth: I called my mother.

“Hello,” called my mother's sweet voice as she answered the phone.

“When did you get me my first guitar mom?”

“What? Is that you Billy,” she asked, sounding perplexed. I don't know why, it was a simple enough question.

“Yea, sure, so when did you get me my guitar?”

“Oh, ughm, it waaaas... oh, it was your fifteenth birthday, back in '79.”

“Exactly as I thou- wait, don't you mean '78?”

“Hahaha, ohh, I think I know how old my little boy is, Billy.” I would have begged to differ, because she was so #ing wrong (or, well, right and wrong maybe) but my boss came around asking why I was making personal calls and surfing the net so I was like, “Gotta go mom,” and we had to leave it at that. I tried put it out of mind as I worked the day away in my little, gray cubicle that always made me feel so trapped, but it was useless. My mind just kept jumping back between Gary Coleman and Billy Idol, Gary Coleman and Billy Idol, Gary Coleman and Billy Idol as I tried desperately to find some connection between the two events other than the fact that so many people had their facts on the two all wrong. I searched for a reason as to why widespread disinformation would surround such trivial occurrences as an actor's death and the release of a song. Making any headway on the query was near impossible during my shift, for the boss had informed me that he would be keeping an eye on my internet habits for awhile. I felt that if I could just find someone who had experienced the same types of events, then I could figure it all out. Luckily – for me at least – someone called in a bomb threat during lunch. Apparently they took it quite seriously, for the caller had intimate knowledge of the building, or so I'm told. Point is, I got to go home early.

reply to post by Bleeeeep


I'm hoping to do just as you have suggested, but I am having trouble representing these phases of lunacy at the moment. I need some examples of "time slips" just between the easily explained, mundane variety, and the really out there, delusional examples.

reply to post by RatoAstuto


Have it start out with the main character experiencing some simple slip or "whoa glitch in the matrix, said main character", he then goes to the net to look for answers, when he comes upon a conspiracy site like this one.

The above can have the prologue or chapter title "step 1: the first experience" (look to "donnie darko directors cut" for a very good example of how to utilize prologues.)

As the story progresses, the main character can be seen by others as talking to himself, or interacting with things that just aren't there; of course, in his eyes he is seeing more and more slips, thus the lunacy ensues.

There's tons of time slip examples you can look for on this site to give you examples... things such as misplacing keys and have them reappear in a place the user swears they had already checked. (You need to put them in your own words or use them as guidelines only, so you are not stealing other peoples work)

And this could give you some ideas. It's one of the weirdest time slippy things I have ever read. But do not copy others' work please.

Hi RatoAstuto
I just read your sample and I guess you have the "crumbling mind" theme perfected.
The constant second-guessing of ones own facts because they differ from everyone else's including their mums, paints a very good image in the mind.

Here is a link with many entries about time shifting
Missing Time Experience
and in it, there are one or two entries where people can recall news reports of famous people who have died, but later when they check their facts, the person in question is in fact still alive. You'll have to sift through the endless amount of entries to find it.

As an afterthought did you know that the sense of smell is one of the most powerful neuro-triggers we have.

As RatoAstuto entered the room he smelt the faint smell of disinfectant. It instantly took him back to a time when he was 5 years old when he was in hospital getting his appendix removed. RatoAstuto instinctively moved his hand down to where the scar was to scratch it. As RatoAstuto's hand searched for the scar, he knew something was wrong, he quickly lifted up his shirt and looked down. It was gone, his appendix scar was gone.

Read some Poe and HP Lovecraft...they excelled in writing about people losing their minds.

reply to post by Trubeeleever


Holy spit, I just checked... and it is gone!