Rad story idea, I'm not going to use it so writers welcome....

Hello all! I do some fiction writing on the side. I haven't worked on my latest project in months and I have a whole series mapped out. So I don't really have the time, energy or intention to actually put this idea to paper but the idea came to me and it's got the potential to be a pretty good story. I know some ATS members do some writing, so I decided to throw it out there. Maybe someone can put it to good use:

So there's this girl and she's really cool, but she's just barely making ends meet. She goes online in the evenings and bookmarks all the clothes and random stuff she'd buy if she had a lot of money. She does something creative, like poetry or art and has a blog or something.

Suddenly one day a $100 sweater she had been looking at arrives on her doorstep. She panics and runs to her computer. She thinks maybe she got drunk and ordered it and there is no way she can afford it. She checks the site that sells it...nothing. She checks her bank...nothing. It's addressed to her, so it's not like it went to the wrong address. She tells her friend about it and her friend suggests that maybe it was a promotional thing. So she relaxes about it.

A couple of weeks later she sends an e-mail to her mom lamenting that she isn't going to have enough money for rent. Her mom sympathizes, but she doesn't have any money to spare either. Suddenly, the day before rent's due there's plenty of money in her bank account. No records of a transfer or anything, just $600 more in the bank than should have been there.

This continues, but gets creepier and creepier. The big reveal: some creepy dude working for the NSA started stalking her online. He fell in love with her through her poetry/art and started trailing her every move. When he saw that she wanted or needed something, he just sent it to her.

I see this being a creepy thriller type story. There would have to be some big climax where he reveals himself to her. Of course she's creeped out and rejects him, which just makes him go crazy. But he's a villain with crazy hacking skills, so she tries to send an e-mail- he cancels it, she tries to make a call- he's cancelled her service, she tries to drive to the nearest FBI building- he remotely shuts off her car (it's one of those new smart cars). I guess from there it would crescendo to a physical confrontation, and of course the girl would have to win.

would be a great made-for-cable movie.
I wonder if there are Robin-Hood hackers out there? would be cool if someone started plundering somebody like George Soros and giving $ to struggling families or Red Cross.

I'd read that! S&F for a good idea and for using the word rad in a sentence in 2015.

It took me straight back to my teen years!

I ran it by my writing partner in Norway and he tried to change the villain to just a regular IT guy. I was like, no no no what makes it so terrifying is ONE psycho with the unlimited power of the government. Villain has GOT to be NSA. And I know similar plots have been done where the stalker/villain is a cop....but as far as I know, no one's taken it to the present and made a plot about the NSA.

That's what gave me the idea. I'm paranoid about everything I write and look at on the internet now. There was a family in the NE that got a visit from the feds because the mom was doing searches for pressure cookers (for quinoa) and the son was searching for backpacks (he lost his and needed a new one). Take it a step further...what if there's an agent (NSA employee, whatever their title is) who decides he loves YOU, becomes obsessed and is looking at every word you type, every site you visit.

Snowden (hero not traitor) revealed that it's pretty common practice for those guys to stalk their ex's and pass around the nudie pics of strangers- the ones with the most entertainment value I guess.

Creepy.

a reply to: ladyvalkyrie

Great concept!

I too see it as a screen play/script and expanded with a few more interesting characters it could be a feature.

We use this software...

www.celtx.com...

or...
www.writersstore.com...?cid=1821&utm_source= msn&utm-medium=cpc&utm_campaign=october_2015

a reply to: olaru12

Those links are really cool! This story would be a great script.

See, for my personal writing I lean toward fiction and since I'm an artist they're fully illustrated. Think graphic novel but not with panels like regular comics. Here's a sample page from the ONE book that I've actually finished and self published:

A thriller story wouldn't exactly lend itself well to illustrations. My current project is an Indiana Jones style heroine/steampunk series.

Anyway, hopefully someone can use this little plot bunny, I would hate to see it go to waste.

a reply to: ladyvalkyrie

Very Nice!!!

I don't know how lucrative your literary approach is,
but with your talent; please consider writing for the entertainment market.
As a small time producer and filmmaker, we are always looking for new material for our festival shorts, feature films and TV pilots.

We are small and can't afford to pay like the big production companies but we always pay some cash as well as points [share of the gross] if the project makes a profit.

Best of luck!

btw...one of my partners has already started a "treatment' with your idea awww.movieoutline.com... a few changes, Thanks!!! You will not be forgotten!!!


www.filmmakers.com...

a reply to: olaru12

I got an error message on that link.

But I am stoked that you may be able to use the idea!!!

My literary approach is negative in the lucrative department. Lol! I spent WAY more to self publish than I've made back in sales. BUT...I haven't advertised at all. My plan is to get a few titles under my belt and then make a big promotional push.

Plus, I think this new series has the most potential. I need to focus on that.

My writing partner and I are always batting ideas around. For every 100, there's maybe 1 we actually use. If you want to PM me an e-mail I could send you all our orphan plot bunnies. Good ideas, just stuff we don't intend to move forward on.

Here's a one act play I wrote years ago. Take it. The title is 'Casualty of War'.

CHARACTERS
Female: Single mom, police officer. She still has strength but is ready to pass the
torch.
Male: He is a hit-man. But he is benevolent, sympathetic.
The relationship between the two is never sexual. It is more like the Angel of
Death coming to claim Christ and the conversation between them.
SETTING
Big City, America. A small, cluttered, but cozy, apartment. Artistically decorated
with prints/paintings on the walls, books on the shelves. Toys and dishes are
scattered on the coffee table and floor. A couch faces a TV. There are two doors.
One leads to the outside, one to a bedroom.
TIME
Present.

ACT I.
SCENE 1.
(Female is on a couch, watching TV, she has
a drink-Jack & coke w/ice. She is
wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt.
There is a knock at the door.
The female gets up, drink in hand, and
opens the door just wide enough to see
outside.
A man stands there, dressed all in black.)
FEMALE
Can I help you?
(No answer. The man just stands in the doorway.)
FEMALE (Continued)
Oh, (Pause.) it’s you. (Pause.) Damn, that was quick.
(Female takes a sip from her drink.)
FEMALE (Continued)
Well, might as well get it over with. (She opens the door wide and stands to face
him.)
MALE
So you know why I’m here?
FEMALE (No response.)
MALE (Continued.)
Can I ask you a question first? (Slight pause.) Why did you do it? Why did you
stick your neck out the way you did?
FEMALE
(She chuckles.) Well honey, you’re going to have to come in for a minute if we’re
going to get into all that. (She steps back to allow the man into the apartment.)
(MALE comes in and stands awkwardly in the center of the apartment.)
FEMALE
(She goes over to a make-shift wet bar.) Have a seat, I won’t bite! (with a smile)
Would you like a drink?
MALE
Sure. Make mine on the rocks.
FEMALE
You’re a better man than me. I have to cut it with something sweet. (She hands
him a drink.) Now what was the question again? Why’d I do it? Here, have a
seat. (She motions to the couch, and he sits stiffly at the far end. She plops down
comfortably on the end opposite of him.)
FEMALE (Continued)
Well, first of all, I never set out to stir up this # storm. (Pause.) You want me
to start from the beginning?
MALE
Please do. (Tips his glass toward her and looks interested.)
FEMALE
I’m sure you know I’m a cop. I work on the street, in uniform, in a squad car. But,
every now and then I’d work with VICE, as a decoy. (She pauses and looks at him
to see if he knows what she’s talking about.) You know, I’d dress up like a ho and
go out in the street and bust guys that try to...umm, make a date.
MALE
(Nods in understanding.)
FEMALE
(Giggles a bit.) It was fun every now and then, but I wouldn’t want to do it every
day. Anyway, so I was working with them about a month ago and I was riding to
jail with one of the guys so we could finish the paperwork.
I started talking about how I kind of feel like # for a minute when the Jon first
finds out that you’re really undercover. They give you this look, like you betrayed
them. He said he knew what I was talking about, this one time he made a case on
this Asian chick in one of those shady massage parlors. He said she acted like her
world was absolutely falling apart. Then he said they searched the place and
found like, seven more Asian chicks, locked in a back room.
So I says ‘Holy #! That sounds like human trafficking, what did you do?’
‘Nothing’ he answered ‘I just made the one case and left. The Department doesn’t
give a #, they just want the marks.’ I left it at that.
But that night I couldn’t sleep. I literally laid in bed and replayed what he said
over and over. Surely he didn’t really turn a blind eye to that. I mean, imagine,
you’re a female born into poverty in say, Thailand. You meet someone that
promises you fortunes in America. You leave everything behind. But before you
know it, you’re hooked on crack, some creepy guy has all your paperwork, you
don’t speak English, and you’re forced to do sex stuff on nasty ass guys all day.
Then one day a police officer comes in, he knows what’s going on, it’s possible for
you to be saved from this living hell. But he makes one stupid misdemeanor
arrest and leaves.
For the next couple of days it continued to haunt me. So, finally I e-mailed
Lieutenant King, the guy in charge of VICE and asked to meet with him.
MALE
(raises an eyebrow/has a visible reaction to the mention of Lt King)
FEMALE (Continued)
I really had to track him down, but I finally got a meeting. I specifically requested
a private meeting, but he insisted that his admin Sergeant sat in. She was a fat,
ugly bitch and I couldn’t get a read on her, turns out she was on their side. But,
Lieutenant King seemed cool as #, so I trusted his judgement. He told me
about being a beat cop for 30 years and how important it was to him to take pride
in the job. When I told him what I had heard he was livid. I could see him
shaking he was so upset.
I defended the guys. I mean, they really seemed like good guys. I told the
Lieutenant over and over, I only had 30 seconds of a story. Surely there was
more to it, surely there was an explanation. I asked him what their policy was,
but he assured me there was no problem with the Department’s policy.
I had never thought about it before, but VICE was really the first line of defense
against human trafficking. They were the ones going into the massage parlors
and other shady joints that might be selling ass on the side. Plus, don’t know if
you know this, but Lieutenant King was black.
MALE
(Nods affirmative, as if he did know that.)

FEMALE (Continued)
Anyway, he was clearly anti-slavery-kind of important to the story. And I
reminded him that these poor girls weren’t pickin’ cotton. (pause, with a raised
eyebrow)
He told me that the feds were doing a major investigation and had instructed us
to stay away from a lot of those places, and that’s probably what happened, but he
would look into it. I was satisfied with that answer, so I went on my way.
That should have been the end of it.
But obviously it wasn’t. I went round and round with that Sergeant after our
little meeting. She started spreading it around that I was a rat. I tried to run
damage control, but there’s only so much you can do. Within a couple days I get a
phone call from my Sergeant saying that I’m no longer welcome to work with
VICE.
So I e-mail Lieutenant King and ask him who made that decision and why.
FEMALE (Continued)
He didn’t know anything about it.
Then that bitch Sergeant tells him that it’s a ‘scheduling issue’, which is a damn
lie. And I called her out on it too. It just got messier and messier until about a
week ago.
Lieutenant King called me into his office. He told me that he had looked into the
matter and everything was fine, it was just a misunderstanding. (Pause.)
But he slipped me this. (She gets up and pulls a folded sheet of paper out of her
purse and hands it to the MALE.)
MALE
(Reading aloud.)
“This room is bugged, so I can’t talk. This thing goes all the way to the top. The
Department doesn’t want us looking into cases of human trafficking, there’s too
much money changing hands. I’m going to keep fighting for what’s right, but you
need to walk away while you still can.”
FEMALE
The next day he was killed in a car accident. (She looks intently at the MALE.)
You know about that?
MALE
(Nods affirmatively.)
FEMALE (Continued)
Yeh, I figured. They did a good job covering it up, but I know a guy that was first
on the scene. He said that car was blown to #. He said he wasn’t sure but it
looked like there might have been some bullet holes in the body too. The
newspaper read Lieutenant King fell asleep at the wheel and hit a pole. I’m not
stupid, I knew what was happening. (Pause.) And I knew I was next.
MALE
So, you knew I was coming? (Pause.) Why didn’t you leave while you had the
chance?
FEMALE
Because I know in my heart that I didn’t do anything wrong, and I’ll be damned if
I’m going to run away and live like a fugitive.
I’ll accept my fate.
MALE
You never answered my question, why did you stick your neck out? I mean, why
did you say anything, risk everything, for people you don’t even know?
FEMALE
Because! (She is defensive, almost hostile.) Because I’m an American! Because
I’m a woman! (Pause, then almost a whisper.) Because I know what it feels like.
I know what it’s like to need help and not get it.
(Pause.)
FEMALE (Continued)
I guess I might as well tell you. (She takes a long drink then stares into the glass
for a few seconds.) I’ve never told anybody. But I want you to know. (Pause.)
When I was ten I was raped. (Pause.) By a “friend” of the family. (She makes
quotation marks with her fingers when she says ‘friend’. She is trying to
maintain her composure, but her voice is cracking.) It took a couple of weeks, but
I finally told my parents. My mind was #ed up, I can’t even describe it. It’s
like your brain short circuits. Well, instead of supporting me and helping me they
called me a liar.
Then they invited him and his wife over to confront me. (She’s starting to lose it
now.) I cried and cried, but I kept insisting that it happened.
FEMALE (Continued)
I guess someone told someone and the cops got called. One day they pulled me
out of class and I told a detective what had happened. ‘Thank God‘ I thought at
the time. ‘Now they’ll arrest him and he’ll have to answer for what he did.’
That afternoon my mom got a phone call, she took me and the phone out on the
porch so my little sister couldn’t hear. It was the detective. I sat there and
listened while my own mother told him that I was a liar and they’d always had
problems out of me.
Nothing ever happened after that.
All those people; the laws, my own parents, had the chance to help me and they
all turned their backs on me. (She breaks down into uncontrollable sobbing.) Do
you have any idea how bad that #ing hurts? (More sobbing.)
(Long pause. She regains composure.)
MALE (Quietly)
So, that’s why you became a cop? To right the wrongs of the world?
FEMALE
(Chuckles as she wipes her tears.)
Actually, no. It was probably the farthest thing from my mind. But over the
years it added up. Every time I’d take a rape report, every time a kid got abused,
it would open up that old wound.
The guys would always tell me ‘you try too hard, you care too much’.
#, if that’s the worst you can say about me, then I guess I’m doing pretty good.
(She smiles as she takes a sip. He gives a subtle smile back.)
FEMALE (Continued)
Well, enough of the Oprah hour here! Let’s do this. (She stands up and faces
him.)
MALE
I’m not sure I should. I don’t think it would be right.
FEMALE
If you don’t, they’ll just get someone else. At least I feel like you kind of know me.
(softly) I’d rather it be you.
MALE
(Stands up to face her and begins to reach into his coat.)
Very well.
FEMALE
Wait! When you’re done can you call my friend Vee and tell her to come get the
baby?
MALE
Baby?
FEMALE
She’s asleep in the other room. Please, she can’t be left here by herself. (Her
voice is starting to crack again, but she holds it together.)
MALE
Where’s the baby’s father?
FEMALE
(Looks down in shame.)
He’s never had anything to do with her.
MALE
I see. (Pause.) Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the baby.
FEMALE
(Relieved runs over to a table by the door and looks for a pen and paper. she
picks up a bill in an envelope and waves it in the air.)
Guess I won’t have to worry about paying this! (She declares cheerfully, the man
stifles a smile but is amused. She writes a phone number on the envelope and
hands it to the man. He takes it and sticks it in his jacket.)
MALE
Are you sure about this? I could give you a head start.
FEMALE
No. (Pause.) I am weary. (Pause.) I’ve been fighting all my life, it will be good to
get a break.
(They stand facing each other. The man pulls a gun out of his jacket. He fires two
quick shots into her heart. She slumps, lifeless, to the floor. He stands over her
and fires one more shot into her head. He stands over her for a moment, then
goes to the door of the bedroom. He holds the gun up at the ready as he slowly
opens the door. A shaft of light from the open door illuminates a small bed with a
child asleep in it and toys and clothes on the floor. He walks into the
bedroom slowly, gun still out. He stands over the bed for a long moment to make
the audience wonder if he’s going to shoot the baby. Then he looks down at the
gun as if he didn’t even realize he still had it in his hand, and puts it away in his
jacket. He bends down and softly cups his hand on the child’s head. He walks
back into the living room, gently shutting the bedroom door. He steps over the
woman’s body and makes his way to the front door. He pauses and looks back at
her one last time, then quietly pulls the door shut behind him.)
(Blackout.)

PROJECTION ON SCREEN- Newspaper article with photo of apartment taped
with crime scene tape. Headline: “Officer found dead in her apartment.”
Secondary line: “Second tragedy within a week. Police Department reports that
the fatal gunshot wounds were self-inflicted.” Article follows, but the audience is
meant to focus on the headline.

Oh yeah....back to the original story idea... my writing partner threw out the idea that once you get past the harmless, unexplainable stuff, things take a turn for the worse. The main character is online complaining about a neighbor- or the neighbor's dog....and he/she/it ends up dead.

You get the idea. It's a thriller. The creepy factor escalates as the story unfolds.