Forum: Author Hangout

How would you write it?

ystokes 🚫

This is a do-over story with a evil twist, where in 2023 the MC is 55 years old, never been to collage, been a construction worker all his life.

While fixing up a very old house he finds a magic lamp in a wall and is granted one wish and one wise only and is warned to be very specific on what he wishes.

Not being too bright he says he wishes to go back 40 years to 1983. He wakes up from a coma and it is indeed 1983 and he is known as John Doe because he had no ID. The problem is that because he didn't ask that he also reverted to 40 years younger he was still 55 years old.

How would you think it should go?

Replies: REP Quasirandom KimLittle

REP 🚫
Updated:

@ystokes

I think I would have the MC locate the lamp and negotiate another wish. Rationale being that at that point on the timeline, the MC had not made a wish because the second wish could not have been made if the first wish was not granted. The MC is granted the wish.

The wish is granted but the outcome results in the MC's original wish being voided. The ending could be interesting. For instance, the MC's original wish is voided and he is returned to 2023, which voids the second wish or maybe the details are granted with the MC in 2023.

Of course another wish can't be made because the second wish had been granted.

Quasirandom 🚫

@ystokes

Well, I'd write it as oh fuck I have to live through Reagan and fucking Meese the Pig and omfg all those 80s fashions ughhhhhh. But that's me. He made a bad decision, the rest of the story is consequences.

(If I ever commit to writing a do-over, it'll involve walking up in October 1983 as a 15-year-old.)

KimLittle 🚫

@ystokes

I actually think he'd be more likely to say "I was I was 15 again" and then suddenly have to cope with being a 15yo in 2023. So fucking different from 1983. An interesting twist on the do-over trope. They have the chance to do things over, but from now, so it really would be the results of their choices.

Replies: Dicrostonyx Grey Wolf

Dicrostonyx 🚫

@KimLittle

Yeah, I think this is the way to go to make it interesting. There are some do-overs that are well enough written to be interesting despite the foreknowledge, but too many of them are just the OP doing everything right to get rich interspersed with scenes of seducing teenaged girls.

Replies: KimLittle

KimLittle 🚫

@Dicrostonyx

If I was turned into a 15yo with all my memories intact right now, the birthrate for teenage girls would go through the ceiling. Also for those cougars who have a smooth-skin fetish. As a teenager in the 90s, I would have gotten laid a lot more if there hadn't been gatekeepers to the house phone - with a direct line to these girls, I'd be swamped, but decades of project management experience would come in handy…

Damn. I never thought I'd write a do-over, but you've prompted me to come up with an interesting take. Maybe I'll get around to it once I finish the current WIP, then write the other one I've plotted out, in between working 60 hours a week as a teacher and trying to remain married to the mother of my two kids.

Expect it to start posting in 2046.

Replies: ystokes

ystokes 🚫

@KimLittle

If I was turned into a 15yo with all my memories intact right now, the birthrate for teenage girls would go through the ceiling.

That is pretty much every do-over story, that's why I said he came back as a 55-year-old.

Replies: Dominions Son helmut_meukel

Dominions Son 🚫

@ystokes

that's why I said he came back as a 55-year-old.

That's not a different take on a do-over, it's not a do-over at all, just a time travel story.

helmut_meukel 🚫

@ystokes

If I was turned into a 15yo with all my memories intact right now, the birthrate for teenage girls would go through the ceiling.

That is pretty much every do-over story, that's why I said he came back as a 55-year-old.

ystokes, seems you misunderstood KimLittle.
Usual do-over stories let the MC start new back in time and young again.
What KimLittle suggested is a new start as a 15yo but now! (as in 2023, but young again not 76yo, some sort of rejuvenation).

HM.

Grey Wolf 🚫

@KimLittle

Aroslav did that in "The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins". The MC gets to start over in high school, but in the current day, following his own death.

I count it as a 'do-over'. Some people do not, arguing that the time travel element is required.

Replies: solitude

solitude 🚫

@Grey Wolf

The MC gets to start over in high school, but in the current day, following his own death.

... and in a different time stream, so unlike most do-overs the MC cannot take advantage of prior knowledge of stocks and commodities to watch; he even has to learn different rules of the road (viz, severely enforced speed limits!). Makes a nice change, as the only thing 'done over' is the MC.

Reply to topic

Forum: Author Hangout

How would you write it?

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...