Backstory of a story I'm planning to work on

Discussion in 'Writers' Corner' started by Mrlegitislegit, Sep 27, 2015.

  1. (Just need a place to dump ideas for this, feel free to comment if you wish)

    1. Global overpopulation has caused many of the worlds nations to implement measures, both reasonable and very extreme, to help combat rising populations.
    2. Overpopulation is due mostly to a lack of contraception. The idea that sex could be seen as a form of pleasure rather than just for reproduction was never wide spread, therefor contraception were never widely produced and cannot be gotten in large parts of the world. At the point the story takes place, people are now lobbying for research into contraception. Some more reasons for overpopulation is a more stable Africa, less war and poverty would mean more people survive. The same goes for the Middle East.
    3. The country the story takes place in (not decided yet, might be a real country or a fictional one) has decided to keep,populations down by implementing a policy that makes it so every day 10 people over the age of 18 are randomly killed by a government agent.
    4. The agent is also anyone over the age of 18. They are given a random person to kill and are then are retired after doing so. The only way to get out of killing the person is to kill yourself.
    5. The country's citizens are at this point okay with the policy. There are no protests, no riots, just normal everyday life. This is because several generations have passed and people have come to accept the change. Other than the killings, the government operates like a normal real world one.
    6. The story will be told by a man who is picked to be an agent and is given his wife/child/mom/dad/etc.

    Just some ideas.
    iNachos10, ChamelonNYC and Kephras like this.
  2. Interesting premise, but I don't think suspension of disbelief will hold up well given the last couple points:
    I have a vivid imagination, but I can't picture a population that would be "okay" with sanctioned government assassinations against everyday citizens, on a daily basis. You might want to narrow it down a bit: Criminals, unemployed, homeless, some other sect of "undesirable," etc. If Average Working-Class Joe is constantly afraid for his life that one day his number might come up, you've got the recipe for an entire country in a state of terror and paranoia, and it would rapidly tear itself apart before "generations" of people could come and go and accept it as part of life. As long as there's a group of people who feel safe and can rest easy thinking "at least it won't be me," then you'll have enough stability to maintain the premise. If everyone is fair-game, it'll be chaos.

    See above: I think there'd have to be some kind of other circumstance at work for an agent to be given his loved one to take out. For some reason, "Equilibrium" and "Fahrenheit 451" both come to mind here.
  3. I can see you turning this into some sort of horror thing.
    You could also make it so the man tries to overthrow this entire premise of killing random people, and overthrows the government.
    But, so far, it looks pretty good.
    I can see myself reading this if you decide to post it here. :)
    iNachos10 likes this.