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Last night I was watching Ellen (as I am wont to do) and one of her guests was John Travolta. She said something during her monologue, then he said something while she was talking to him...and the two things mated in my brain and did one of those 'resonance field' things, and I found myself having a great idea for a short story...but it sounds just familiar enough that I may have already read something similar or seen a similar story in a movie or episode of some show. Either that, or it's just such a good idea, I can't comprehend how anyone could have not had it before me.
So the premise is below. Your job: Does this sound familiar to you? Yes, I see the obvious relation to the movies "Total Recall" and "Brainstorm," but that's not what's causing the recognition-twinge.
Ellen said (paraphrased): Everyone should do what they're really good at and, eventually, someone will be willing to pay you for it. There are professional dogwalkers who walk your dogs for you if you're too busy to do it yourself....(etc.)
Travolta said (paraphrased): Everyone is so busy these days that you practically have to pay someone to live your life. "Here's $40! Go have fun for me."
So my brain goes *click*! (It was audible, and I actually didn't hear anything they said for several minutes and had to rewind ReplayTV.)
In the future, there is a company who employs people who are very good at having a good time. They party and live it up, go on fabulous vacations, do safe-but-dangerous things, etc. You can hire them to send someone on your vacation if you're too busy or, perhaps, too infirm, to go yourself. Or go to your kid's soccer game while you're at an important meeting with your boss. You can specify how much fun you're willing to have. Like, "I want to get really drunk and have illicit sex with hookers" or "I'd like to skydive out of a blimp" or "I want to scuba with sharks while wearing a raw meat helmet." Whatever. And they find someone and send them out to do whatever it is and then they come back and the experience is downloaded from their brain into yours (or perhaps into a device and then into you) and the subjective "I" of the memories becomes you, and you can even edit the memories so that the hooker is a blonde instead of a redhead, or whatever. You can see many storylines that arc off the basic premise, which is why it's so appealing to me.
I see small connections with, as I said, Total Recall, and also with Brainstorm. Maybe others, as well, but do you remember anything that this is sufficiently identical to that it would constitute plagiarism instead of inspiration? :)
I welcome any and all responses except those saying only "Yeah, it's just like Total Recall/Brainstorm." :)
[Edit: And "The Sixth Day". Just a little. :) ]
So the premise is below. Your job: Does this sound familiar to you? Yes, I see the obvious relation to the movies "Total Recall" and "Brainstorm," but that's not what's causing the recognition-twinge.
Ellen said (paraphrased): Everyone should do what they're really good at and, eventually, someone will be willing to pay you for it. There are professional dogwalkers who walk your dogs for you if you're too busy to do it yourself....(etc.)
Travolta said (paraphrased): Everyone is so busy these days that you practically have to pay someone to live your life. "Here's $40! Go have fun for me."
So my brain goes *click*! (It was audible, and I actually didn't hear anything they said for several minutes and had to rewind ReplayTV.)
In the future, there is a company who employs people who are very good at having a good time. They party and live it up, go on fabulous vacations, do safe-but-dangerous things, etc. You can hire them to send someone on your vacation if you're too busy or, perhaps, too infirm, to go yourself. Or go to your kid's soccer game while you're at an important meeting with your boss. You can specify how much fun you're willing to have. Like, "I want to get really drunk and have illicit sex with hookers" or "I'd like to skydive out of a blimp" or "I want to scuba with sharks while wearing a raw meat helmet." Whatever. And they find someone and send them out to do whatever it is and then they come back and the experience is downloaded from their brain into yours (or perhaps into a device and then into you) and the subjective "I" of the memories becomes you, and you can even edit the memories so that the hooker is a blonde instead of a redhead, or whatever. You can see many storylines that arc off the basic premise, which is why it's so appealing to me.
I see small connections with, as I said, Total Recall, and also with Brainstorm. Maybe others, as well, but do you remember anything that this is sufficiently identical to that it would constitute plagiarism instead of inspiration? :)
I welcome any and all responses except those saying only "Yeah, it's just like Total Recall/Brainstorm." :)
[Edit: And "The Sixth Day". Just a little. :) ]
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Obviously, several authors have used the premise, so you're in no danger of plagerism there. The question is whether your plot and characters are sufficiently different from the other stories, since the SF premise has been done so many times.
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Haven't seen Strange Days. Maybe have to look that up.
I'm sure my plot and characters will be vastly different because my mind is
warpedunique. :)Re; Strange Days
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not quite, but
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*hmms*
There were a few SF stories printed along this theme. About being able to pay to get what you want. These she remembers vividly, unfortunately, she's not good at remembering names, the people and the book kind.
One story goes :
People are being recruited by a mysterious organization to go out and have fun. Carte, quite blanche fun. The only condition : there has to be genuine and intense emotion generated from these activities. If the employee gets 'tired' of having fun or if the organization decides that the emotions are no longer intense and genuine, s/he stops, download his memories to the organization and would be paid oodles of money.
Second story :
Premise is Man could never get enough time to have fun. Ever person in the society work hard and try to move up a 'fun' ladder. At each rung, the person is given 'androids' that would replace humans in performing the mundane activities releasing these humans to have more fun. However, the person has to keep working to maintain his rank.
Third story :
Not exactly in line with ye idea. It's about paying people to switch body parts. Like replacing lovely young skin for wrinkly old skin, old tickers for young ones.
Would anyone happens to remember who wrote those, please? She's been trying to remember so she could find more stories of the same writers.
Re: *hmms*
Note to self
The surrogate gets another couple of assignments from the same guy. Turns out the wife requested him because she liked him and finds it easy to relate to him, so the husband's memories are better. After very little of this, he falls in love with her.
But he knows that she doesn't love HIM, but her husband. It tears him up. He starts manipulating the system to always be assigned. He starts to alarm her, so she requests that he NOT be assigned to them anymore. This throws him into a rage.
He manages to trick the system and shows up at their door. [end scene]
Meanwhile, Dad leaves work tired, but knowing he will soon also have memories of a pleasant day spent with the family. He's been trying to reach his wife, but she doesn't answer the phone.
He goes to the center where the surrogate has left his download. He starts the load and is horrified to find himself remembering brutally murdering his wife and son and then, bizarrely, the surrogate, whom he's never met.
Thoughts: Mention something about how the duality of memories eventually begins to tear down the user's grasp of reality. Play this into the end, where the guy is tied to a gurney ranting that he remembers killing his family, but it wasn't him, it was the surrogate.
End can be of surrogate watching all this calmly either AS one of the paramedics or an innocent bystander. The reason Dad remembers killing the surrogate is that ths surrogate killed a homeless man and then switched identities with him. The perfect crime? Because someone else REMEMBERS doing it.
Re: Note to self
What other uses could this be for? Attending boring meetings/classes, vacations....
How does the technology work? Are there people at the center, or is it purely drop-off-and-pick-up, like a one-hour photo place? Ooh! That could work. He drops off a pack before work, picks it up when he leaves, gets home and finds no wife or kid and downloads thinking he'll find some clue where they are when he does.
Of COURSE the company scans its employees, but...hey, there are a lot of people and the demand means that they got a little lax in their screening. Shit happens.
Re: Note to self