Category: General

Story Ideas

Man loses his job. Plot follows his existential crisis, but is actually about world-building: he lives in an America that is different than our own in interesting ways. Shown, not told.
Scientist/Artist team sets out to build a map that in fact is the territory; a perfect representation. They succeed, but the metaphysical implications drive them insane.
A young married couple rides the Trans-Siberian Railway. The hours alone in the stark environment cause them to see each other in new ways. Maybe they split?
A hobo in the year 4000. How does a hobo make do in a spacefaring society? Probably dies at the end.
Some kind of thinly-veiled parable that exposes in a subtle, humorous and elegant way the immense bullshit that motivates homophobia.
Mother and son engage corrupt local political machine. Scandals, drama, etc. Eventual victory.

Reasons Print Media Is Alive And Well

Electronic media is only accessible to a certain part of the population; anyone who can read can pick up a book.
There is something really nice about the tactile feel of a book or a newspaper.
The costs of today’s electronic devices, in terms of resources per item, cannot scale in the way that paper goods can.
You can’t fill the shelves on your bookshelf with digital files.
Academic publishing houses would lose enormous amounts of money if textbooks auto-updated to the newest edition.
Electronic media is still lacking when it comes to interesting design; you’re limited in terms of screen size, shape, etc.
Electronic images can’t match a photo book; not yet. Maybe this is nostalgia.
Paper comes from renewable resources; iPads come from non-renewable minerals.

Electronic publication is more environmentally sustainable, as each additional copy does not require additional material inputs
As access to the internet becomes ubiquitous worldwide, material copies of literature will lose value and become anachronisms of an earlier age.
Electronic literature takes up less space than paper.
Electronic literature is more mobile than paper.
Electronic literature can automatically update to new editions, saving end-consumers significantly, especially students purchasing textbooks.
The cost to distribute paper literature is absurd compared to electronic literature.
Advertisements in electronic media can be adjusted to suit the particular reader, rather than the readership in general, making ads more attractive and thus more valuable.
The explosion of self-publication rewards electronic media; self-published works are more easily accessible to the electronic-based consumer, as many of these are printed to-order.
As electronic media becomes available on more devices (phones, tablets, computers, TVs, etc), the audience will become broader and broader.
The best and fastest forms of news today exist only on the Internet; blogs, Twitter, etc. To be well-informed one must read digitally.

A large collection of small customers means that losing a single customer is not devastating to your business.
Building a product to appeal to a wide range of customers within an industry will force you to create broadly appealing features.
Building a product to appeal to a wide range of customers will expose your product to many use cases, and speed future product development through feedback.
Smaller businesses are more likely to provide direct connections to the higher-ups within the company; rather than a part of a bureaucratic chain, you’ll be interacting with someone who genuinely cares for their company.
Interacting with smaller businesses means, largely, interacting with newer businesses, giving you access to and the insights of cutting-edge work.
Interacting with a large number of smaller customers will expose you to a greater number of ways of doing business, making you a better businessperson in the process.
Selling to a larger number of groups will force you to sharpen your pitch, and to really consider your customer’s individual needs and expectations.
Focusing on smaller companies will allow you to remain focused on a particular geographic region, which may be part of your overall vision. Think Local, right?