# Inevitable death scenario



## Potty (Dec 11, 2012)

I'm writing a short and the whole plot revolves around the death of a character that the main character has to prevent. Eveytime he fails he is able to go back in time and try again. But I need something good, something that will result in the character failing all the time. So being run over isn't an option because he could just pull the character out of the road. It has to be something unavoidable and spectacular. The story wouldn't work unless he keeps failing.

Cancer would be a good one but not dramatic enough (No offence to anyone suffering from the drama of cancer). Lets say it is cancer, he could go back in time and try to learn how to become a cancer specialist... but then realises the technology doesn;t exsist to cure the cancer so has to go back and learn how to build the technology etc. 

Get what I mean? But it needs to be somewhat exciting... like, character has cancer but is being attacked by ninjas during a bank raid by Elephants dressed as lambs.


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## Foxee (Dec 11, 2012)

Maybe I missed it but does the MC know what the other character is going to die of? If he/she thinks that he/she does then they could go back, foil that attempt, and watch something else get the other character.

Am I making sense?


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## Jon M (Dec 11, 2012)

Or maybe ...

the CANCER HAS CANCER!

:head explodes:


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## Potty (Dec 11, 2012)

Yea foxee; so lets take cancer as an example.

Dies of cancer. MC goes back to learn to cure the cancer. Technology don't exsist. Dies of cancer. MC Goes back to learn to make the technology to cure the cancer but he needs the help of some other person for whatever reason, but other person is mugged and killed. Dies of cancer. Goes back to learn kung fu to rescue the guy who can make the machine to cure the cancer. 

And so on. To be honest... that could probably work. Is it interesting? Or should I stick with ninja elephants?


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## namesake (Dec 11, 2012)

How about a society that hates sicknesses because everything is already cured? Just an idea. I wrote a story with the sickness of the character as a statement of humanity.


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## Foxee (Dec 11, 2012)

Jon gave me an idea to give you. How about exploding heads? (Actually, that's what my husband and I call Fringe, we love the show but it's just not the same when they haven't exploded some heads for a while) Okay, no? Back on track...

I like the ninja elephants.

But I also do like the inevitable death scenario. So maybe your MC knows that Mr. Doomed is going to die in a car accident where he drives off of a cliff. The MC goes back, gets the guy out of the car, disaster averted, and he's killed by a drunken motorcyclist (Mr. Doomed, not the MC, though that would be a possible twist).

I think that there would be enough ideas here to spin it out about as long as you'd want to/your reader could stand.


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## Fin (Dec 11, 2012)

Potty said:


> Yea foxee; so lets take cancer as an example.
> 
> Dies of cancer. MC goes back to learn to cure the cancer. Technology don't exsist. Dies of cancer. MC Goes back to learn to make the technology to cure the cancer but he needs the help of some other person for whatever reason, but other person is mugged and killed. Dies of cancer. Goes back to learn kung fu to rescue the guy who can make the machine to cure the cancer.
> 
> And so on. To be honest... that could probably work. Is it interesting? Or should I stick with ninja elephants?




Besides the time traveling, it's kind of like the Final Destination movies. The person gets a vision that a horrible accident happens, warns people, they escape death while the ones who didn't listen end up dying. The people who escaped death end up dying anyway, one after the other in some other way.

They've made five movies of the same exact thing and they've all been fairly successful. So as for the 'Is it interesting?' part of that, then it would appear so.

I'm sure you could take this similar idea and make it a lot more interesting.


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## Potty (Dec 11, 2012)

I was rather hopinh to avoid the whole "Fate" thing. I don't want to do something that's been made into 4 films. I did think about doing the whole "One disaster averted only to be thwarted by another" but it's been done. SO I was going for an impossible thing to avoid no matter how smart you get.


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## Jon M (Dec 11, 2012)

Maybe you could 'splode some heads by making it a curse: person A dies, person B goes back in time to try again; person A perpetually dies as long as person B lives.


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## Potty (Dec 11, 2012)

Jon M said:


> person A perpetually dies as long as person B lives.



_*explode*


_I was going along the lines of the MC promises to keep the person safe, and the promise is what causes him to go back in time every time the other character dies. So he is trapped until he can keep the character safe. 

But I really like this idea you have given me... but I would still need a reason why the person would die becuase of the Mc... but it gives me a good ending if I/we can figure it out. He works out he has to die for the person to live but can't bring himself to do it so he is perpetually trapped in this cycle forever.


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## Potty (Dec 11, 2012)

OMG! The radio activity from the time travel gives the character the cancer causing a paradox. The only way to stop it is to stop going near her. or is that too butterfly effect?


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## benluby (Dec 11, 2012)

Potty said:


> _*explode*
> 
> 
> _I was going along the lines of the MC promises to keep the person safe, and the promise is what causes him to go back in time every time the other character dies. So he is trapped until he can keep the character safe.
> ...



Reminds me of the Butterfly Effect to a degree.
   But you're looking for a way to be trapped in a cycle that is unavoidable, but that the MC doesn't know what is causing the deaths, merely that he has to stop them.  Don't understand why you're saying the main character has to die to save the other, but that is your idea.
   One possibility, if it doesn't have to be some massive thing like the person to be saved being electrocuted due to a steel plate in his head attracting electricity, could be an aneurism that causes a fatal stroke, and the forensic examiner keeps misdiagnosing it, thereby forcing the MC to keep trying to administer CPR or relaxing the 'victim', never realizing that he's fighting a losing battle, because the problem is not in the heart, but the head.


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## Lewdog (Dec 11, 2012)

How about the person that is supposed to be saved had previously in their life signed over their soul to the devil in order to save their friend's life that keeps trying to save them through time travel?  You don't have to reveal this until the end of the book when the either the devil or the friend finally tells the secret?


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## Morkonan (Dec 12, 2012)

Potty said:


> I'm writing a short and the whole plot revolves around the death of a character that the main character has to prevent. Eveytime he fails he is able to go back in time and try again. But I need something good, something that will result in the character failing all the time...



The other character is falling off a building, bridge or out of an airplane. Maybe an airplane is crashing and both characters are on it? As a matter of fact, putting both characters in the same situation, with one surviving to travel back in time in an attempt to prevent it from happening, is a better idea. That way, you have a causative agent for the time travel (some fantasy thing that occurs during their death) for one of the characters and can explore "death" from both perspectives.


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## Jon M (Dec 12, 2012)

Maybe the two people are one and this person thinks he is trying to save the life of another but is just returning to the same place in time to stop his own death.

Haha. This is fun.


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## WriterJohnB (Dec 12, 2012)

How about something with more action, such as an armed bank robbery or a military battle where there are all sorts of ways to get incidentally killed?


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## Foxee (Dec 12, 2012)

Liking the bank robbery idea. Especially if the MC talked the character to be killed into it in the first place and then has to still have them go through with it or else the MC will cease to exist.

or something.


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## aesir22 (Dec 12, 2012)

They guy he's trying to save keeps committing suicide at different stages of his life but could be for a host of different reasons? Keeps going back to prevent them but finds/creates more?

PS, as for bank robbery, I've seen that quite a few times on tv.  Can only remember the xfiles doing it, where they kept going back in time to save someone, but I'm sure I've seen it on other things.  Tis a cool idea though if you go for it


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## Morkonan (Dec 12, 2012)

Jon M said:


> Maybe the two people are one and this person thinks he is trying to save the life of another but is just returning to the same place in time to stop his own death.
> 
> Haha. This is fun.



Ahhh... I see.. Tricky!

That's a good idea for a nice twist. You could run all over the place with that idea, from Sci-Fi experiment gone wrong to a trial in the afterlife.


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## Lewdog (Dec 12, 2012)

Morkonan said:


> Ahhh... I see.. Tricky!
> 
> That's a good idea for a nice twist. You could run all over the place with that idea, from Sci-Fi experiment gone wrong to a trial in the afterlife.



It's already been sort of done with Bruce Willis called "Looper."

How about a movie where the main actors are identical twins and one twin talks the other into switching places with the other long enough for him to take a vacation, but the other twin gets assassinated.


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## Potty (Dec 12, 2012)

I'm liking the scuicide idea. The MC could be in love with the other character but she is just one of those people who just really don't want to live.


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## Lewdog (Dec 12, 2012)

Potty said:


> I'm liking the scuicide idea. The MC could be in love with the other character but she is just one of those people who just really don't want to live.



If the two were really in love, she would have something to live for.


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## Don V Standeford (Dec 14, 2012)

Because of an insurance policy that will take care of his poor family, Character doesn't want anyone to know he's committing suicide. So he fakes his death by accidentally driving off a cliff. MC goes back in time and saves him, so he fakes his death again by running into a tree. MC goes back to stop that but then character dies by accidental gunshot wound. By the time the MC realizes character wants to die...he has discussion with character and tries to find out why he keeps trying to kill himself.


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## Foxee (Dec 14, 2012)

Potty, with this many ideas you might have to write a series.


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## Terry D (Dec 14, 2012)

Have you seen _Source Code? _ It's the _Groundhog Day_ of suspense flicks.  Perhaps your protagonist could be going back to prevent a murder?  Each time he is successful, the target still ends up murdered because the killer (identity unknown to the protagonist) is going back also.  The character would not only be forced to repeatedly save a life in the past, but also try to solve the mystery in the present?

Just a thought...


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## Lewdog (Dec 14, 2012)

The person keeps going back in time to save their friend, but their friend keeps getting murdered.  The one time they go back in time at the end and save their friend, the friend ends up being a suicide bomber that kills 25 people including the friend that goes back in time?


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## Morkonan (Dec 15, 2012)

*I HAVE IT!*

Here's what is going on:

The protagonist keeps going back in time to save someone. They fail, repeatedly. So, what's happening?

They're going back in time to save themselves.. from themselves. They're the victim, the savior and the murderer, all in one! ALL IN ONE! 

When you're screwing around with time, the gloves come off and you can do a lot of things you wouldn't have been able to do. I've got a third of the plot figured out, already! (Handy, since it's all in thirds.. The Three Act Play taken to extremes.)

Of course, I'm the only one capable of writing such a masterfully contrived story... (Nevermind that The One already did a lot of this. A great bit of Science Fiction, by the way.)


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## Potty (Dec 15, 2012)

Lewdog said:


> The person keeps going back in time to save their friend, but their friend keeps getting murdered. The one time they go back in time at the end and save their friend, the friend ends up being a suicide bomber that kills 25 people including the friend that goes back in time?



I'm actually really feeling this.


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## bioclasm (Dec 19, 2012)

How does your theory of time travel work? Is it perceptual, ie, the MC consciousness goes to a previous version of himself, or does he physically go back in time? If he physically travels, maybe you could have one version of himself (the latter most) foiling all his previous attempts because saving the man who keeps dieing turns out to have dramatic consequences.


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## Lewdog (Dec 19, 2012)

I was thinking with my idea, the government, or some secret service knows the friend is planning on being a suicide bomber so they keep trying to kill them, yet the friend keeps coming from the future to save them, thinking it's just their friends fate, until that one last time when they find out the hard way that they had plans to be a suicide bomber all along.


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## Potty (Dec 19, 2012)

The time travle works in such a way that the main character goes back to the day he was born retaining all the knowledge and experience of his past lives (Which makes for some ammusing moments) and has to relive his life over again training for a different aproach. 

Basically I'm writing it becuase I like to obsess over what I would do if I could keep going back to day one knowing what I know now. The whole thing about the character dieing etc is just to give the story a plot and a reason for the character to keep going back. I could use a whole different plot structure but this was the only one that presented itself to me.

This is more a story for me... but written in a way that other will enjoy so I can still sell it like the sell out I am.


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