It’s time for an update to the Ultimate List Of Cool Things To Write About! Too long has it slept unattended, while an increasing amount of cool things have populated the world. Each of them deserve mentioning in stories, although fitting them all into the one narrative would prove to be quite a challenge.
Here, then, are 15 more things that, if you write about them, will make you cooler than the testicles of a cryogenically frozen Wooly Mammoth.
1. Hallucinations
Hallucinations can come about through a number of ways. They can be brought on by periods of extreme mental and physical stress, by poisons or sickness, or by hallucinogenic drugs, and by mental illness. Each of these avenues to hallucination brings about new cool things to write about, and gives you a boosting point for a story or some of your plot.
Stress: Walking through a desert, dying of dehydration? Classic oasis hallucination, coupled with the phenomenon of mirages. Simply explained… Or is it? Sleep deprivation does strange things to one’s mind. Once, I stayed up several days straight while out camping I hallucinated a complete lounge set, including matching upholstery, sitting on the opposite face of the valley I was camped in. After passing out, it had been mysteriously removed.
Illness: A staggering amount of plants, mushrooms and other edibles are, if consumed in sufficient quantities, both poisonous and hallucinogenic. Often the two go hand in hand; some of the more extreme symptoms of poisoning from several plants include hallucinations before lapsing into coma or death.
Drugs and poisons: Hallucinations brought on by drugs and poisons deliberately consumed or administered can range from a mild shift in the perception of time and colour to full-blown psychotic episodes, where people lose the capacity to ‘see’ reality and envisage things entirely in their own minds. It can be terrifying and traumatising for those suffering the hallucinates, and people on the outside may not be able to effectively communicate with them. Poisons and drugs with hallucinatory effects are usually ingested orally and take some time to kick in, often with milder effects at first and then increasingly intense hallucinations as more of the substance is absorbed by the victim.
Mental illness: People suffering from a wide variety of mental illnesses view the world in distorted ways. Their conditions may be permanent or temporary, and triggered by any number of things. A heightened emotional state. Exposure to something seemingly innocuous. Flashbacks may occur at random. Those suffering both form permanent psychosis and temporary affliction may experience visual and audial hallucinations seeing things that are not real and hearing voices that are not their own It is nearly always a terrifying and deeply unsettling experience.
As you can see, hallucinations can be triggered from a wide variety of sources. How realistic they are to the viewer depends greatly on their mental fortitude and the cause of the hallucinations in the first place. Hallucinations clearly provide fantastic fodder for inclusion in your story.
2. Troglodytes
Darkly muttering figures in caves have had a bad rap in the Fantasy press. Generally represented as dank, dangerous and stupid. Often blind, finding their way about through touch and some sort of weird, unexplained echo-location. Often resembling bipedal slugs. Stupid singly. Dangerous en masse. Cn be tricked into worshipping people who bring sources of light into their caverns. Spread throughout underground networks. Bad-smelling.
3. Bitterness
Bitterness is a sign of a poisoned mind. Something bad has happened to a character, enough to turn their mind towards the darker side of the options presented to them. Bitter characters often speak with the voice of experience, foretelling doom and destruction on more idealistic characters. Bitterness can lead to betrayal; if someone expects to be set upon at every turn, they’ll often take ‘the initiative’ in betraying fellow adventurers. Bitter characters can have their hopes raised and then dashed, leading them further down a path of misery, or they can be redeemed by their own hand or by the actions of others. Adding a level of bitterness to one or two of your characters gives other characters a mirror to reflect their qualities off, and adds an enjoyable level of cynicism and tension to dialogue and group dynamics.
4. Poisons
What isn’t there to like about poisons? With poisons come poisoners, plots, treason, sneaking, suspense, discovery, horror, despair and danger. Who’s been poisoned? How was it administered? Can we denitrify it What about that spectacular death? Poisons get cool names, like Widow’s Kiss and The Barbed Strangler. Poisoners are the lowest of the low, the scummiest of the scummy, universally reviled… And yet extremely useful to the politically minded. Poisons are small, concealable, deniable weapons. Tip a vial into a pot and you poison a mercenary troupe. Dribble a little into your nuncle’s ear and become a king. Throw some scorpions into the sultans bed and marry a grieving princess a few days later. The opportunities are endless.
5. Cave networks
Quick! Hide! Where? In this cave!
So begins many fantastic adventures. What’s in the cave? A tunnel, leading into darkness? What could be in there? Troglodytes? Goblins? Orcs? A dragon? Treasure? Nazis? Carefully-obscured Nazi lookalikes (Thanks, Enid Blyton.)? An escape route? Who knows their way through? Do you have a dwarf in the party? What if people get lost? Can they find their way out? What lurks in the darkness?
Cave networks can be natural or artificial. Mines get made and abandoned, rusted equipment left lying to trip the unwary. The deepest, darkest caves can hold whole hosts waiting in their depths. THey’re very rarely mapped out and signed, leaving adventurers to rely on markings, instinct, memory, air flows, half-remembered guesses…
6. Torture devices
Thumbscrews. Tooth pliers. Eye pokers. Wang Manglers. Sharpened but rapidly growing bamboo stakes. Interpretive dancers. Mind leeches. The list goes on. Once you’ve got a captive, then you’ve got to torture them, right? They might have valuable information. Or you might just want to hurt them. Torture doesn’t need to be all subtle and elaborate traps, Saw style Smashing someone’s feet with a hammer does the job quite well. But if you’ve got a little bit of equipment, preferably laid out with glittering precision on black velvet trays… Well, now you’ve got atmosphere.
7. Minstrels
With a hey-nonny-nonny and a merry ballad, minstrels – particularly travelling ones – add a welcome element of lyricism and history to your story. A minstrel is the perfect excuse to a little bit of disguised info-dumping. Minstrels are inveterate gossips and slandermongers, usually possessed with an excellent memory for names, faces and scandals. That, and they’ll know everyone’s favourite songs – the balladeering equivalent of Baby Got Back. Sneak in the names of a few famous tyrants, castles, battles and victories, and you’ve laid out your world for us in iambic pentameter.
8. Submarines
Water is pretty cool. Travelling on it is even cooler. After all, that’s where pirates come from. But what about underneath the water? Well, now you’re talking. Submarines take us to where humans aren’t meant to go – well, not for more than thirty seconds of pearl-diving, anyway. What lurks beneath the surface of the ocean? Mega sharks? The Kraken? Davey Jones? Rogue submarine commanders, armed with nuclear torpedoes and deadly accents? Submarine warfare is the very definition of suspenseful. Lurking in vents and ocean valleys, hunting prey with invisible pings of echo-location, torpedoes burrowing through the water, sleek and deadly… Ye Olde Submarines have their own unique attractions, too. The image of bespectacled adventurers and scientists peering out at aquatic wonders revealed to them is a fantastic one, and something you can weave into a story of adventure and discovery.
9. Clockwork
Clockwork is all about precision, engineering, delicacy and planning. Clockwork makes watches tick, orreries rotate, and automata shuffle. Clockwork in your story can range from the simple to the complex. A clock in the town square. A simple spring-driven motor on a dirigible. A low-power electrostatic generator. The gubbins of a Victorian Time Machine. You’re only limited by your imagination on this one. Plus, it makes for a fantastic hand-waving device for anything unusual built around the Elizabethan through Victorian era.
“Zounds, man, is that a Demon Machine?”
“Faugh! Stuff your superstitious nonsense, old boy ‘Tis powered by clockwork!
10. Uniforms
There’s nothing quite like a shiny, spanking new uniform. Unless it’s an old, tattered, blood-stained uniform. Uniforms give a sense of identity to a group, and also make them an easy target for the enemy. Without uniforms to distinguish who you should whack with a sword, ground battles would be even more chaotic and messy than they already are. An individual can have a uniform, of course. Usually something either over-the-top balls-to-the-wall all-out impressive, like a Barbarian massive codpiece/black leather straps combination, or something they wear out of habit or allegiance.
11. Maintenance
Swords need sharpening. Cars need inspections. Bows need re-stringing. Lutes; tuning, guns; cleaning, muscles; workouts, moats; dredging. A wooden ship stays afloat by constant, vigilant maintenance. Armies function by constant drilling and practice. Skills un-practiced grow blunt. Lockpicks need to thieve. Master swordsmen need to duel, or at least run through training exercises.
Showing characters maintaining their skills and equipment speaks of where their focus is. A group of hardened men might sit around a campfire in filthy clothes, smelling like a boar’s flatulence, but ten gets you one they’ll be keeping their blades sharp. Showing a lack of maintenance is just as telling. What does it say when things are left to rot and ruin?
12. Logistics
Logistics are a challenge to work successfully into a story. Often taking a back stage to the action and adventure, a quick thought on logistics is necessary to keep any semblance of reality. Two adventurers strap on some swords and head out into the jungle, unequipped, to find the Lost Gem of NgThungu? Two days later, one’s dying of dysentery and the other’s gotten lost.
Any adventure is bound to end up in pedestrian disaster without maps, food, water, shelter, weapons and all the other things someone sensible would take with them. Logistics are a necessary element of any story. Don’t feel obliged to give us a full-on packing montage, replete with itemised lists of what everyone’s got. This is a story, not reading off a D&D Character Sheet. But give reasonable thought to what’s going to be necessary. Is anything rare or difficult to get hold of? Would the acquisition of it be a worthy part of the story? How much can people take with them? What do they have to leave behind? What will they regret not bringing?
“Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don’t you think?” – Jayne Cobb, Serenity
13. Drugs
Drugs do wonderful and terrible things to people. Administered properly, they save lives ease pain, open the mind, relax tension, and take people on journeys that are profound and life-altering. Abused, they can drive people insane, lead to life-destroying dependencies, cost vast sums of money, fund criminals, and end lives.
Very rarely is a drug all positive or all negative. This balance of influences creates enormous tension, especially for this using, administering, creating, smuggling, selling and policing drugs. Medicine and recreational drugs can be bought and sold on black markets all over the world. Drug companies with budgets bigger than countries influence entire governments.
14. Cryptography
This is Neal Stephenson’s forte, but I’m sure there’s something left over for you to play with. Cryptography, the art and science of hiding messages from those who shouldn’t be reading them, is as fascinating as it is complex. From simple letter substitutes all the way up to 1024-bit encryption and beyond to quantum fiddlings, people have wanted to keep secrets as long as there have been lies to tell. A clever code-breaker is an invaluable tool to whoever owns his services.
The military, spies, industrialists, lovers, criminals, plotters, inventors, investors and schemers all have excellent reasons to communicate ideas with a select audience, while being concerned about their messages falling into the wrong hands.
Facing off against them are the code-breakers and cryptanalysts, working furiously to break codes, extract secrets, and take advantage of the fruits of forbidden knowledge. Warning: researching cryptographs will put you in the realms of some scary, and scarily smart, people. Don’t get too sucked in, or you’ll never finish your story.
15. Facial hair
Twirled cryptically. Stroked luxuriantly. Grown ineffectually. Beards and facial hair can be a marker of gentlemanly respect, barbaric danger, manly gruffness, grandfatherly wisdom, grand-vizierly plotting, test-pilot adventurousness, musketeering dexterity, piratical rapscallionism… The list goes on, limited only by design, density, colour, and whatever you can find on the World Beard And Moustache Championship gallery.
Well, that’s enough inspiration for one article! Make sure to check out the updated Ultimate List Of Cool Things To Write About for more ideas, and, as always, your comments are welcome.
