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need lots of trouble but no killing off my mc's

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aguywhotypes

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I'm writing this short story about a family of four who takes a short family weekend vacation together and its written first person in the past from the son's view.

It is based on Finagle's Law - if something will go wrong it will (that's murphy's - then goes one step further.) at the most inopportune time.

I was going to start to kill of the other family members, but I didn't want to go horror and don't really want to start killing them off because when the first person dies it would pretty much shock the other family members I don't know how the plot could move forward anymore. I think to be realistic the rest of the family would be to drawn with what just happened.

I need lots of things to go wrong on the vacation but not kill anyone off.
or
how could I kill off the family members without shaking the whole family up?
Maybe with one big disaster? Like an earthquake or a sink hole? Fire, perhaps?

Any advice or guidelines, would be appreciated.
 

Marlys

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Where are they going on vacation? You could start with an unexpected event and then figure out where it might lead.

Like, say they went to the city for their vacation. A storm or terrorist attack occurs, which knocks out power, which leads to widespread looting and violence in the streets...

At the seashore, the event could be a hurricane or tsunami, leading to much the same. And flooding.

In the mountains, a rogue storm--maybe an unseasonal blizzard. They have to secure food, find a way down, maybe fight off hungry animals or armed survivalists who don't want to share.

Start with a big "what if?" and see what happens.
 

alleycat

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You could have several incidents of a cartoonish nature.

One of the family members falls off a cliff. Everything thinks he's dead. They learn he's caught on a tree limb. When they all try to save him everyone falls into the river below. Uh-oh, the falls are just ahead . . .

Something like that. You could have a darker version.
 

Ken

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You could have several incidents of a cartoonish nature.

One of the family members falls off a cliff. Everything thinks he's dead. They learn he's caught on a tree limb. When they all try to save him everyone falls into the river below. Uh-oh, the falls are just ahead . . .

Something like that. You could have a darker version.

Good idea here. ^
 

jaksen

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Watch American Lampoon's 'Vacation' with Chevy Chase, and not to steal ideas, but to see how to set a series of disasters in motion. The disasters or accidents can be comic or tragic or a bit of both.

Seriously, watch that movie.
 

Katalyst

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If it was me I would probably have nothing happen to the family at all. I would have the son imagine a series of things happening to them, comical or not, your call.

Maybe he learns from his thoughts, maybe he is just a little twisted.

Anyway, just my 2cents.
 

Roxxsmom

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Sounds like the plot to Vacation, though there were some deaths there (but no one liked the dog or the grandmother enough to care, because it's not a Chevy Chase movie unless small animals and old people are killed).

Seriously, the kinds of things that can go wrong on family trips range from canceled flights, to closed campgrounds, to being booked in fleabag hotels (in the days before the internet, my own dad was champion at finding "quaint, historic places" for us to stay that turned out to be in the worst neighborhood of said city, complete with prostitutes and drug addicts staying down the hall from us), to natural disasters, to cat trouble, to road closures, to someone getting a very inconvenient gastrointestinal illness and giving it to everyone else, to getting robbed, to...?
 
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WriteMinded

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Somebody gets locked in a room, car, elevator, refrigerator.

Somebody gets lost in the mountains, on the road, at sea.

Somebody loses his/her memory.

Somebody loses the dog, cat, canary.

Somebody loses the car keys when they stop in on a dirt road in a wilderness area.
 

Reziac

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They go out in a rowboat. The boat sinks. Who grabs the oars and the float pads, and who has to swim for it? Who collected too many pretty rocks and sinks like the stones his pockets are loaded with?

They go for a drive in the wilderness. Their car has a flat tire. The spare is flat. An elk takes a dislike to their vehicle and bangs the crap out of it. (This actually happened to a car in Helena, MT.) A curious bear sits on the hood. There's no cell service. Who can outrun the bear??
 
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