"Fateful accidents" as plot devices?

[Aes]

My latest idea for a story (one that would be a lot more simple to write than the one that brought me here originally) requires the main character to have an accident, however I can't come up with a convincing way to make it happen. I'll explain a few things as briefly as possible:

Overview: A curse of sorts is spreading across the planet. Any part of the lands covered by it are stricken completely lifeless -- the earth is black and dry, withered trees and bones litter the sunken landscape, and the air is heavy and stagnant. Apparitions and undead are the only things that inhabit the cursed lands.

Living creatures that set foot into the cursed lands experience horrible, paralyzing pain as the curse corrupts their bodies as well as their minds. If they are lucky, their suffering is cut short by one of the ravenous undead inhabitants. Likewise, undead who leave the cursed lands return to a state of rest.

The boundaries between the cursed lands and those still flourishing with life are easily distinguishable, and the transition between the two is only a few to several meters.

Magic: Very, very little if any. At least for the living.

Now, the accident in question involves the main character stumbling into the cursed lands, yet somehow making it out alive -- this will, later, allow them to enter the cursed lands again with no ill effects, which is vital to them being able to reach the origin of the curse. Problem is, I don't know how to make this accident happen in a believable way. Any ideas?

PS: I know I've been vague in several areas, but that's just because this is nothing more than a general idea right now.

 

[Yunalesca]

Interesting idea!

...the only thing that came to mind is this... can the boundaries shift? If so, perhaps your main character was wounded in the normal realm, and then the cursed realm moved to envelope him. Perhaps he was only just within its borders and managed to stagger out when he awoke, or perhaps the boundaries moved again, leaving him back out in the normal realm...

Just a thought, and obviously this may not work if the rules of your story say the boundaries must be fixed.

 

[Duchessprozac]

Well here's my attempt at it.

As a young child the protagonist whilst off chasing butterflies, accidnetly wanders into the dead land, his father noticeing the child is missing goes searching for them to find them lying on the black earth just over the border. The father struggles across and is just able to throw their child back to safety but at the cost of his own life.

 

[Pyan]

Does the cursed area extend upward at the boundary?
If not, perhaps he could be flying over it, as passenger or pilot, suffer an engine failure or something, and just not quite make to the border before crash-landing - then have to choose whether to make a dash for it, or suffer a painful death in the zone.

 

[Lenny]

There seems to be a completely different way of doing it for every person who replies. In my mind I see:

The main character and a few of his mates could be out walking, doing what main characters and mates do best, and one of the mates dares MC to step into the boundary. He refuses, mates jeer, one pushes him, he pushes back, mate pushes quite a lot harder, sending MC sprawling over the boundary, and rolling down a rather large, and well-placed hill, the crest of which the MC and his mates were congregating on. MC injured yada yada, takes time to get out, yada yada, suffers ill effects that change him, yada yada, he makes it out after a few days of torturous pain.

 

[WriterDoug]

There seems to be a completely different way of doing it for every person who replies. In my mind I see:

The main character and a few of his mates could be out walking, doing what main characters and mates do best, and one of the mates dares MC to step into the boundary. He refuses, mates jeer, one pushes him, he pushes back, mate pushes quite a lot harder, sending MC sprawling over the boundary, and rolling down a rather large, and well-placed hill, the crest of which the MC and his mates were congregating on. MC injured yada yada, takes time to get out, yada yada, suffers ill effects that change him, yada yada, he makes it out after a few days of torturous pain.

you could even twist this around in a less comical manner.

the MC is punished by law or is part of some sick, sick joke and is thrust over the zone, with no expectations whatsoever of returning alive. think of it as a death penalty that requires far less tax dollars!

cheers,
WD

 

[JDP]

Maybe he could be (almost) mortally wounded and passes through the cursed lands whilst flickering between life and death, therefore being 'dead' when he crosses the boundary and negating the curse. He could go through some sort of zombification* before recovering from the original wound and rejoining the living.


*Technical term

 

[Aes]

...the only thing that came to mind is this... can the boundaries shift?

Actually yes, it's gradually expanding outward from the point of origin.

As a young child the protagonist whilst off chasing butterflies, accidnetly wanders into the dead land, his father noticeing the child is missing goes searching for them to find them lying on the black earth just over the border. The father struggles across and is just able to throw their child back to safety but at the cost of his own life.

I thought about something like that, actually -- a childhood experience, that is. With that one in particular, it'd be really hard to explain how the child was able to survive for so long in something that killed the father in roughly a minute though. Due to the incredibly lethal, fast-acting nature of the cursed lands, finding a way to get said protagonist out is proving to be the hard part in almost every scenario.

Does the cursed area extend upward at the boundary?

That's...actually a good question. Originally, I had planned to have it go straight up, but I suppose its area of influence could be tweaked to allow a flight over sections closer to the borders.

There's a lot of good stuff here. I'm going to take these ideas to sleep with me, and see what my mind can make of them by tomorrow. Thanks everyone for the brainstorming.

 

[Lenny]

you could even twist this around in a less comical manner.

I seem to have the trouble of everything I write coming out in a comical fashion. Can't for the life of me think why.

---

You know, Aes, you could probably write the book as a Groundhog day type thing, with him falling over the boundary in various different ways each day. Just a thought.

 

[Aes]

I'm all for silly stories, but I have this one planned to be written in a more serious fashion.

So far, I think Doug's idea of "death by throwing the criminal across the borders" is what I'm going with. I can already see some neat things that can be done with this later on in the story, too.

Edit: Now, to go off and ponder some crimes for my nameless, genderless, faceless protagonist to commit.

 

[Pyan]

That's...actually a good question. Originally, I had planned to have it go straight up, but I suppose its area of influence could be tweaked to allow a flight over sections closer to the borders.

Thaks, Aes.

I had a mental image of the area affected being like a huge, flattened dome, so that at, say, 10,00 ft up you could fly over the top of it, but if you went too low, it would start to affect you, and, of course, if you accidently flew too low, then bye bye

 

[Keri]

Well for me it wouldnt be a fateful accident. It seems to me that usually a character ends up somewhere they shouldnt be when they have no other choice. You could literally force the characters hand. They have a choice between getting caught, eaten or worse in the living lands or they risk the undead lands. Literally running from a great disaster into another disaster which may end up worse.

This could be setup in so many different ways but I'd make it a life or death choice personally. Sure death if you stay in the living lands because your running from the law, from a viscious beast or whatever you think is appropriate to maybe a chance if you enter this area.

Or someone is sick in the living lands and the ony thing that will save them is where their home used to be in what is now the blight.

Greed is a great motivator too, though I think less strong in some instance.

You could do some kind of weather trick like lost in the fog, or rain. Or your character has some kind of accident where they fall down a ravine and the only way out is through the blighted area because its impossible to climb back up.

Or he's in trouble with some villain and they literally throw him into the lands expecting him to die.

A variety of ways to do this and you just have to pick which fits your plot best if you plan it out ahead of time.

 

[Aes]

Right now, everything is still in a big ball of clay, waiting for me to shape it into a world, a more precise plot, and a cast of (hopefully) likeable characters. It's an idea I had the other day, and was like, "hey, I could work a pretty neat story around something like this."

However, I will say that the cursed lands are 99.9999% lethal to the living. As you begin to cross the narrow borders, where the lands transition, you'll feel progressively worse. Once you're fully inside the cursed land, the pain becomes too intense for most people to even stand up, much less attempt an escape. At 30 seconds, your body begins to discolor and wither, and complete disorientation takes hold. At 45 seconds, your features begin to twist, and by now, the pain has begun fading into physical and mental numbness. After a minute, your life as you knew it is over, leaving behind a zombified shell.

- - -

What I think I'm going to go with so far involves the main character as a low-ranking imperial (I'll name the kingdom later) soldier. His/her squad is one of several sent to enforce quarrantine on a town near the borders of the cursed lands. This soldier deserts his/her post, (really, who wants to be stationed near something like that?) gets caught. When he/she kills one of his/her fellow soldiers in an attempt to escape, an understandably-angry commander has him/her "put to death" from atop a cliff, conveniently sitting right at the border.

Wow, if they are going to escape from this before being overtaken, I might have to add a few minutes...

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Another possibility - he is riding a horse, which is startled by a snake (or something), bolts towards the zone and throws him into it when he hauls on the reins?

 

[Culhwch]

Right now, everything is still in a big ball of clay, waiting for me to shape it into a world, a more precise plot, and a cast of (hopefully) likeable characters. It's an idea I had the other day, and was like, "hey, I could work a pretty neat story around something like this."

However, I will say that the cursed lands are 99.9999% lethal to the living. As you begin to cross the narrow borders, where the lands transition, you'll feel progressively worse. Once you're fully inside the cursed land, the pain becomes too intense for most people to even stand up, much less attempt an escape. At 30 seconds, your body begins to discolor and wither, and complete disorientation takes hold. At 45 seconds, your features begin to twist, and by now, the pain has begun fading into physical and mental numbness. After a minute, your life as you knew it is over, leaving behind a zombified shell.

- - -

What I think I'm going to go with so far involves the main character as a low-ranking imperial (I'll name the kingdom later) soldier. His/her squad is one of several sent to enforce quarrantine on a town near the borders of the cursed lands. This soldier deserts his/her post, (really, who wants to be stationed near something like that?) gets caught. When he/she kills one of his/her fellow soldiers in an attempt to escape, an understandably-angry commander has him/her "put to death" from atop a cliff, conveniently sitting right at the border.

Wow, if they are going to escape from this before being overtaken, I might have to add a few minutes...

It certainly is an intriguing idea, but I would (were I writing it) definitely extend the time period of that change, to as much a few days or longer. The story I see here is one of a gradual change, which I think is more interesting than an instant one.

Of course, your story seems to start when he comes out of the cursed lands, while mine would linger inside them... For instance - everything is the same - two soldiers, desertion, death penalty, cast into the cursed lands. But something stops them from crossing back, or at least, crossing back immediately. Perhaps a geographic obstacle - the cliff, maybe. Or perhaps the empire has picket lines set up along the border to make sure no cursed ones come back across. In any case, the pair have to travel for some time to find a place they can escape, while the curse is slowly working on them. As they turn, they start bickering, and then fighting... and finally, when they spy a way out, the conflict comes to a head and the protagonist has to - or chooses to - kill his companion before escaping. Rough in detail but you get the picture.

But as I say, just my interpretation. Feel free to steal anything that appeals to you....

 

[flynx]

If it's a childhood accident then may I suggest a game of 'Chicken'. Who's the bravest of the gang and dare stand in the zone for longest or step deeper.

 

[Aes]

It certainly is an intriguing idea, but I would (were I writing it) definitely extend the time period of that change, to as much a few days or longer. The story I see here is one of a gradual change, which I think is more interesting than an instant one.

Of course, your story seems to start when he comes out of the cursed lands, while mine would linger inside them... For instance - everything is the same - two soldiers, desertion, death penalty, cast into the cursed lands. But something stops them from crossing back, or at least, crossing back immediately. Perhaps a geographic obstacle - the cliff, maybe. Or perhaps the empire has picket lines set up along the border to make sure no cursed ones come back across. In any case, the pair have to travel for some time to find a place they can escape, while the curse is slowly working on them. As they turn, they start bickering, and then fighting... and finally, when they spy a way out, the conflict comes to a head and the protagonist has to - or chooses to - kill his companion before escaping. Rough in detail but you get the picture.

But as I say, just my interpretation. Feel free to steal anything that appeals to you....

Yeah, the more I work this around in my mind, the more I'm seeing that somehow, I will need to make this enviornment less hostile if I want to come up with a believable way of getting the protagonist back out. Now, I really do like your idea of more than one person getting thrown in at once, and I've decided that a group of three will work quite well. The conflict that arises as the curse corrupts them is a nice touch, so I will borrow that one from you as well.

Thanks everyone, I have exactly what I need now.