McGyver13 posted at 7:46PM Tue, 08 March 2016 - #4260003

I grew up in NYC... The cheapest movie plot generator was a subway ride.

I've never been to NYC, but I recently watched "After Hours", a movie directed by Martin Scorcese. The screenplay was by a graduate student who apparently took your advice. A very engrossing story (7.7 at IMDB), and just fun to watch.

I have been on the London subway (The Tube), and see how it led Neil Gaiman to some nice stories. From "Neverwhere", in London Below: Bad Guys: We'll get off at the British Museum Station. Good guy: There is no British Museum Station. Bad guys: Then We better get off carefully, eh? They get off at the British Museum Station.

I also think a related topic is to write what you know. I took a short story writing course, and tried to write an Artificial Intelligence story, which nobody, students or teacher, bought. Yeah, it sucked. Except for a short part about racing a small, high performance sailboat, something my wife & I did. A lot of stuff about "Where's the mark?!", "Now, go now!", "Ready about!", "Helms Alee!", "Skippers win races, crews lose them", loud wind and wave sound while tacking, etc. To me, it was pretty routine, but the others were sort of fascinated. "Who is the skipper? The guy on the tiller or the guy on the trapeze?" (Ambiguity!) The prof said, "Write more of that ..."