Last November the legend that is Kevin Smith posted this video online about a possible Dogma sequel. If you don’t know what that particular film is all about either go and buy the DVD or try to find it on a streaming service. The possibility of a Dogma sequel was enough to get me interested in this video, but it was what Kevin said how the story is currently written that really got my interest. You see, it turns out that the story has been written, it’s currently in that brain of his.
This got me thinking about story writing, and in particular about the stories I’ve written in the past, and the ton of stories I’ve got in my mind, some of which have been in my mind for decades. You see, as a child of the 1970’s and 1980’s who was brought up on television I’ve always viewed the majority of stories in my mind as television shows, and it was for that reason I’ve found it difficult to convert some of these stories into written words.
I’ve always been a little protective of these stories, worried about how people would perceive them, but having seen Kevin’s words I feel inspired enough to share some of these ideas here with you know. So here goes…..
THE SPY HUNTER
This is one I’ve had in my mind since I was a child, inspired by the American television shows that were huge over here in the 80’s and a video game that I tried to play in the local arcades.
A teenager’s parents are killed by an organised crime syndicate over unpaid gambling debts. The son, John Clark, is the only survivor of the attack, but his brain has been damaged with all of his memories gone. Clark’s only other relative is his aunt, and she’s approached by a doctor who claims to have developed a treatment that can heal his brain injury and restore his memories, basically re-programming him.
However, the aunt doesn’t realise that the doctor’s work has been hijacked by a government agency, an agency that realises that the doctor’s methods can also be used to re-programme Clark as the perfect agent, giving him countless new skills and abilities. The aunt gives her consent to the treatment as the doctor reluctantly gives in to the agency’s wish to turn Clark into a sort of “super” agent.
Another aspect of this story was inspired by the Spy Hunter video game as well as television shows like Knight Rider, with Clark being given a super-car filled with gadgets and weapons to help him. The stories would see him tackling a number of different situations and taking on a number of different roles, such as a singer and a footballer.
But that wasn’t the end of things, because about twenty years later or so I came up with a sequel. The now-adult Clark was still working for the agency and now partnered with their top agent, someone who hadn’t undergone the process he’d been through years before, but after a mission went wrong Clark promptly quit and went into hiding, and only one other person knew where he was, the doctor who’d treated him all those years ago.
Despite their misgivings the agency decided to leave Clark in his seclusion, but a few years later the other agents who’d undergone the same procedure he had began to suffer mental breakdowns, often with disastrous and deadly effect, and while the agency are able to deal with these agents they decide that it’s too dangerous to let Clark remain in hiding and that they must find him at all costs, so they assign their top agent, and Clark’s former partner, to find him.
In the years since Clark left the agency the doctor has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. In his final days he finds that the agency haven’t been following his treatment process, which is why the other agents that were treated went rogue as it were. Knowing that he’s about to die he writes a letter to Clark, which the doctor gives to his daughter just before he dies, along with instructions on how to find his former patient.
The daughter doesn’t realise that Clark’s former partner has been watching her. A few days after her father’s funeral the former partner “bumps into” her at a diner, revealing that he knew her father and used to work with Clark, and that like Clark he’d also quit the agency. He asks for her help in tracking Clark down, but the daughter says that’s impossible because she doesn’t know where he is, meaning that both have lied for their own reasons.
The daughter follows her father’s instructions and eventually finds Clark living in a cabin in a secluded woodland location. He’s heartbroken upon hearing of the doctor’s death, and the two bond during their time in the cabin together.
Unknown to both of them though is that the former partner has been following them, and after finally locating Clark and the doctor’s daughter he calls in for back-up. Clark and the daughter manage to escape just before the cabin is destroyed by the agency’s forces.
Clark and the daughter manage to make it to the nearby town, and eventually Clark and his former partner meet again. Clark manages to overcome him in a fight and takes him prisoner while they hide out in the store room of a general store. As the agency’s forces surround the building in an attempt to flush Clark out his former partner reveals that the agency knows that he’s no danger because of the way he was treated years before. The daughter shows him the letter that her father wrote to Clark, and upon reading this realises that the agency have basically lied to him and have been using Clark all of those years.
The former partner agrees to help Clark escape, but Clark realises that the only way the agency will stop searching for him is if he’s dead. He tells the daughter and his former partner to leave. They’re reluctant to do this at first, until Clark reassures her that it’s best for all of them this way. He thanks the daughter for finding him, and showing him that he can actually love someone, despite everything he went through when he was younger.
So as the former partner and the daughter emerge from the store and give themselves up the agency’s forces attack with all their firepower. The daughter tries to stop them but the building is destroyed with Clark inside. They later fail to find his body though, coming to the conclusion that it’s been destroyed in the explosion.
Nine months later and the daughter gives birth to a daughter of her own. It’s revealed that the doctor gave his daughter another letter telling her that if Clark had any children then he may have passed on the gifts he was given during his treatment years ago. As the former partner arrives to take the daughter from the hospital to safety, away from the eyes of the agency, they fail to see a bearded man watching them as they leave, a man with a passing resemblance to Clark.
Well, that’s it. I have to admit that once I began typing these ideas out it shocked me a little how much of these ideas I was able to type up, and how easily they came through in my memories, particularly in the sequel story. It’s like I’ve written the treatment for what could become the full story.
I’m going to put this out here now and say this. If there’s anyone reading this who thinks they can do a job turning these ideas into stories then please do. As long as you give me credit for the ideas I don’t mind what you do.
I did consider signing up for one of those AI programs to see if I could get anything out of them, but I quickly decided against it. The reason I made that decision was because of something that an American friend said to me many years ago, that I write from the heart, not from the head. Artificial intelligence can only write from the head, because it simply doesn’t have a heart.
This got me thinking about story writing, and in particular about the stories I’ve written in the past, and the ton of stories I’ve got in my mind, some of which have been in my mind for decades. You see, as a child of the 1970’s and 1980’s who was brought up on television I’ve always viewed the majority of stories in my mind as television shows, and it was for that reason I’ve found it difficult to convert some of these stories into written words.
I’ve always been a little protective of these stories, worried about how people would perceive them, but having seen Kevin’s words I feel inspired enough to share some of these ideas here with you know. So here goes…..
THE SPY HUNTER
This is one I’ve had in my mind since I was a child, inspired by the American television shows that were huge over here in the 80’s and a video game that I tried to play in the local arcades.
A teenager’s parents are killed by an organised crime syndicate over unpaid gambling debts. The son, John Clark, is the only survivor of the attack, but his brain has been damaged with all of his memories gone. Clark’s only other relative is his aunt, and she’s approached by a doctor who claims to have developed a treatment that can heal his brain injury and restore his memories, basically re-programming him.
However, the aunt doesn’t realise that the doctor’s work has been hijacked by a government agency, an agency that realises that the doctor’s methods can also be used to re-programme Clark as the perfect agent, giving him countless new skills and abilities. The aunt gives her consent to the treatment as the doctor reluctantly gives in to the agency’s wish to turn Clark into a sort of “super” agent.
Another aspect of this story was inspired by the Spy Hunter video game as well as television shows like Knight Rider, with Clark being given a super-car filled with gadgets and weapons to help him. The stories would see him tackling a number of different situations and taking on a number of different roles, such as a singer and a footballer.
But that wasn’t the end of things, because about twenty years later or so I came up with a sequel. The now-adult Clark was still working for the agency and now partnered with their top agent, someone who hadn’t undergone the process he’d been through years before, but after a mission went wrong Clark promptly quit and went into hiding, and only one other person knew where he was, the doctor who’d treated him all those years ago.
Despite their misgivings the agency decided to leave Clark in his seclusion, but a few years later the other agents who’d undergone the same procedure he had began to suffer mental breakdowns, often with disastrous and deadly effect, and while the agency are able to deal with these agents they decide that it’s too dangerous to let Clark remain in hiding and that they must find him at all costs, so they assign their top agent, and Clark’s former partner, to find him.
In the years since Clark left the agency the doctor has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. In his final days he finds that the agency haven’t been following his treatment process, which is why the other agents that were treated went rogue as it were. Knowing that he’s about to die he writes a letter to Clark, which the doctor gives to his daughter just before he dies, along with instructions on how to find his former patient.
The daughter doesn’t realise that Clark’s former partner has been watching her. A few days after her father’s funeral the former partner “bumps into” her at a diner, revealing that he knew her father and used to work with Clark, and that like Clark he’d also quit the agency. He asks for her help in tracking Clark down, but the daughter says that’s impossible because she doesn’t know where he is, meaning that both have lied for their own reasons.
The daughter follows her father’s instructions and eventually finds Clark living in a cabin in a secluded woodland location. He’s heartbroken upon hearing of the doctor’s death, and the two bond during their time in the cabin together.
Unknown to both of them though is that the former partner has been following them, and after finally locating Clark and the doctor’s daughter he calls in for back-up. Clark and the daughter manage to escape just before the cabin is destroyed by the agency’s forces.
Clark and the daughter manage to make it to the nearby town, and eventually Clark and his former partner meet again. Clark manages to overcome him in a fight and takes him prisoner while they hide out in the store room of a general store. As the agency’s forces surround the building in an attempt to flush Clark out his former partner reveals that the agency knows that he’s no danger because of the way he was treated years before. The daughter shows him the letter that her father wrote to Clark, and upon reading this realises that the agency have basically lied to him and have been using Clark all of those years.
The former partner agrees to help Clark escape, but Clark realises that the only way the agency will stop searching for him is if he’s dead. He tells the daughter and his former partner to leave. They’re reluctant to do this at first, until Clark reassures her that it’s best for all of them this way. He thanks the daughter for finding him, and showing him that he can actually love someone, despite everything he went through when he was younger.
So as the former partner and the daughter emerge from the store and give themselves up the agency’s forces attack with all their firepower. The daughter tries to stop them but the building is destroyed with Clark inside. They later fail to find his body though, coming to the conclusion that it’s been destroyed in the explosion.
Nine months later and the daughter gives birth to a daughter of her own. It’s revealed that the doctor gave his daughter another letter telling her that if Clark had any children then he may have passed on the gifts he was given during his treatment years ago. As the former partner arrives to take the daughter from the hospital to safety, away from the eyes of the agency, they fail to see a bearded man watching them as they leave, a man with a passing resemblance to Clark.
Well, that’s it. I have to admit that once I began typing these ideas out it shocked me a little how much of these ideas I was able to type up, and how easily they came through in my memories, particularly in the sequel story. It’s like I’ve written the treatment for what could become the full story.
I’m going to put this out here now and say this. If there’s anyone reading this who thinks they can do a job turning these ideas into stories then please do. As long as you give me credit for the ideas I don’t mind what you do.
I did consider signing up for one of those AI programs to see if I could get anything out of them, but I quickly decided against it. The reason I made that decision was because of something that an American friend said to me many years ago, that I write from the heart, not from the head. Artificial intelligence can only write from the head, because it simply doesn’t have a heart.
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