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NebuPookins.net - NP-Complete - Short Story Plan
 

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Short Story Plan

I want to write a (very) short story which involves only one scene which is a dialog between two characters (for now, let's call them Characters A and B). The intent is for A to sound bewildered, and a little crazy, while B appears to be an "innocent bystander". Towards the middle, A starts surprising B by being able to predict what B is going to say. Towards the end, B finds out that A claims to be a time traveller, and while it does explain some of the strange things A said, B is largely unconvinced.

What would make this story interesting is that after you've finished reading it, you're supposed to re-read it again from the beginning, and get a completely different interpretation from the exact same text. Upon the second reading, A no longer sounds bewildered, but rather frustrated. And where he used to sound crazy, you realize now it's because A is referring to things that B said at the end of the story. A was in fact telling the truth and is a time traveller (seemingly unconcentually). A tries to convince B of this fact by predicting what B is going to say. However, B is still largely unconvinced, and A is resigned to failure.

Read it one more time, again with the exact same text, and now A sounds neither belwidered nor frustrated, but simply "joking around". There's a hint of acceptance in his tone, but it sounds like it's mixed in with denial and he is using humor as a coping mechanism. In fact, by the third reading, it should become clear that A has gone through this exact conversation countless times.

I'm not sure how to pull this off, but the story itself would be an experiment of how much context can change the meaning of a given statement.

 
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