A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 22

This is the sixth year in a row I’ve run this series in April.

Today’s story: A Man Renovating His Home Discovered A Tunnel… To A Massive Underground City.

In 1963, a man in the Nevşehir Province of Turkey knocked down a wall of his home. Behind it, he discovered a mysterious room and soon discovered an intricate tunnel system with additional cave-like rooms. What he had discovered was the ancient Derinkuyu underground city in Turkey.

The elaborate subterranean network included discrete entrances, ventilation shafts, wells, and connecting passageways. It was one of dozens of underground cities carved from the rock in Cappadocia thousands of years ago. It remained hidden for centuries.

The underground city at Derinkuyu is neither the largest nor oldest, but its 18 stories make it the deepest.

Seriously. 18 stories?!?! Here are images of the underground city:

For more information on this site, go here.

Okay, what to do with this? You could easily go the horror route, how the dig awakens ghosts from the past who begin a rampage of violence on people in the present.

Too easy.

I had half a mind to go the comedy route. Setting: A repressed European town. Heavy church influence. Sin is a big deal. Young people with no hope of leaving stuck in dullsville. Then a couple of dim-witted brothers discover the underground city. What to do? Turn it into rave central: Import a hot DJ, plenty of drugs and booze, then lots of illicit partying directly underneath the staid old farts living on the surface. A subterranean Footloose.

But where I ended up is this idea of an underground labyrinth. A group of thrill-seeking cavers enter the site to explore its nooks and crannies. Their compasses stop working. Their sophisticated electronic gear acts all weird. And they get separated… and lost.

So maybe we do end up back with a horror story. Or at least a psychological thriller. Somebody could be whacking the cavers, one by one. But who? Or what?

If I were to do this, I might be tempted to play around with much of the story being told in pitch black. When I was a kid, our family visited the Luray Caverns:

At one point in the tour, they turned off all the lights. I have never experienced darkness like that. Scared the bejeezus out of me.

What if someone did a movie where a full 10 minutes of it, split up of course, took place in nothing but black screen and O.S. voices / sound? I mean this…

And this…

“AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Talk about cutting your budget! Audio over black for 10% of the movie!

There you go: My twenty second story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free!

What would you do with it?

Each day this month, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Gender bend, genre bend, what if. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are all valuable skills for a writer to develop.

See you in comments (hit Reply to join the conversation). And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.

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