Underused Story Themes

((Might have to be a little liberal on the "have a blog post up every day" thing, what with the working nights style schedule. I will just say that there are 31 days in October and at the end of the month I will have made 31 posts.))

I love storytelling. This should be obvious if you know me. I read, write, play and run RPGS, watch movies and TV all the time, and buy video games pretty much only for the single player story experience. A good story is one of the greatest things in life to experience. And I like all sorts of stories and themes and plots. But there are a few themes/plot elements that I do not get enough of and that I really like during the rare occasions that I do see them pop up.

First, Survival. I don't mean escaping the killer horror movie type survival. I mean out in an unforgiving wilderness with limited supplies and dangerous circumstances survival. I'm a bit of a survivalist geek, so I love this type of stuff, and I think it provides good setting and drama for storytelling. But I don't see if show up very often in stories.

Second, on a related note, is giant storms. Total "storm of the century" or "perfect storm" style weather patterns. Huge blizzards or rain storms or whatever. It could be a natural disaster, it could be unnaturally created. I think it would be cool to see more fantasy or sci-fi stories involve worlds or planets that have constant storm effects of some sort. That would make for an interesting setting. This speaks to the survivalist geek in me once again; but I also just love the concept of having to cope with and work within these massive demonstrations of the power of nature.

Third is fantasy and sci-fi crossover. Maybe with some steampunk or something else thrown in as well. My favorite campaign worlds I have designed have had elements of both fantasy and sci-fi in them. I like the idea of a world where you can have jet packs and space marines as well as elven wizards and portable holes. I think the genres could stand to be mixed more often. Don't get me wrong, I still like them separate from each other as well; but crossovers are great.

Fourth is maybe more of a trope than a theme, but boy would I love to see more stories in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genres where characters act like they've read a sci-fi/fantasy/horror book. Like for instance a character in a zombie movie that upon encountering zombies is like "Oh hey, those are zombies. You destroy the brain to kill them. Don't let them bit you. Thanks 28 Days Later and World War Z." Characters in genre works that are knowledge about the tropes of the genre just seem interesting to me and I'd love to see them executed well in some stories.

Now some of these things might not work well, and that might be why they are not around as much. But I'd like the chance to sample them and discover that for myself. And hey, if you have any suggestions for stories in various mediums that have these elements in them that I should check out; please let me know in the comments either here or on the Facebook link.