Outlaw town

[The Light]

Ideas come to me at the worst of times it seems so I'm posting it here while I'm sort of awake.

I was thinking today what it would be like to kill a man. I mean face to face, looking straight at him and being able to read every emotion going through him at the time. I suppose The Joker is partly to blame for that wonderful train of thought. Anyway, I got to thinking, what would/do other outlaws think of murderers? One thing jumped to another in my head which wouldn't make much sense to anyone else but myself but it came to this story idea.

Have a town possibly in the near future, hidden from any sort of government, filled with all manner of criminals and outlaws living and working together just to survive. It would have to start well after the town was established like several generations down the road acting sort of as a safe house for criminals on the run or perhaps for people just wanting to settle down outside the watchful eye of the government for various reasons.

I'm thinking a dystopian sort of setting with a bit of steam punk thrown in. The main focus of the story would obviously be a man who not only killed people but enjoyed it (hence my previous train of thought) attempting to do either one of two things. Either settle down and fit in with the other people or I could go with him being someone on the run relating his life story and dealing with his personal demons throughout his short stop in the town.

It could be interesting and fun to write, or it could be another flop but at least I wrote down this idea unlike the others.

Any suggestions on plot, characters, etc. would be greatly appreciated as I hammer this out to be actually usable.

[Occoris]

okay, first off, awesome idea- personally I always enjoyed just, character studies. It's like my general obsession with creating worlds but no plots :/

ANYWAY. You'd need a few things for this-
stereotypes. you'll need them to help make this work right- your mercenary. the one with the morals in exchange for money. keeps his word and all that, and does NOT do certain things. he came most likely to get out of the business.

The Gentleman-pirate. okay, but that, i mean.. hmm. acts well in public, but very specific. you know. you make a deal with him and he follows it to the letter, no assumptions made. He's the man who you find kinda fishy but you wouldn't actually be able to find any evidence on him, yanno? He might not actually be here to turn around, but rather, to make a profit.

The generic scum. In this town, these guys would probably be the only ones who still rob and steal. everybody would look at them funny for giving their already dirty town an even worse name- they sort of kill the point to some extent.

you'd want a few poeple who HAVE killed, for a middle ground between the murderer and the normal baddies. like, they've shot a man and all, bu not on purpose, or under pain of death if they hadn';t. yanno

Hmmmm. a leader. maybe somebody who had originally moved to the town with his group awhile ago.

you could go a few ways- somebody who honestly wanted to change and who forces everyoen else to using scare tactics, or one of those poeple who always had a heart, just never any choices..

D:

yeah. i dunnno. I'm just idly tossing ideas :/