How to keep characters trapped in a house?

Question

I'm just trying to brainstorm with as many people as I can here, thought maybe some random strangers might like to help me out...

Anyway, I'm writing a story involving a group of teenagers who end up trapped in a house together and end up getting killed by one of their own (they don't know who until the end). \

The problem is I can't think of a good reason WHY they are trapped in the house. A snowstorm seems boring and cliche but everything else doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas? It has to be something that keeps them in the house even when they all start dropping like flies.

Answer 1

They were all kidnapped.

Natural disaster (goes along with snowstorm, but perhaps an earthquake makes it impossible to open any doors and objects and walls are pressed against every window?)

Supernatural "all wake up with no memory of how they got there and the door is locked" explanation... perhaps alien involvement, to study human behavior.

A war outside... gunshots every time one of them opens the door.

Futuristic setting, with failures on all door and window mechanisms because of computer malfunction.

Hope those help! Many have been done before, but the trick is making it unique, even if it has been done.

Answer 2

an interesting scenario...
who's telling the story? The killer? One of the victims...no couldn't be a victim or there'd be no ending...unless you beleive in life after death, lol. an outsider or God?

I like the money idea. People will do a lot of stuff for money...it seems the most beleivable. Now, if you're story is sci-fi/fantasy/make-beleive, well then anything goes...and really maybe this cabin is the only place within mainland borders of the united states protected from a nuclear attack.

Each person at the cabin has been working on a biological defense serum to ward of radiation poisoning. When China declares war on the U.S., they take their research and go to this predetermined location.

Little do they know that one of their own...

oh dear, this is better than a prompt group. And i don't even write sci-fi!!!

Good luck with your story.
it sound like fun.

Answer 3

It is hard to think of a way to trap people without using a snow storm and youre right it is a bit cliche.

All i could think of is maybe they are in some sort of national park or some sort of large remote location and they go hiking and get off the trail and are lost. They find an abandoned cabin in the woods and they decide to stay there to see if someone will come back there. It would be creepy and remote and they would be hesitant to leave the shelter of the cabin for the unforgiving outdoors. thats all i could come up with.

hmmm...actually one other option would be something like what happened with Katrina, theres a hurricane people are evacuated and the people who had to stay behind are stuck there without help for a long period of time. So maybe you could use some other type of storm (other than snow that is)

Answer 4

Hurricane, or other natural disaster.

Isolated location, car broke down and power is out. Perhaps an island, and the boat drifted away? Again, no power.

Maybe they have quarantined themselves so they won't get that horribly contagious, wasting disease that the rest of the county is busy dying from. It would have to be a very horrible disease with a 100% fatality rate to keep them all in a house with a murderer...

For other ideas, check out The Westing Game (I don't know the author) and Ten Little Indians (by Agatha Christie)

Answer 5

Hm, an interesting idea... maybe I should use it myself...

So you need a way to get them where you whant, fixed em and keep em fixed there, to speek in military terms. As I can see it now there is five good reason to stay in a house where youre likely to end up dead:
1: Youre prisoned in the house. Maybe the teenagers could respond to a masters call or search for slaves. Then he or she prison them and start to kill them one by one.
2: Some one or something youre attached to is in the house. Like a lover or a parent of yours or your child.
3: There is a lot of money to be collected if you survive/stay in the house long enough.
4: A evidence of your own guilt is in the house and had to be found if your not going in for a death penalty or lifetime in prison.
5: If you stay in the house youre rewarded by a ticket to heaven. If you leave you go to hell. That scenareo need a leader that is very seductive and could seductive both them and the readers.

Answer 6

Isn't that similar to Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians?". It's a plot feature I really dread & it's been done to death. The new plots are getting more subtle & logical - the women don't scream & the hero isn't really chivalrous.

If you can't think of a reason for the main plot, find one you enjoy piecing together and need no help with.

Answer 7

make them do something really bad and illegal as a family or as partners in the crime or something and then put them under house arrest. if you're a writer i'm sure you'll be able to use something the people on Yahoo! come up with. my advice is to read them all again every day. b/c you never know you might be reading one for the bazillionth time and all of sudden *gasp* the light bulb goes on! lol. have fun, and good luck.

Answer 8

It's a little too much like And Then There Were None, but it could be on an island and the only boat was taken away by whoever dropped them off on the island.

Answer 9

i might get a e book shelf... OR i might get a extensive portrait and carry it on the door... Or i might paint the region and camouflage the door right into a wall. Whatelse??? i might carry a carpet on a door as though a intense high quality layout, now if it replaced into on the floor, i might conceal it with a carpet and make it ideal length for the door and duck tape the sh*t!!!! or i might positioned something a rug and a table on precise of it, so which you will in no way think of there is something below the table!!! muahahahha

Answer 10

This is not new (I saw it on the TV show Eureka). The house is computer controlled and and decides that the people inside can't come out until they work out their issues.

Of course any variation of that, like malfunction or programming overridden by your killer would work too.