Here’s an idea for a novel/screenplay/whatever. It could be light (a romantic comedy), or it could be very dark (psycho/horror) — depending on the character development and ending. It may have been done before and, in fact, I have a very similar (but specific) storyline that’s I’ve been mulling over for ages, which I’ll write about at the end of this entry.
The plot is this – a woman somehow accidentally finds herself at another woman’s house and gets mistaken for the occupant. Maybe she’s an acquaintance of the woman who lives there, is dropping something off at the front door, and a handsome stranger walks up, assumes she is the resident, and explains that he has some reason to spend time with the resident whom he’s never met or at least hasn’t seen in ages (important point). Maybe he’s from out of town (a former childhood friend, for example) and thought that he could crash at the house, or maybe he’s the plumber (or the tennis pro, or whatever). The visiting woman (who, remember, is not the resident) is instantly smitten with the handsome stranger and decides on the spot to pretend she is the resident to allow her to spend time with the man.
Of course, there is the usual silliness where she almost gets found out again and again but circumstances allow her to continue her charade. Maybe he helps her break into the house because she has ‘forgotten her key’. Of course, she doesn’t really know her way around the inside of the house. Maybe he brings up an old childhood memory, which of course she doesn’t know, and she comically bluffs her way through it.
Anyway, the plot progresses, romance blooms, and the real resident is scheduled to return – so there is tension and urgency because the pretending woman will be uncovered.
Here’s where the story potentially diverges: (1) in the romantic comedy version, the stranger realizes just in time that the pretending woman is not who he thought, but that he loves her anyway and all ends happy; (2) in the horror version, the pretending woman intercepts the arriving resident, kills her, and the couple moves forward in a relationship based on a huge, ghastly lie. It would be interesting for this to be a film, secretly released at the same time with these two very different endings. The first 90% of the movie would be the same, but half of the moviegoers would walk out smiling having seen a romantic comedy, and the other half would be devastated when the heroine turns out to be a psycho. Hilarious.
My long-standing similar plotline is for an up-and-coming author to really admire a reclusive established author’s work. The young author would analyze, study, and practice duplicating the writings of the older author – to the point that, over time, he could write in a manner that was indistinguishable from the older author. Maybe eventually they both in parallel write a short story and it turns out nearly word-for-word the same. The young author’s may even be better. Finally, the young author (still well intentioned) goes to the old author’s house to bond and share his excitement, but the conversation goes bad (as they often do with recluses) and the young author kills the old author in a rage. He then disposes of the body and seamlessly assumes the old author’s life — even releasing new books that, to the public, seem exactly what they expect. (Alternately, these guys could be artists or musicians.)