A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 12
This is the fourth year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Last week I provided a daily explanation about why you should make it a habit to be generating story ideas. This week, I’ll give you some tips on how to come up with stories.
Tip: Look at Craigslist.
Dreamworks bought this pitch based on Craigslist ads.
There is this musical based on Craigslist ads.
There was this TV movie based on a Craigslist story.
Now something proactive you can do for your writing career while searching for a used barbell set.
As of last week, I made this new addition to the ASIEDFAM series: Dumb Idea Friday! Every week, I will post a cruddy concept. Why? Because we have to have the freedom to come up with a bunch of crappy ideas to find great ones. This is brainstorming, people! Set your Internal Editor (“That idea sucks!”) on neutral. Remember the mantra: The best way to find a good idea is come up with a lot of ideas… even crappy ones!
Today: “Vampire Graves?”:
What may have been an exorcism of a vampire in Venice is now drawing bad blood among scientists arguing over whether gravediggers were attempting to defeat an undead monster.
The controversy begins with a mass grave of 16th-century plague victims on the Venetian island of Nuovo Lazzaretto. The remains of a woman there apparently had a brick shoved in her mouth, perhaps to exorcise the corpse in what may have been the first vampire burial known in archaeology, said forensic anthropologist Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence in Italy.
Vampire superstitions were common when plague devastated Europe, and much, if not all, of this folklore could be due to misconceptions about the natural stages of decomposition, Borrini said. The recently dead can often appear unnervingly alive. As the corpse’s skin shrinks and pulls back, for example, hair and nails may appear to grow after death.
The remains of the woman were apparently wrapped in a shroud, based on the position of her collarbone, Borrini suggested. A corpse might appear to have chewed through its shroud because of corrosive fluids it spewed as it decayed, perhaps frightening gravediggers into thinking it was a vampire. [Our 10 Favorite Vampires]
Vampire myths link the monsters with contagions, and the plague ran rampant in Venice in 1576, killing as many as 50,000 people, nearly a third of the city, including famed Renaissance artist Titian. The gravediggers that ran across this corpse may have wanted to prevent a vampire from ravaging the city further with pestilence.
Okay, like the world really needs another vampire movie, right? But those two words — Vampire. Graves. — caught my attention. Combine that with the idea of a contagion or pestilence, that go me thinking zombies. And that led me to:
Zampires! Or a Vambie.
I’m not an expert in this area, but it’s my understanding that a zombie has no blood, therefore it’s more likely a vampire would snap the neck of a zombie rather than sink his/her teeth into said skin.
But what if the zombie in question was in a transitional state, infected but still alive. If a vampire became exposed to the zombie contagion, then maybe we’ve got something.
Alternatively a zombie could devour the brains of a vampire, and you could, I think, plausibly create a scenario in which the zombie inherited vampire instincts and skills.
Or there could just be some weird ass pestilence that creates zompires whole cloth.
I’m losing steam here because this is a really dumb idea.
“It’s Twilight meets Zombieland!”
Like I said, really dumb.
How about you? What might you do with zompires?
Dumb idea and all, it’s yours. And it’s free!
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. And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.
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