A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 14

This is the sixth 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: Go random.

This is going to sound really stupid. Well, it is really stupid. But all it takes is one time to pay off, then it becomes clever because as we know, there’s a fine line between clever and stupid.

Anyway the very first screenwriting class I taught 13 years ago was at UCLA. One night, I took two caps and some 3x5 inch index cards. I handed out 10 cards to each student, then instructed them on 5 cards to write a job [e.g., plumber, lawyer, dog catcher] and on the other 5 cards to write a location [e.g., shopping mall, swimming pool, church]. I collected the cards, jobs in one hat, locations in the other.

Then we went around the room, each student pulling a card from each hat, an exercise in generating totally random story conceits.

So someone pulls out “Doctor” and “Cruise Ship.” Nothing much there.

Then another person pulls out “Jockey” and “Restaurant.” Again nothing.

Then someone pulls outs “Cop” and “Kindergarten.”

I. Kid. You. Not. “Kindergarten Cop,” totally random, right there in that Westwood classroom. Okay, so the moment of inspiration was 12 years after the movie, but still it proved — sorta — that sometimes totally random, stupid ideas have the potential to generate story concepts… and even be a little clever.

Today’s story: Missing Old Man Turns Up In France, With Medals, for D-Day Anniversary.

An 89-year-old veteran who went missing from his retirement home in Sussex, England yesterday morning has been located: He showed up today on the beachhead of Normandy, medals pinned to his coat, to take in the anniversary celebration of the D-Day invasion.

— —

Sussex police were called at 7.15pm on Thursday by staff at the Pines care home, Furze Hill, in Hove, who said an 89-year-old who lived there had gone out at 10.30am and had not been seen since. He had gone out wearing a grey mackintosh and a jacket underneath with his war medals on, police said.

Officers began searching the area, including checking hospitals in case something had happened to him, and spoke to bus and taxi companies, but none of them knew where he was.

Late last night, a younger veteran called the nursing home to let administrators know that he’d met up with the old man on a France-bound bus, and they’d split a hotel room not far from the battlefields of Normandy.

The younger veteran reportedly promised to make sure the codger got safely home, just as soon as they were done celebrating their conquest of the Nazis and the fact that an almost-nonagenarian British pensioner is still such a complete badass.

Here is a photo of the “complete badass”:

I have to admit, I have a special fondness for this story. My old man was an Air Force Colonel. Flew 200 missions during the Berlin Airlift. Piloted spy planes over Russia and China during the Korean War. Logged hundreds of hours piloting B-52s, each plane armed with active nuclear warheads.

Toward the end of his life, he fell prey to Alzheimer’s disease. Sadly, for his own safekeeping, he was moved into the dementia ward at the military retirement community into which my mother and father had moved. That part of the facility was a lock-down unit so none of the residents could get out.

That is until Dad was put there. You see, he figured out a way to unscrew the windows, climbed up and out, dropping several feet to the ground, then calmly wound his way back up to my mother’s apartment where she found him upon returning from an errand… calmly sitting watching Fox news like nothing had happened. Mind you, he was over 70 years old at the time.

Another complete badass.

You hear the saying, “The story writes itself?” Doesn’t this one seem like it could? Old codger is bound and determined to make it to Normandy to commemorate what he experienced there. I imagine his journey is a la Planes, Trains and Automobiles… without the planes. There are police authorities on his tail. And I like the idea of the “younger veteran” with whom Colonel Badass intersects, who takes it upon himself to accompany the old dude to France.

Everything comes to a head in Normandy and we take a page from Saving Private Ryan:

Perhaps deposits his medals on the grave of a buddy who saved his life. Roll credits. Commence weeping.

There you go: My fourteenth story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free!

What would you do with it?

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 (hit Reply to join the conversation). And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.

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