A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 15
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: Public domain
Laws vary from country to country, but if a person, event, book is considered to be in the public domain, then from a writer’s perspective, it is free content, you don’t need to secure any rights.
You want to adapt “Romeo and Juliet” into a contemporary gang shoot-em-up love story, you can do that.
You want to turn Abraham Lincoln into a vampire hunter, you can do that.
Straight adaptation, genre bend, gender bend, whatever you want to do, you can do it with a public domain entity. Plus the added benefit: Pre-awareness.
Today’s story: Father Charged With Murdering Daughter’s Pimp:
Barry Gilton and longtime girlfriend Lupe Mercado were at the end of their rope.
They had tried everything they could think of to rescue their 17-year old daughter from a life of prostitution, but nothing worked. That’s why, prosecutors allege, they turned to murder.
Around 2 a.m. on June 4, 22-year old Compton native Calvin Sneed was driving through San Francisco’s Bayview district when someone fired .40-caliber gunshots into his Toyota Camry. The shots caused the car to crash into a parked vehicle and Sneed died at San Francisco General Hospital soon after.
Sneed was Gilton and Mercado’s daughter’s pimp. Authorities believe that, not only was it one of them that pulled the trigger, but the incident wasn’t the first time the girl’s parents had attempted murder.
A few years ago, their daughter ran away from home. After a good bit of searching, they discovered she had turned to prostitution and that Sneed was acting as her pimp. At first, they tried to work through legal channels to get her back, but to no avail.
“They had gone out to local police agencies, agencies in Southern California — they had even tried talking to national organizations,” Gilton’s attorney, Eric Safire, explained to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Every place they turned to turned them away.”
Could go straight drama with this. Maybe a legal drama. But I know what Max Millimeter would say: “Hey, numbutz, ya’ wanna sell this thing? Make it a fucking action movie!”
Could do a variation on Taken and have the desperate father having to go up against an entire militia of mob guys in order to try to find and free his daughter.
Or what if the father kills the pimp and frees his daughter. However two things: (1) The pimp is the son of a really, really Bad Dude who wants revenge for the hit. (2) The daughter does not want to go with her father, her enmity toward him still in place, the very reason she ran away from home in the first place.
Then boom! An attack. And here they go, father and daughter forced on the run, conflict within (their relationship), conflict without (chased by bad guys).
That’s a nifty little first Act, yes?
It’s Taken meets Marathon Man, the chase dynamic reversed: First the Protagonist on the chase… then being chased.
What would you do with this story conceit?
And while we’re here at the halfway point of the ASIEDFAM series, which of the first 15 has been your favorite?
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 1
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 2
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 3
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 4
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 5
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 6
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 7
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 8
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 9
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 10
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 11
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 12
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 13
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Day 14
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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