A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 18

This is the sixth year in a row I’ve run this series in April.

Today’s story: An All-Refugee Team Will Compete in the Rio Olympics.

An Olympic team of people who have fled their countries will be allowed to compete at the Games in Brazil this summer. On Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee green-lit the squad, saying that 43 high-performance athletes-in-refuge have already been identified as possible candidates for the team. The IOC is looking to enable talented athletes without national affiliations to compete on behalf of those who are dispersed and on the run.

Yolande Mabika

Also in the running is the judoka Yolande Mabika, who fled war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and now lives in Brazil. Mabika has not seen her family in three years and, she has said, hopes that competing in the Olympics will help her relatives find her.

It’s Chariots of Fire meets Eddie the Eagle, an ultimate underdog story. Athletes not only without any institutional support, they can’t eve represent their own country because they are homeless. Talk about a starting state of character Disunity!

Do you follow the group of athletes? Focus on some of them, let’s say three. Or maybe a single Protagonist like Yolande Mabika, who not only wants to compete, she figures to use the event as a way of reaching out to her relatives.

This is one of those sports stories in which the athletic events are merely a backdrop for the psychological and emotional journey of the characters, the contests imbued with meaning because we get to see their inner lives unfold before us, and hopefully a metamorphosis from Disunity to Unity occurs.

Of course, there would her coach, rivals, political red tape, the press, a series of contests, and always the lonely, persistent effort on the part of this woman to reunite with her family.

There you go: My eighteenth 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.