A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 2

This is the third year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Why a story idea each day for the month? Several reasons which I’ll work my through during this series of posts. Here’s another one:

The only way to find a great story idea is to work your way through a bunch of crap ideas.

Ira Glass (“This American Life”), arguably one of the most knowledgeable people around today re storytelling, said this:

“You have to record and get rid of a lot of crap before you find something special.”

Same thing with screenwriting: You have to generate a bunch of crappy ideas before you find something special. Still don’t believe me? How about the wisdom of Linus Pauling:

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”

And Linus Pauling should know, one of the few people to win multiple Nobel Prizes.

So why focus on generating a bunch of story ideas? Because most of the ones you come up with will be crap. However somewhere along the line, you’ll find some that a pure gold.

For example, this is a second-hand news story that came to by way of my good friend and poet Kurt Brown. He told me about a radio report he’d heard wherein a husband and wife, deeply religious types, had become convinced that the world was coming to an end last May 22nd. We have all heard such stories before, I know, but two things caught my attention about this couple:

* They had been spending their money so that as the clock struck 12:01AM on that fateful day, the couple would have gone through all of their life-savings, leaving them with no earthly possessions.

* They were pregnant.

What occurred to me is what if you start a movie with this couple as they prepare for the world to end, the very last few minutes. A cold open on them as they spend their last cent and watch the clock, holding hands, waiting for the end of the world. The clock strikes midnight…

And nothing happens.

How would this couple handle that? They have no money. She is pregnant. The world did not come to an end.

Now what?

In fact, I told Kurt, “There’s the title: Now What?”

Of course a title like that makes me think of a Sundance type drama-comedy. Expand it to a dysfunctional family and perhaps you have something in the vein of Little Miss Sunshine.

Or if their faith has proved to be false, might they come unhinged? Take the story down a dark thriller path?

Or what would happen among the larger circle of those members of this religious cult? Maybe that leads to a horror film.

Anything here with this idea? What does your brainstorming lead you to come up with? Maybe it’s crap, maybe it’s not. But it’s an idea and it engages that part of our creative process.

Tomorrow: Another story idea.

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