A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 27
This is the fifth year in a row I’ve run this series in April.
Today’s story: Sperm bank for Nobel Prize winners.
The Repository for Germinal Choice, better known as the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, was founded in 1980 by multimillionaire Robert Graham, inventor of shatterproof eyeglass lenses. His goal was to combine the sperm and eggs of superior men and women — ideally Nobel laureates — to produce superior babies. If all this sounds an awful lot like eugenics, well, it was.
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It brought more than 200 babies into this world, and many had higher-than-average IQs. In the end, however, its biggest legacy was that it changed how sperm banks work by offering detailed profiles of the donors. Now it’s commonplace for women to choose the looks, professions, and interests of the men whose sperm they wish to use.
The Vince Vaughan comedy Delivery Man came out after I stumbled across this news item. Despite mediocre reviews, the movie ended up making $51M at the box office, not too bad for a movie budgeted at $26M, assuming all the ancillary revenues hit their targets.
Still it wasn’t a huge hit. If it were, then the idea of babies created through the insemination of Nobel Prize-winning sperm might be right in the wheelhouse for buyers. However the fact Delivery Man came out in 2013 combined with its so-so B.O. performance steers me away from my original instincts to brainstorm a comedy and go more of a sci-fi thriller take.
Leland Granger was a Nobel Prize winning scientist. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Felled too young by a sudden fatal disease, he left behind a legacy: Several vials of his sperm with instructions on how to use it in inseminating a genius female to produce a baby with strong genetic capabilities, hopefully reflecting Granger’s own intelligence. In addition, a sum of several million dollars and a bevy of caretakers, educators and trainers have been gathered to help raise the child to maximize his or her intellectual development.
And that happened with the birth of Adrianna. Now 21, she has already finished two doctorates and spends most of her days and nights, reading and doing research in the secret lab built for her by Granger’s funds. The dream: She can come up with solutions to many of the ills that face humankind including severe effects of climate change which are buffeting the Earth in 2036.
Unknown to anyone upon Granger’s death, a janitor with whom Granger had had an affair managed to secure one vial of his sperm. She inseminated herself and became pregnant. Eventually she gave birth to a son: Bernard, given Granger’s middle name by the mother. Unfortunately the mother died in childbirth and Bernard wound his way through multiple foster homes. The result: He is a con artist with little in the way of moral values, using his innate intelligence and street smarts to get by… but just barely one step ahead of thugs, marks and the law.
Enter some unknown global entity, I’m not sure what. They somehow discover Granger has these two offspring. And for some reason, also undetermined, their goal is kidnap the pair. I suspect it might have something to do with some awful brain tests / research they are doing for a malevolent end wrapped up in some philosophical nonsense to give them some justification for their actions.
Adrianna and Bernard get captured, which means they meet for the first time. Brother and sister? Shock. Disbelief. Hostility. Two radically divergent personalities with radically different life-experiences. But once the threat to their physical well-being becomes clear along with the entity’s ulterior motives, the pair manages to escape and off they go.
They don’t have a lot going for them, but they do have some assets. First, Adrianna has her support group and access to finances until, of course, the entity shuts that down. Second, Bernard has his own group of helpers, albeit petty criminals with some hardcore types thrown in for good measure.
But the surprising thing is this: Due to their shared DNA and brain chemistry, they demonstrate a kind of intuition about what each other is thinking. In fact, as they race along, chased by the Bad Guys, their ability to communicate almost as if through thought waves becomes more pronounced.
On the run. Trying to find out what it is the entity wants with them. Planes, trains, automobile chases. Since it’s 20 years in the future, throw in some cool ass drone skip tracers. Action! Thrills! Sci-Fi!
Okay, that’s all I’ve got. Probably needs another element or two to give it more edge and take it out of high concept-y-ville, but if you can see something there, go for it.
There you go: My twenty seventh 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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