A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 3

This is the seventh 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:

Being able to generate original story ideas sets you apart from writers who can’t.

Some writers can do it. Others can’t. The latter is resigned to doing adaptations, rewrites or taking a preexisting idea and writing that.

If you can develop solid skills at generating good story ideas, you give yourself a leg-up on your competition creating another opportunity to land writing gigs.

Today’s story idea: Guy Exploits Airline Loophole, Flies First Class Around The World.

In what may be the biggest con since your roommate signed up for Vemma Verve, a Delta Chi member managed to game Emirates Airlines into a first class, 11-city, 7-country, 5-continent trip around the world — all under the guise of a round-trip flight from New York to Melbourne.

The trip itself should’ve costed around $60,000. This cunning guy was able to make it happen for $300 with some frequent flyer miles and a little bit of elbow grease.

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Basically, this enterprising bastard managed to travel to some of the most opulent cities on the planet in the most opulent fashion possible, just by dicking around with his itinerary. Free bottles of Dom, open bars, in-flight showers, wild caviar, Hennessy Paradis, you name it. His trip was as smooth and glossy as a Zeta’s baby cannon on formal night.

In other words, he got to fly around the world like a fucking Saudi prince (minus the two tons of amphetamines and sweaty keffiyeh) for less than what I spent on public intoxication tickets last month.

Here is a video of the dude’s exploits:

We could take this any number of ways. A comedy, perhaps some sort of competition a la It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World or The Great Race.

Or how about this: An airline corporation calls in one of their top ‘busters’, employees focused on consumers who try to take advantage of various company promotional schemes. A hard-nosed guy who has busted hundreds of people through direct intervention. Now he is directed to go after someone they have just uncovered: A woman who has successfully racked up millions of miles in air travel for next to nothing in cash outlays.

It’s Up in the Air meets Catch Me If You Can. The buster meets up with the con artist. And it turns out, she has an ironclad take on life including the justification for her exorbitantly free air travel.

But why does she fly all the time? Is she running away from something? And if so, what?

Moreover is the life of a ‘buster’ all that he wanted to be?

What if in their time together, there is a seduction, not only physically, but also philosophically whereby she converts him from corporate acolyte to seeing them as the root of all evil.

It’s The Grifter meets Up in the Air.

How about you? What would you do with this story setup?

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

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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