A Story Idea Each Day for a Month: Success!
Every April for 5 years, I have run a monthly series: A Story Idea Each Day for a Month. Over the course of 12 months, I’ll flag 30 story ideas I find in my daily trek through all of my news sources and write posts about them. And here’s the thing: I give them away for free. If you like any of the ideas, they are yours to use however you like.
Why on Earth do I do this? Beyond the considerable possibility I’m just a bit nutty — Giving away free ideas?!?! — I run the series every year to drive home this point:
YOU NEED TO WRITE SCRIPTS WITH THE STRONGEST STORY IDEAS POSSIBLE!!!
You can write a spec screenplay that is professional in every way, yet if the story concept is a mediocre or even average one, chances are extremely slim that script will sell.
You have to look everyday and everywhere for the very best story ideas.
So imagine my interest when I read this in Deadline the other day:
Dante Harper has been set by Fox 2000 to rewrite The Secret Of The Temple, based on the Jake Halpern New Yorker magazine article published two years ago. The article is about a fight over treasure vaults worth $20 billion, hidden beneath a temple in the jungle of India, and supposedly cursed, with a bunch of thieves, radicals and the royal family that guards the temple all trying to get at the loot. The facts will ground a heist adventure movie with an international cast. David Heyman’s Heyday is producing.
Now compare to this Story Idea Each Day for a Month post from April 7, 2012:
Today’s story idea: Beneath a Temple in Southern India, a Treasure Trove of Staggering Riches.
MUMBAI, India — A court-ordered search of vaults beneath a south Indian temple has unearthed gold, jewels and statues worth an estimated $22 billion, government officials said Monday.
The treasure trove, at the 16th century Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple, is widely believed to be the largest find of its kind in India, catching officials in the state of Kerala by surprise and forcing the government to send two dozen police officers to the previously unguarded shrine for round-the-clock security.
The discovery has also revived questions about who should manage the wealth, much of which is believed to have been deposited at the temple by the royal family of the princely state of Travancore, which acceded to India when the country became independent in 1947. Some of the vaults under the temple have not been opened for nearly 150 years, temple officials have said.
Temples in India often have rich endowments, mainly from donations of gold and cash by pilgrims and wealthy patrons, but the wealth discovered at Padmanabhaswamy dwarfs the known assets of every other Indian temple. Such assets are typically meant to be used by administrators to operate temples and provide services to the poor, but they have often become the subject of heated disputes and controversies.
Okay, so we’ve discussed the BRIC phenomenon: Brazil, Russia, India, China. Those are four huge growth areas at which Hollywood is actively aiming business. Here you have a story set in India. An enormous treasure trove: $22B.
Sounds like the basis of a heist movie to me.
I can hear a producer pitching it now: “It’s ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ meets ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’”
Pull together a multinational theft squad a la the team from Inception, enter the amazing world of India, write some choice roles for big name Bollywood actors, and you’ve got yourself the basis of a huge hit movie.
Evidently Hollywood agrees. And guess what? My post predates the New Yorker article by 23 days!
So here’s what I’m going to do: Tomorrow I will post links to all 150 news items featured in the Story Idea Each Day for a Month series from 2010–2014. There are 149 of them — less “The Secret of the Temple” — available for your perusal and use.
And note this: I’ve already aggregated 20 news items for the 2015 series. Thus the nuttiness will continue!
Remember: Look for the very best story ideas possible. If you don’t know how to generate story ideas or how to determine if they are commercially viable, consider taking my 1-week online class which starts Monday, July 21: Core II: Concept.
For the rest of the Deadline article, go here.
For my April 7, 2012 blog post, go here.
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