Generating story ideas
Hey, I was thinking about how the events of our lives can trigger so many story lines and thought it might be fun to play with that with you guys. My challenge is for us to come up with 10 possible story ideas over the next week from what we are seeing/experiencing every day. Here's mine so far this week:
1. Communication breakdown between parents and their adult children: what she thinks, what you think, how it looks to outsiders, what's really going on.
2. Nazi nurses and how we react to them when what we want and what they want collide. The level of sneakiness we will go to!
3. Cultural differences in husband/wife relationships. I have an Indian friend who views her husband completely differently than anyone in my circle. She sees him largely as restriction to her freedom because her culture demands she submit to his preferences, so when he returns from business trip, she doesn't necessarily celebrate.
The cool part is, guys, that any of us could take any of these ideas and develop a story around them, and they would all be different. What's going on in your world?
posted by Personal Best Coach at
11:25 AM
1 Comments:
Hey guys,
It's been a crazy week for me:
1. I left work early on Friday and instead ended up on a train that hit a pedestrian. (It was a purposeful move by the pedestrian). This type of suicide happens so often around here that it doesn't make the news, unless it happens during rush hour--then you'll hear about it in the traffic reports (as an accident involving a pedestrian--no one really wants to hear about suicide at 8am). So there's a lot that could be done with this--from the sugar-coating of the facts to the person who did it & why they would choose that method or the train engineer's POV (I can't imagine what that must be like) or a passenger, like me, expecting a 40 min. ride and instead getting a 3-hr delay during which you can't get off the train (because we weren't at a stop when it happened) until authorities clear the scene. There are a lot of different reactions from different people (as you'd expect). And I'm sure there are more facets that could be considered.
2. Slapstick moment: I work in the office space above Chicago's Union Station and went to the McDonald's in the train station for lunch. Completely tripped over some guy's luggage and fell head-first into the counter. Maybe could be a good setup for a first meeting in a romantic comedy.
3. My husband has been going through some drama at work--he's a controller for a small company and uncovered evidence that one of their senior execs has embezzled over half a million dollars in the past year. His boss didn't make much of it until the CEO got involved. Now there is an private investigator involved and it's a tense situation because no one knows who may be in on it.
4. I spent part of my weekend in my hometown in WI. Saturday night I stayed at my brother's house and did a girl's night with my niece (18) and her mom--and spent a good amount of time giving my niece advice/comfort as she struggled with a decision to dump her current boyfriend. During the conversation, another guy who "wants to know her better" kept texting her. It was interesting, the emotions/advice/fears from all points of view--my niece was in the last relationship for almost 2 years and very dependent on that boyfriend. My sister-in-law never liked the guy, thought he was too old for her (he's 22) but liked that she could trust him, and, since they go to the same school, knew someone would be looking for her naive daughter. Personally, I want to see my niece stand on her own and figure out who she is instead of constantly losing herself in some guy. The new guy who was texting is 24 which added another dimension to the conversation.
5. Finally, the reason I was up there was for a different niece's bridal shower. She's having a theme wedding next month: the bridesmaid's will be fairies representing elements and the groomsmen will be vampires. Weddings always bring out a lot of emotions but my family is very religious--very strict Lutheran and because of the occult aspects (the vampires), she can't have the wedding in church and the ministers wouldn't perform the ceremony. And there's more drama, of course but this is just a story idea...not a documentary. ;-)
Feel free to have fun with these! Hope you are all doing well!
--Jess
April 1, 2008 at 7:08 AM
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