A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 1

This is the 10th 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 through during this series of posts. For today, the most basic one:

If you have aspirations of becoming a professional screenwriter, you should be in the habit of generating story concepts.

Let’s say you write and sell a spec script. Congratulations. You’re the “flavor-of-the-week.” Your agent and manager set up meetings across Hollywood with producers and studio execs. The first words out of their mouths will likely be some variation of “Love your script ” (even if they haven’t really read it). The second thing they say will almost assuredly be, “What else have ya’ got?” If you haven’t been developing other stories, that is likely to be a very short meeting.

By the way, I give away these story ideas. They’re yours to use however you like. In fact, several writers have gone off and written spec scripts from story concepts presented in this annual series, one script making the Nicholl semifinals.

There are many ways to generate story ideas. This month, I focus on one: Looking for ideas in news sources. Each of the items I’ll be posting for the next 30 days comes from a news site.

Today’s story idea: In Carolina Town, Honoring Living Neighbors Outweighed Dead Relatives. The Flag And Wall Came Down.

A very public battle has come to an end.

Annie Caddell, who the neighborhood now affectionately refers to as ‘Miss Annie’, moved into the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Summerville, South Carolina in 2010.

Within the year, she started to fly the American flag….side by side with the Confederate flag.

She saw it, as many do, as a sign of respect for relatives who fought for the Confederacy. And didn’t see it at all as a form of racism.

Of course, the neighborhood didn’t see it that way.

They at first, gently implored her to take it down.

No go. “Would you let your family history die like that? I don’t think so,” she told them. “That’s tantamount to treason in my family. You just don’t do that.”

They then took a stronger approach.

The NAACP got involved. They signed petitions. They marched numerous times with placards singing We Shall Overcome. They made overtures with flowers.

Her response was inviting counter-protesters, made up of apparent white nationalists to stand in her yard with confederate flags and signs of their own.

The neighbors raised enough money to build a fence on both sides of her property line, so they didn’t have to see the flag. Which further narrowed Annie’s view from any sort of insight, as well as the neighborhood

Her response…..she installed a taller flagpole.

This story seemed destined to escalate into some sort of violence, then fate intervened. Annie Caddell had a heart attack. During her recovery, who visited her and brought her meals? It wasn’t white nationalists. Rather, it was her African-American neighbors. Ultimately, this led to a change of heart.

“When you have a heart attack and you’re being told you’re not gonna live very long, you’re facing your mortality. I needed to clean up the messes that I made by being so stubborn, and I have asked anyone within earshot to forgive me. I care more about my living neighbors, then my dead relatives. I think I’ve done more honor for them now, then I’ve done in my whole life.”

She took down the Confederate flag. Indeed, Caddell is now a regular attendee at the local church comprised mostly of black parishoners.

Normally in this series, I feature news stories which require a fair bit of brainstorming and plotting to get a sense of what the movie could be, but this real-life saga has a cinematic structure to it already.

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

Each day in April, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are valuable skills for a writer to develop.

Here are links to previous series:

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2010)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2011)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2012)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2013)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2014)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2015)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2016)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2017)

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2018)

See you in RESPONSES to hear YOUR take on this story idea. And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.