A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 10

This is the 11th 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.

Initially, I provided a daily explanation about why you should make it a habit to be generating story ideas. This week, I’ll give you some tips on how to come up with stories.

Tip: Look at magazines.

I love magazines. Or at least I used to. Before at one point, I had over 30 subscriptions! [Now I’m down to 2: The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books].

The thing is if you’re trolling magazines for possible story ideas, you have to avoid the biggies like People, US, Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, and so on. You can be sure that Hollywood studios and producers cover those regularly. Indeed more and more magazine writers tailor their stories as possible movie projects.

No, you need to dig deeper and go wider with your research into magazines. Fast Company, Smithsonian, New Scientist are some good ones.

Then think regional like Southern Living. Or foreign like Der Spiegel. Or really odd like Miniature Donkey Talk Magazine.

Again there are plenty of story ideas out there, especially in magazines. You just have to look for them.

Today’s story idea: A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence.

What does it mean to complete a sentence of life in prison? One prisoner claims he has done it by serving time until the moment of his death — plus another four years since — and says it is well past time to set him free.

The prisoner, Benjamin Schreiber, made that argument to an appeals court in Iowa, saying that when he briefly died in 2015, before being revived at a hospital, he completed his obligation to the state. He asked the three-judge panel to let him get on with his life.

The judges rejected his argument this week, ruling that a lower court had been right to dismiss his petition.

“Schreiber is either still alive, in which case he must remain in prison, or he is actually dead, in which case this appeal is moot,” Judge Amanda Potterfield wrote for the court.

Mr. Schreiber, 66, was sentenced to life without parole after being convicted of murder for killing a man with the handle of an ax in 1996, according to The Des Moines Register.

He has filed several unsuccessful appeals, but in 2018 he argued in court in Wapello County that he had been resuscitated against his will, and that because he had, his “sentence has expired.”

That notion — that someone could get out of a life imprisonment sentence by having legally died, then come back to life — caught my attention and I started to go down that road when I read further into the article:

Professor Primus said that if people were considered legally dead before being resuscitated, it would create a web of problems, not just in criminal cases, but also for insurance and inheritance claims.

The obvious story is the court case involving a prisoner trying to prove his point. Relationship between them and their lawyer. But wait a minute. We’ve got the seeds of dark comedy here.

What if there are three sisters, each in their late 20s / early 30s: two twins and their younger step-sister. The twins, Addison and Madison, have always been at odds with Jessa who they do not consider part of their actual family. Besides, they hated their step-mother and were happy to see her meet an untimely death a half-dozen years previous. That left them with the full attention of their beloved father Clayton.

Then suddenly, Clayton dies. Perhaps the stress of running a multi-million dollar business enterprise caused the heart attack which felled him.

The three sisters gather for the memorial for their father and of special interest to the twins — the reading of the will.

They never understood why their father had such a soft spot for Jessa, but the very idea that their step-sister should obtain any part of the family fortune eats at Addy and Maddy.

But here’s the deal: The twins studied medicine to be surgeons. They suddenly gave it up after their step-mother died, ostensibly because of their grief, feigned though it was. In reality, the twins murdered their step-mother having planned it for years having done medical school training so they could learn the perfect way to kill someone without being caught.

Yes, they are willing to play the long game to get what they want, in that case the undivided attention of daddy dearest.

Now a new plan: Kill Jessa so she is legally dead, revive her, then contest the will on the grounds that since their step-sister died, she no longer qualifies as a “surviving family member.”

Why not just murder her? Because they want Jessa to experience the pain and misery of seeing the twins get all of daddy’s money while she gets none.

The twist: It turns out Daddy didn’t die of a heart attack. In fact, the seemingly innocent waif Jessa had him killed so she could claim her inheritance.

Who’s going to win? Who’s going to lose? Who’s going to live? Who’s going to die?

There you go, my 10th story idea of the month. And it’s yours. Free! What would YOU do with it?

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9

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.

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.