A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 10

This is the 14th 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: “‘Death Doulas’ Provide Aid at the End of Life.”

As parents of a child with a progressive and potentially fatal illness, Maryanne and Nick O’Hara lived on hope. Hope that their daughter, Caitlin, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at age 2, would prove the statistics wrong and live longer than the 46 years expected. Hope that she would receive the lung transplant she spent two and a half years waiting for in her early 30s. Hope that her body wouldn’t reject it.

That hope faded on Dec. 20, 2016, when Caitlin O’Hara died of a brain bleed at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, two days post-transplant. She was 33.

Shattered, her mother decided to try to give meaning to her grief. And so she signed up for a certificate program at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine to become an end-of-life doula, or “death doula,” working with individuals and families as they moved from this life into whatever is next. (The terms “end-of-life doula” and “death doula” are used interchangeably, though some find the latter a little too blunt.)

“In our culture, we go overboard preparing for birth, but ‘hope for the best’ at the end of life,” said Ms. O’Hara, 62, who lives in Boston and Ashland, Mass., and is the author of “Little Matches: A Memoir of Grief and Light,” published in April. “The training was really a way of going even deeper into my own grief and realizing how I could take my own experience and help other people have a better end of life.

“I saw for myself how horrifying it is during a medical crisis and then after a death, to realize that life keeps going and needs attending to,” she continued. “As soon as Caitlin passed, suddenly it’s over and the person is gone and you have to deal with the business of living. A good doula will support you with that.”

— —

Unlike hospice workers, doulas don’t get involved in medical issues. Rather, they support clients emotionally, physically, spiritually and practically, stepping in whenever needed. That could be a few days before someone dies, sitting vigil with them in their last hours, giving hand massages, making snacks. Or it could be months or even years earlier, after someone receives a terminal diagnosis, keeping them company, listening to their life stories or helping them craft autobiographies, planning funerals. Prices range from $25 an hour on up, although many, like Ms. O’Hara, do it voluntarily. And like Ms. O’Hara, many have signed on to help give new meaning to their own grief while helping others in the process.

In doing some research, I found this video:

I’m not quite sure where to go with this, but I know it’s interesting on at least a couple of fronts: (1) Death. Everyone’s got to deal with that. (2) Ann interesting subculture of people who purposefully give of their time to attend to people how are dying.

Who would be drawn to that type of work? The woman featured in the NYT article became involved as a “death doula” after the death of her daughter.

The cheezy route would be to go a psychological thriller or even horror route with this conceit. However, I’d be curious to see what someone would do with this as a drama or even a dramedy.

Who’s the Protagonist? The doula? A patient? I could see conflict arising if one or more family members of the dying person did not believe the medical analysis. Perhaps they are religious types and praying for a miracle. That would be at cross purposes with a doula who is trying to support the person who is dying … and understands that is their fate.

I’m not providing as much direction with this story idea as with others in this series, but I did think it was a subject worth putting out there for readers.

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.