A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 11

This is the 13th 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: Halliwell’s Film Guide.

This is based on the anecdote I heard about Woody Guthrie. Having written 4,000 songs in his life, he was asked how he came up with so many melodies. His answer: “Well, I take a melody I like, and I change it a lil’ here, and change it a lil’ there, and I make it my own.”

Same thing with Halliwell’s. You can read a post I wrote about it all the way back in November 2008, how you can read through the 24,000 movie listings — each with a logline — then gender and genre-bend your life to creative bliss.

Today’s story: Boston school takes party bus with stripper pole and neon lights on field trip due to bus driver shortage.

A Boston high school class had to take a party bus on their field trip after their scheduled ride fell through.

Though the bus featured a stripper pole and neon lights, the Sept. 17 trip went off without an issue, MassLive reported.

“It is a funny story, but there actually is a real bus shortage and it speaks to major flaws in our education system,” teacher Jim Mayers said in a now-deleted tweet. “This in no way is a reflection of anyone involved in planning the trip, we were trying to have a fun day with the kids and that’s exactly what happened.”

Okay, let’s stop right there. Here is a copy of the “now-deleted tweet”:

The whole incident raised a serious point about the lack of educational funding and the shortage of trained bus drivers.

But in Hollywood, if you pitch “school field trip on a party bus with stripper poles,” their first priority is not going to be money for education, but rather money for studio coffers.

If this were the 1980s, you could probably work up and sell a pitch about a school field trip involving actual strippers. After all, there was this movie:

Weird Science (1985): Two high school nerds use a computer program to literally create the perfect woman, but she turns their lives upside down.

And this movie:

Night Shift (1982): A mild-mannered morgue attendant is assigned to the night shift, and his new coworker, along with his prostitute neighbor, convince him of running a prostitution ring out of the morgue.

How to use this kernel of an idea — school kids on a field trip in a party bus — and avoid exploitation? That’s the challenge. I’m not sure I have the answer, but here are a few questions to stimulate your creative thought process:

— Who is the Protagonist? Is it one or more of the school children? The bus driver? Perhaps a stripper who was accidentally booked for a gig on the bus?

— Where is the field trip? Museum? Wildlife preserve?

— What are the stakes? Does a group of conservative-minded parents get wind of this situation and call in the cops to stop this “depraved” field trip? Does the stripper have some entanglements with criminal elements who are in pursuit of the stripper?

— What gender is the stripper? What gender are the children? Does the story actually involve stripping? Or perhaps the stripper teaches the kids some dance moves to help them loosen up?

I’m not sure what the story is, but I did have a thought: What if the stripper, who didn’t have the opportunity for a decent education, discovers something about their intellectual capabilities on this trip? Could this experience cause the stripper to pursue an educational passion they would never have embraced had “fate” not intervened and put them on this field trip?

This is one of those ideas that feels like it could be a movie, but the story isn’t an obvious one. Most often, the best story concepts have what I call an “indicator.” That is, you hear it and you know right away the direction the plot will take. This one doesn’t have a clear indicator.

But perhaps YOU have a take that can make it work.

My 11th story idea this month. If you like it, do with it what you will. It’s YOURS. And it’s free!

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10

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.