A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 14

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.

Tip: Go random.

This is going to sound really stupid. Well, it is really stupid. But all it takes is one time to pay off, then it becomes clever because as we know, there’s a fine line between clever and stupid.

Anyway, the very first screenwriting class I taught nearly 20 years ago was at UCLA. One night, I took two caps and some 3x5 inch index cards. I handed out 10 cards to each student, then instructed them on 5 cards to write a job [e.g., plumber, lawyer, dog catcher] and on the other 5 cards to write a location [e.g., shopping mall, swimming pool, church]. I collected the cards, jobs in one hat, locations in the other.

Then we went around the room, each student pulling a card from each hat, an exercise in generating totally random story conceits.

Someone pulls out “Doctor” and “Cruise Ship.” Nothing much there.

Then another person pulls out “Jockey” and “Restaurant.” Again nothing.

Then someone pulls outs “Cop” and “Kindergarten.”

I. Kid. You. Not. “Kindergarten Cop,” totally random, right there in that Westwood classroom. Okay, so the moment of inspiration was twelve years after the movie, but still it proved — sorta — that sometimes totally random, stupid ideas have the potential to generate story concepts… and even be a little clever.

Today’s story: Catholic Bishop Resigns After Falling In Love With Satanic-Erotica Author.

A Spanish bishop and exorcist has stepped down to start a new life after falling in love with a divorced author of satanic-themed eroticas.

Xavier Novell, 52, announced last month that he was resigning from his post as Bishop of Solsona in Catalonia for “strictly personal reasons”.

On Monday, it was revealed by Religion Digital, a news site, that Novell had fallen for Silvia Caballol, a divorced mother-of-two.

Novell reportedly said he had ‘fallen in love’ and ‘wanted to do the right thing.’

Caballol, 38, is a writer of erotic novels featuring characters ‘possessed by the demon of lust’, a fact which has raised eyebrows among Novell’s former colleagues.

However, Novell is likely no stranger to the demonic, having been among the handful of Spanish bishops to decline having an exorcist appointed in 2015, opting instead to perform the role himself. He reportedly met Caballol, a psychologist who has studied sexology, yoga, Catholicism and Islam, after he was began studying demonology.

Her books are described by her publisher as turning ‘all our moral and ethical considerations upside down.’

The Hell in Gabriel’s Lust, Caballol’s most recent book, promises ‘prisons, psychopathy, sects, sadism, madness, lust and, little by little, as the story progresses… the unreality of immortality and the crude struggle between good and evil, between God and Satan, and between angels and demons.’

This sure sounds like a comedy. Let’s invert expectations and do this as a horror project. Xavier, a priest, is brought in to deal with a family, one of whom is acting deranged. The mother, who is extremely religious, believes her son is possessed by demons. Looks like a variation on The Exorcist.

Here’s the twist.

The father is separated from the mother (she would never consent to a divorce given her extremely conservative religious views). He and the mother are combative, an ongoing tempest for years. And the father brings in his own expert to deal with the son’s problem: Silvia, a practitioner of the Dark Ways, a witch.

So it’s priest vs. witch, mother vs. father, and whatever possesses the son vs. the son. It uses the contentious atmosphere to feed its dark soul and continually ups the horrific manifestations of supernatural evil.

And then the father gets possessed … and the mother gets possessed …

There you go, my 14th 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
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13

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.