A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 18

This is the 14th year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Why a story idea each day for the month? Because the best way to come up with a great story idea is to come up with a lot of ideas. And the best way to come up with a lot of ideas is to be proactive in sourcing story ideas.

Today’s story: Omaha police officer resigns after woman says he kept trashing her car.

An Omaha police officer resigned Monday amid an internal investigation. One woman said William Klees kept dumping trash on her car for months.

Quatisha Valentine said she is thankful Klees is no longer an Omaha police officer.

“It’s been very tiring, I haven’t been getting any sleep,” Valentine said.

KETV Newswatch 7 first spoke with Valentine last week. Since then, she’s moved out of her apartment near 20th and Cuming and is now looking for a new place to live.

“This person knows where I stay, this person knows where I live,” Valentine said.

Valentine said someone had been putting trash on her car since the summer. She set up a camera, then said she realized that person was Klees, who was an Omaha police officer at the time. She said she called police after confronting him about it.

There was a movie that came out in 2008 called Lakeview Terrace. Premise: A troubled and racist African-American L.A.P.D. Officer will stop at nothing to force out a friendly interracial couple who just moved in next door to him. Here’s a trailer for the movie:

There appears to be a racist aspect of the Omaha story: The cop is white. The victim is Black. Similar to Lakeview Terrace. But two things: (1) It’s fifteen years after that movie’s release. (2) There is an even greater public debate about police conduct than there was back then.

One could extract the racial element for a new story and go The [Blank] From Hell trope — in this case, The Cop From Hell. Or keep the racially charged dynamic. What if we change the victim to Latin X or Asian?

We could also change the cop’s story so he’s not a neighbor. What if he first met the victim at a traffic stop? A made-up charge. Once he has the victim’s address, weird things begin to happen.

If we really wanted to mix things up: What if the cop is female and the victim is male? Or female?

Whatever the iteration, the psychological terror dynamic is the same: An authority figure creates havoc in the life of an innocent civilian.

There you go, my 18th 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
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17

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.