A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 2

This is the 10th 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.

Here’s another one: The only way to find a great story idea is to work your way through a bunch of crap ideas.

Ira Glass (“This American Life”), arguably one of the most knowledgeable people around today re storytelling, said this:

“You have to record and get rid of a lot of crap before you find something special.”

Same thing with screenwriting: You have to generate a bunch of crappy ideas before you find something special. Still don’t believe me? How about the wisdom of Linus Pauling:

“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”

And Linus Pauling should know, one of the few people to win multiple Nobel Prizes.

So why focus on generating a bunch of story ideas? Because most of the ones you come up with will be crap. However somewhere along the line, you’ll find some that a pure gold.

Today’s story idea: 2,500-Year-Old Curse Tablets Found in Athens.

Thirty well-preserved lead curse tablets have been discovered in a 2,500-year-old well in downtown Athens by a team of archaeologists from the German Archaeological Institute, who were investigating the water supply for a nearby bathhouse built in the first century B.C.

That interested me, so I dug a bit deeper on the subject of ‘curse tablets’:

In a fourth-century B.C. cemetery near Athens, a team led by archaeologist Maria Petritaki recently discovered a cache of five lead tablets pierced with iron nails in a grave holding a woman’s cremated remains. Four of the tablets were inscribed with text that Yale classicist Jessica Lamont recently translated. She found they contain nearly identical ritual curses that beseech the gods Hecate, Artemis, and Hermes to punish several sets of husband-and-wife business owners, probably tavern keepers.

— —

Lamont also notes that the style of the curse texts, which were well-written in clean, beautiful script, complete with a phrase from Homer, suggests that some sort of professional scribe or “magician,” well versed in the supernatural, was paid a considerable amount to write them. “This was an elaborate, if not desperate, ritual undertaking,” says Lamont. The tablets were likely interred with the woman’s remains because graves were seen as conduits to the gods.

Oh, sure, you’re thinking, “It’s The Mummy only with curse tablets!” My mind went another way. What if these guys:

Or these guys:

Or these gals:

Were vacationing in Athens. A drunken night. Staggering in the dark. One of them falls down an excavation site. Oops. What’re are these sharp mofos jammed up my ass?

Crawling back to the street, the duo wobbles along back alleyways when some thugs hit on them. Needing a weapon, they pull out one of the broken tablet pieces. Hey, know what, numbnutz. You guys can go fuck yourself.

Suddenly, that’s exactly what happens. The thugs begin to morph gymnastically and start to… ahem… pork themselves.

The Power of the Curse awakens!

Now our Dynamic Duo can wreak havoc on anyone who has gone against them. Hijinks ensue. But who follows them? The spectral entity who cast the spell in the first place, now seeking vengeance against those who would disturb her devious plan.

It’s Bill & Ted: Curses! Foiled Again!

What would you do with this story concept?

There you go: My second story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free!

Day 1

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.