A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 22

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: Woman’s name and tiny sketches found in 1,300-year-old medieval text.

For nearly 1,300 years, no one knew it was there. The name of a highly educated English woman, secretly scratched on to the pages of a rare medieval manuscript in the eighth century, but impossible to read — until now.

Academics have discovered the Old English female name Eadburg was repeatedly scored into the surface of the religious text, using a method that kept it hidden from the naked eye for more than 12 centuries.

The covert writing of the woman’s name was finally revealed when researchers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford used cutting-edge technology to capture the 3D surface of the ancient manuscript, a Latin copy of the Acts of the Apostles that was made in England between AD700 and AD750.

It is the first time this technology, capable of revealing “almost invisible” markings so shallow they measure about a fifth of the width of a human hair, has been used to record annotations on the surface of a manuscript.

“There are only a limited number of surviving early medieval manuscripts which contain clear internal evidence of a woman having created, owned or used them,” said Jessica Hodgkinson, a PhD student at the University of Leicester who made the discovery while researching her thesis on women and early medieval manuscripts.

“Most of these manuscripts are from the continent — it is much rarer to find evidence of this in surviving manuscripts which were made and used in the geographical area we now call England.”

Riffing off this news item, all I have is a story setup. Let’s imagine a young woman named Elisabeth Eadburg. She lives a quiet, yet unfulfilling life in a small town in England.

One rainy night, there is a knock at the door of her unassuming flat. She opens the door. There stand two people: Professor Theordora Chantwell and The Reverend Albertus Dixon. And the look on their face when they first see Elisabeth is utter astonishment.

“It’s you,” Chantwell finally blurts.

Dixon crosses himself.

“God be praised.”

Seated with Elisabeth, they produce xerox copies of a Medieval manuscript (Chantwell is a scholar in theology of the Middle Ages). Using new technology, Chantwell has discovered two images in a 1,400 year-old Bible: one is the name “Elisabeth Eadburg.” The other is a sketch of a woman’s face. An exact replica of our Protagonist: Elisabeth.

Thus, the mystery begins: How and why these images in this ancient text? Why the secrecy? But most important, how is it our modern day Elisabeth is tied to these ancient texts?

I imagine this leads to some sort of religious cult, a secret society rumored to have disappeared centuries ago, but guess what? It’s still around. And once they discover Elisabeth is alive — possibly reincarnated? — they go after her.

Where does the story go from there? Supernatural warfare between angels and evil spirits? The awakening of a demonic force inside Elisabeth? A fight not only for her soul, but the future of Earth?

That’s all I’ve got. Maybe you can come up with something which will take you to Fade Out!

There you go, my 22nd 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
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21

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.