A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 26

This is the 9th year in a row I’ve run this series in April.

Today’s story: The Apology Tour.

An apology tour starts with a list.

Your first draft of that list isn’t going to be very sincere. It might be pretty short. I haven’t done all that many bad things in my life, you’ll think. But you’ll be honest enough with yourself to put one legitimate wrongdoing on the earliest version. Naturally, that one will stick in your mind, and you won’t like the way it makes you feel.

Over the next few days, you’ll think of a couple more things, and you know how you’ll know they belong on the list? Because you really, really won’t want to put them on the list. These are the deeds you’d rather never think about.

In the age of the celebrity scandal, you don’t have to look hard to find really bad public apologies. The comic who never uses the words sorry or apologize. The producer who tries to redirect attention toward politics. The celebrity chef who includes a recipe at the end of his statement.

It can be hard to take ownership of the bad things we’ve done. Everyone wants to be good. Only psychopaths want to hurt others. But we all manage to, anyway. Which means we all walk around carrying the burden of our misdeeds, large and small, even if we’ve convinced ourselves we don’t. Even if we’ve pushed those thoughts to the farthest recesses of our minds, they’re still there. What happened, happened.

A good apology, it’s generally thought, should bring some relief to both parties, perhaps even unburdening each of them. That notion changes a bit when you prepare yourself for a tour of apologies. I didn’t feel comfortable expecting to get something out of each one. I couldn’t make it about my feelings or even about their reactions because I knew I couldn’t control their reactions. And if I wasn’t forgiven for one of them, I’d still have to convince myself to do more of them. I told myself it was about giving each of these people something they deserved, and trying to deliver that thing as sincerely as possible.

(By contrast, the worst thing an apology can do — something the 12-step programs warn against when asking people to make amends — is hurt the wronged person all over again. It requires striking a balance, but more than that, it requires empathy.)

I’m not an alcoholic, but I knew there was a vague haze over my relationships with the people on my apology list. Maybe I was the only one who felt it. Maybe that is just what guilt felt like. That’s why I committed myself to an apology tour. I hoped it might lift that feeling, whatever it was. Ultimately, I just dove in, to see what I’d find out about myself on the other side.

The final edition of my list felt pretty well rounded. Some were minor slights. A few inclusions were sources of shame. Nothing too dark, but most required conversations that sounded awkward and uncomfortable.

The criterion was vague, but strict: If it remained on my mind until I put it on the list, then I’d apologize for it.

I started with one of my oldest and closest friends.

A road trip. One of the oldest narrative archetypes. The road as a metaphor for Life. Where will the road lead us? What have we left behind?

Combine that structure with this universal point of human connection — that ALL of us carry regrets, mistakes we’ve made, people we’ve hurt, grievances we have committed — and The Apology Tour rises up as a potential film vehicle.

But this also strikes me as a slippery slope. Where does the Protagonist start? Or more appropriately…

WHY do they start?

A recovering addict setting out to make amends to those they have hurt…

A layperson deciding to become a priest having to cleanse themselves of past sinful behavior…

A patient who discovers they have only a few months to live, but instead of the Bucket List, they compile the Apology List.

HOW to structure the story?

If their journey takes them across country and it is a solo adventure, is the narrative comprised of a series of one-on-one interactions? No recurring characters? That could devolve into an episodic tale, one vignette after another.

HOW to end the story?

Sure, the Protagonist could reach their destination, but what does that end point mean? What do we want the reader to feel? Satisfaction? Melancholy? Joy? Sorrow?

This is one of those concepts where I can feel the story, but I don’t see it. And yet, it’s a solid hook.

To me, it’s all about the Protagonist, so the key is to dig into that character and before I’d do anything, I’d have to know why the character is doing this.

But it sure feels like there’s a ‘there’ there.

There you go, my twenty-sixth story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free!

Here are links for all the previous posts in this year’s series:

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
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25

Each day this month, I invite you to click on RESPONSES and join me to do some further brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when you play around with it. These are all valuable skills for a writer to develop.

See you in comments. And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.