A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 26
This is the 10th year in a row I’ve run this series in April.
This is the 10th year in a row I’ve run this series in April.
Today’s story: Let’s see if we can link three mysterious events into one compelling story.
This is a first in the 10-year history of this series. I am going to post excerpts from three news items I have tagged during the year and see if there is a story which could combine them together.
Story 1: U.S. Navy admiral Scott Stearney found dead in apparent suicide.
Vice Adm. Scott Stearney, who oversaw U.S. naval forces in the Middle East, was found dead Saturday in his residence in Bahrain, officials said. Defense officials told CBS News they are calling it an “apparent suicide.”
Stearney was the commander of the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. Rear Adm. Paul Schlise, the deputy commander of the 5th Fleet, has assumed command, the Navy said in a statement.
“This is devastating news for the Stearney family, for the team at 5th Fleet, and for the entire U.S. Navy,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said. “Scott Stearney was a decorated Naval warrior. He was a devoted husband and father, and he was a good friend to all.”
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The 5th Fleet operates in the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean, including the critical strategic choke points of the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal.
Why would a high-ranking Naval officer with a command in a politically sensitive area take his life?
Story 2: Scientist in remote Antarctic outpost stabs colleague who told him endings of books he was reading.
A scientist in a remote outpost in Antarctica plunged a kitchen knife into his colleague because he was fed up with the man telling him the endings of books, say investigators.
Sergey Savitsky, 55, and Oleg Beloguzov, 52, were avid readers to pass the lonely hours during four harsh years together.
But Savitsky became angry after Beloguzov kept telling him the endings, it is alleged.
The victim is now in intensive care after being flown from Russia’s Bellingshausen research station on King George Island to Chile with a knife injury to his heart.
Why would a scientist attack a colleague in an apparent fit of madness?
SUNSPOT, N.M. — At a small solar observatory tucked away in the woods of a national forest here, scientists and other personnel were commanded last week to leave at once. A week later, the facility remains vacant, and no one is willing to say why.
The mysterious and lengthy evacuation, in a state known for secretive military testing and a suspected UFO crash, has spawned a wealth of speculation.
Did the researchers spot something extraterrestrial? Was the solar telescope hacked by a foreign power and deployed to spy on, say, the state’s missile testing range? Or is there an innocuous explanation, suppressed only because of corporate and government resistance to transparency?
What happened at this facility which caused it to be closed down and under secret government control for a week?
Here’s where my mind went. What if the Vice Admiral’s suicide and the assault in Antarctica were just one of several violent events which have recently taken place in military and governmental locations? Seemingly normal people acting abnormally, almost as if some latent rage within their psyche had become unleashed.
What if our Protagonist has assessed the data and concluded that Ground Zero is a solar observatory in New Mexico, that everything in the chain of events started there?
And what if our Protagonist and a team of crack Marines make their way to the observatory in order to quarantine the place, but what ensues is an horrific bloodbath where allies turn against each other because they have become infected by alien brain-eaters?
It’s The Thing meets The Hidden meets Closer Encounters of the Third Kind meets Alien.
Bonus points if the Protagonist is a lowly scientific researcher who discovers the pattern, then over time grows into a Warrior in order to save the planet. Think Amy Adams in Arrival.
There you go: My twenty sixth story idea for the month. What would YOU do with this story setup?
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 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.