A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 29

This is the 10th year in a row I’ve run this series in April.

Today’s story: Missing teen sends letter after vanishing 5 years ago.

After disappearing more than five years ago, the mother of missing teenager Emily Wynell Paul believes she has received a letter from her daughter.

Paul’s mother, Pam Massimiani, posted on social media last Thursday that she had heard from her now 19-year-old daughter for the first time in five years. On Monday, Massimiani confirmed that she had received a letter. Though the family is keeping the details private now, Massimiani said that based on the contents of the letter, they believe it came from her daughter.

“I’m pretty sure it’s from her,” Massimiani said.

This is the first the family has heard from the missing teen since April 2013, when the then 14-year-old packed up a suitcase and left her Southport home, leaving behind only a note stating her intention to flee. Massimiani said she will be speaking to the Bay County Sheriff’s Office about the case and while she hopes to hear more from her daughter, “the ball is in her court still.”

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Investigators believe Emily learned from websites that teach young people how to be successful runaways, and she has followed the advice. She took the items she had used for online communications, such as her Xbox, and she has never been back on her Facebook account.

Her cellphone powered on three times in the week after she left home, pinging once each off towers in Callaway, near the port and not far from Southport Road, where Massimiani lives. That was the last of her cellphone activity.

In real life, some good news: Emily, now 19, has reached out to her family and confirmed that she is okay.

The thing that jumped out at me: There are websites which “teach young people how to be successful runaways.” Sure enough, when I Googled the subject, there were a lot of results which popped up.

At first, I thought of a story from the parents’ perspective. Start with them five years after their child had left. A letter arrives. One take would have the now adult child letting their parents know they (the child) is safe. Do the parents try to track down the child?

Another take: The letter is a desperate plea for help including some cryptic clues as to the child’s whereabouts. Is the letter real? Could it be from someone who intends to extort some sort of ransom or money for information supposedly leading to the child? Or might there be an even more devious motivation, someone intended to mess with the parents by teasing and taunting them.

Then I thought, what if we told the story from the POV of the runaway. According to the Polly Klaas Foundation, “By far, the most prevalent type of reported missing children in the United States are runaway/thrownaway children. According to the National Runaway Safeline (Formerly the National Runaway Switchboard,) between 1.6–2.8 million youth runaway each year in the United States. Children can begin running as young as ages 10–14. The youngest are the most at-risk for the dangers of street life.”

Is there a movie to be told about a child running away and their experiences surviving life on the run?

There you go: My twenty eighth 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
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28

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.