A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 3
This is the 15th 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…
This is the 15th 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:
Being able to generate original story ideas sets you apart from writers who can’t.
Some writers can do it. Others can’t. The latter is resigned to doing adaptations, rewrites or taking a preexisting idea and writing that.
If you can develop solid skills at generating good story ideas, you give yourself a leg-up on your competition creating another opportunity to land writing gigs.
Today’s story idea: Why did the ‘King of Collectibles’ cast doubt on their million-dollar LeBron James card?
To Steven Spiegel, they were all low-ball offers for the LeBron James rookie card he and his brother Alan bought in 2014 — $70,000, $80,000, $90,000. No matter that they’d purchased it for $35,000.
Steven had a strong conviction that it was a “million-dollar card.” Only 99 had been released, and it boasted James’ autograph along with a piece of a jersey he’d worn.
In early 2021, one of them sold for more than $1.5 million. A month later, a slightly rarer “gold” version fetched $5.2 million.
The card market, stoked by the cryptocurrency boom and new investors drawn to the hobby amid the COVID-19 pandemic, was on an epic bull run. It seemed like the perfect time to sell the card with the grandiose name: 2003–2004 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection LeBron James Rookie Patch Autograph.
The brothers consigned the card to Goldin Auctions, a New Jersey-based powerhouse in the world of sports memorabilia.
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Early action seemed to validate Steven’s instincts to sell. After just a day, the Rookie Patch Autograph card had been bid up to $690,000.
But then the Spiegels got a call from Goldin. He was withdrawing the card from the auction.
“I was flabbergasted,” Steven said. “It didn’t make sense.”
The move touched off one of the most bizarre and byzantine scandals ever to hit the sports card industry. At the center of the saga are two questions: Was the card legit, and why did Goldin yank it?
My first instinct was to adapt this into a comedy. Perhaps something in the vein of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in which several different characters race against each other to find a multi-million dollar card. Maybe it keeps getting stolen from one character to another.
But that version has already been remade with the 2001 movie Rat Race.
Then I spotted this in the L.A. Times article.
In the days before the June 2021 auction, the Spiegels’ card was widely publicized by Goldin Auctions. That’s when an anonymous Instagram account with tens of thousands of followers took aim. It was a self-described industry “watchdog” that went by the name CardPorn.
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The auction began and bidding was brisk; the card seemed headed toward the $1-million mark. Then came Goldin’s call. According to the lawsuit, he told the Spiegels he was yanking the card because “he was facing too much pressure from CardPorn and its followers” — and that the Instagrammer had persuaded Upper Deck to retract the letter.
Imagine you are the owner of this priceless card. Mere minutes away from securing millions of dollars when the auction ends.
But then some mysterious Internet troll deep sixes the deal.
That plot twist takes me down two parallel storylines:
- Revenge against the anonymous Internet troll
- Mystery of the troll’s motives
In this setup, the card is a MacGuffin, a pretense for the rest of the plot hysteria. And hysteria it should be. Clue-gathering. Chicanery. Two-faced characters. Even violence.
So, the card’s a fake, right? But then … maybe not. Maybe it’s worth even more than the final auction bid.
Could that be the game the anonymous troll is playing?
There you go, my take on the 3rd story of the month.
What would YOU do with this story concept?
Previous articles in this year’s series:
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.