A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 3
This is the 13th 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 13th 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: Elder Orphans: Our Very American Nightmare.
She worked the comedy circuit in New York. Ate pizza with George Carlin. Sold a bit to Robin Williams. “One he used on Johnny Carson when Johnny was still host,” she’ll confide if you’ll take the time to listen. She did her own stuff too, but mostly she hung around the clubs selling bits to other comedians. She liked them all, but Williams the most, “He and I used humor for the same thing — protection!” She’s still using humor, but it’s power to shield is nearly gone. It’s okay, she won’t need protection where she’s going.
I cajoled G, her preferred moniker to her real name, out of her shitty little motel room. Neither “shitty” nor “little” do the place justice. I got her to the emergency room. She wants to die. After hours in the overcrowded hospital — home of the ultimate punchline, “world’s best healthcare” — G got what she needed. Diagnosed with metastasized cancer, death is on its way. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!
Together we met with hospice. She’d be made comfortable. No, there are no hospice homes available to her, but we can send a hospice nurse to her motel room. The shitty one where G’s named the cockroaches, “Oliver is the oldest one. Suzanne is the skinny one and the youngest is Dwight.”
Sure, she’ll be alone. But the nurse will come once a day and we’re on 24-hour call.
“What’s the co-pay?” I asked. None. She’s got Medicare. Seems G’s lucky on two counts. She made it to sixty-five years of age before her body stopped her from eating and drinking. AND someone in the government figured out that hospice patients can’t pay bills after services are completed. No sense billing the dead.
This is a sad story and an indictment for a society which does not consider healthcare for all its citizens a national priority. Perhaps a movie about a specific individual like the one cited in the article would inspire people to press for a solution to the growing problem of orphaned elders.
In reflecting on a possible movie involving a senior citizen facing such a plight, my mind went to two films:
Harold and Maude (1971): Young, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral.
The Trip to Bountiful (1985): In 1940s Texas, an elderly woman is determined to visit her childhood home one last time.
There’s something about pairing an old character and a young character. One with life extending out beyond their foreseeable horizon. The other confronted by the specter of death.
An image comes to mind. A front stoop of a broken-down house. On it sits an old Black woman.
Riding by on a skateboard is a White girl, let’s say eleven years old.
The Black woman (let’s call her Loretha) has no family. Siblings and children, all passed on. The White girl (Sabbitha) is new to town. Single mother recently separated having relocated to get distance from a painful past.
What could these two find in common? Why did Fate cause their paths to intersect? The easy path is to look at Loretha as a Mentor figure, but what if the roles reverse? What if Loretha is a hard soul, the mask she wears in public one of bitterness and anger? But that is a defense mechanism she has developed to shroud her sadness … loneliness … despair.
What if Sabbitha also has anger issues? What if she blames her mother for her failed marriage which in effect has separated the girl from her father? He may not have been perfect, but he is more fun than her mother who is a taskmaster in dealing with Sabbitha. Plus, uprooted from her home, this new place “sucks” and the girl let’s everyone know from the way she shoulders through each day that she hates the town, its people, and her life.
Is there a basis for a surrogate mother-daughter relationship to take root? If so, what would Sabbitha’s mother think of this? How much do racial issues arise in the story? What if Loretha is sickly and found to be dying?
This story setup has the makings of a compelling drama, two characters, “strange sojourners” as I call them who discover a universal point of human connection which is especially poignant given that one of the characters an orphaned elder.
There you go, my take on the 3rd story of the month.
What would you do with this story concept?
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.