A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 4
This is the 14th 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 14th 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:
You can evolve into being a writer-producer.
Let’s face it, you can only write so much. But sitting on your side of the table, all those story meetings you’ve had to endure, you’ve probably developed a pretty good sense of what it takes to be a producer at least on a creative level.
Why not don that hat, too?
A quick way to jump start you producing career: Come up with story ideas.
Today’s story idea: A 9-year-old girl didn’t want her goat slaughtered. California fair officials sent deputies after it.
Every day for three months, Jessica Long’s young daughter walked and fed her goat, bonding with the brown and white floppy-eared animal named Cedar. But when it was time for Cedar to be sold and slaughtered at the Shasta District Fair last year, the 9-year-old just couldn’t go through with it.
“My daughter sobbed in her pen with her goat,” Long wrote to the Shasta County fair’s manager on June 27, 2022. “The barn was mostly empty and at the last minute I decided to break the rules and take the goat that night and deal with the consequences later.”
Long purchased the goat for her daughter to enter into the 4-H program with the Shasta District Fair. Children are taught how to care for farm animals. The animals are then entered in an auction to be sold and then slaughtered for meat in hopes of teaching children about the work and care needed to raise livestock and provide food, as farmers and ranchers do.
In her letter, Long pleaded for the fair to make an exception and let her and her daughter take Cedar back. Aware that Cedar had already been sold in auction, she also offered to “pay you back for the goat and any other expenses I caused,” according to the letter obtained by The Times.
Instead, officials reached out to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office. Armed with a search warrant, detectives drove more than 500 miles across Northern California in search of the goat.
According to the search warrant, deputies believed Cedar was staying at Bleating Hearts Farm and Sanctuary in Napa County, based on the fact that the sanctuary had posted on Instagram its support for Long and urging people to call the Shasta District Fair to convince them to spare Cedar. But Long had taken Cedar to a farm in Sonoma County because she and her family live in a residential area in Shasta County and are unable to keep farm animals there.
Echoing language used when law enforcement search a home for drugs, the warrant allowed deputies to “utilize breaching equipment to force open doorway(s), entry doors, exit doors, and locked containers” and to search all rooms, garages and “storage rooms, and outbuildings of any kind large enough to accommodate a small goat.”
Cedar was taken and slaughtered.
Well … that is one twisted and very sad story. But just like screenwriter Jimmy Warden took a story about a bear who ingested a bunch of cocaine and died within hours, and gave it a major plot twist leading to this:
Why not craft a story with a happy ending. Same setup only this time our nine year-old Protagonist (Jade) goes on the run with her pet goat (Gandalf because the critter resembles The Lord of the Rings character).
Jade has grown up a farm girl, daughter of a single mom, and the two of them have worked hard to keep the place afloat financially. But Jade’s mother (Jeralyn) spends late nights worrying about money. She hides the fact from Jade, but the mounting bills and declining income is nearing a point of no return.
Once it becomes clear that authorities are coming after Gandalf, just Dorothy running away with Toto in The Wizard of Oz, Jade takes off with her pet goat. Shasta Country is thick with woods, so it’s easy to hide. Plus, Jade is no ordinary young girl. Having grown up a farm where she has been a contributing worker since before she can remember, she is one tough little kid.
Then there’s Gandalf. Like Toto, the goat is a Trickster who gets into trouble, but has enough wits about it to find itself out of harm’s way.
Who would compel law enforcement to chase after a little girl and a goat? The new owner of the goat, a local restaurateur who specializes in serving wild game. When Jade escapes with his property (the goat), he is incensed. “This is un-American, un-Capitalist! That goat is MINE!”
It doesn’t hurt that the guy (Murphy) is a successful businessman in an area where other businesses are struggling. In other words, his ire takes on an oversized bite with local authorities.
Hence, law enforcement sets out on a goat-hunt.
It’s a chase story. Along the way, Jade and Gandalf create a stir on social media. Jeralyn uses the airwaves to plead with Jade to come home. There are protest groups. Folks Jade meets along the way provide food and shelter … except that one seemingly good guy who drops a dime and leads to Jade and Gandalf’s capture. But then …
That’s enough. I’ll let you figure out the rest.
There you go, my take on the 4th 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.