A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 5
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:
Thinking up new story ideas keeps you on your creative toes.
If a part of your consciousness is attuned at all times to an instinct to look, hear and listen to everything as a possible story idea, you keep your general level of creativity engaged.
It’s the difference between being in your car and letting whatever is on the radio drift in and out of your brain barely processing it versus actively connected to the images and feelings the stimulus evokes.
This is not to say you shouldn’t have some QVT: Quality Veg Time. Sometimes you just need to shut it down. But if you elevate your awareness about generating story ideas, one thing you will discover is how much time you spend doing — essentially — nothing.
Even if you spend just a bit of that time actively engaged in the story-generation process, you enliven your creativity.
Today’s story idea: Jewish gangsters once took on Nazis in the streets of New York City.
In 1938, New York City had a Nazi problem.
At the time, there were about 12 million German immigrants in the US, and most were happily assimilating. But about 1 in 500 were members of the German-American Bund, a national organization that avidly supported Adolf Hitler and pledged allegiance to Germany.
Its literature called the Jewish people a “menace” and a threat to democracy. In New York, the Bund held massive rallies, goose-stepping down the streets of the Upper East Side in brown-shirted uniforms with swastikas on their arms.
The demonstrations terrified New York’s Jewish community, many of whom had relatives in Europe and had been watching the headlines from Germany with growing alarm. A former US congressman and judge named Nathan David Perlman saw the path the Bund was on, and he wanted it stopped. He knew their actions weren’t illegal, but the judge had a revelation one evening while enjoying a cocktail in a Manhattan saloon.
“What those Nazis need is a good ass-whipping,” realized the judge.
Who are you going to call to dispense an “ass-whipping” to a bunch of Nazis parading around the streets of New York City? Meyer Lansky, New York’s preeminent Jewish gangster.
Lansky gathered together a bunch of Jewish gangsters and using their unique form of persuasion quite literally drove the Nazis from the streets of New York.
What to do with this? The obvious cinematic reference is Inglourious Basterds in which American soldiers went to France to … well, let’s allow Lieutenant Aldo Raine explain what the plan is.
Since Hollywood operates on the similar but different approach to making movies, why not a similar but different story compared to Tarantino’s movie —this one inspired by historical events! — about Jewish mobsters whacking Nazis right here on the streets of the good ol’ U. S. of A.?
You know, whenever a writer pitches an historically-based project in Hollywood, the inevitable question is: Why tell this story now? What’s the relevance? Well…
That’s a bunch of Neo-Nazis marching in my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia. And it’s only one of dozens(?) … hundreds(?) … thousands(?) of public incidents created by these Fascist douchebags.
Relevance? How about look out your window and see what’s going on in the streets of our country.
So, there’s my 5th story idea of the month. And it’s yours. Free! What would YOU do with it?
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.