A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 5
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:
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: Dad halts wedding so daughter’s stepfather can walk her down the aisle as well.
Weddings should always be the most joyous of occasions. Some people anticipate their big days for their entire lives, others dream of how it will play out.
Surrounded by loved ones and celebrated by all those you truly care about, there’s a reason why many people count the day they get married as one of the best they’ve ever had.
Yet for bride Brittany Peck, her wedding day was made even more special thanks to the kind actions of her biological father.
You see, Brittany had a conundrum a lot of other brides don’t have: she had to pick roles for both her father and her step-father, the latter of whom has played a significant role in her life since she was six.
As per reports, following the divorce of Brittany’s parents, she and her sister became the subject of a lengthy custody battle.
“My parents could not agree on custody of me and my little sister,” Brittany explained. “I had my own lawyer, and it was very, very bad. It could be a Lifetime movie with all that we’ve been through.”
Her biological dad, Todd Bachman, initially didn’t want to share his daughter with her mom’s new partner, Todd Cendrosky.
With Brittany set to tie the knot with her loved one, she wanted both dads to walk her down the aisle. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to tell Bachman.
“I finally just built up the courage to call him about two weeks before the wedding and said, ‘I really need to talk to you,’” she said.
Let’s just stop right there on that cliffhanger. We can reverse engineer a storyline already. A biological father and a step-father vying for their daughter’s affection. Both have big feelings about this wedding.
- The biological father feels guilty for having ended up getting divorced, thus, making his daughter’s adolescent life a troubled one.
- The stepfather angry because after having picked up the pieces by embracing his role as the young woman’s caregiver, now she wants to invite her father to the wedding.
I see a comedy brewing in which the guys find themselves in what they used to call in the South a “dick-measuring contest.”
Who can prove to be the better dad?
Why? Because the daughter is trapped trying to figure out which one of them will walk her down the aisle.
The ending whereby both of them do could be a surprise as in real life:
There can be all sorts of subplots:
- Biological Father and the Daughter
- Stepfather and the Daughter
- Biological Father and the Mother (ex-wife)
- Stepfather and the Mother
- Biological Father and the Groom
- Stepfather and the Groom
- Both Men and the Presiding Minister
Throw in various other family members and possibly some locals if the location of the story is the city/town where the Daughter grew up and you’ve got the makings of a solid comedy. Oh, yeah. A killer title:
Fathers of the Bride.
There you go, my 5th story idea of the month. And it’s yours. Free! What would YOU do with it?
What would you do with this story?
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.