A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 5
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:
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 Priest Walks into a Pitch Meeting…
Two writers I know went out with a great pitch recently. And I know it was great because I heard the pitch. Writers do that for each other now and then, so when they asked I was happy to get on Zoom and hear their great idea for a comedy series, and of course I had a couple of suggestions, not because they needed them but because if the series goes I want them to feel like they owe me. That’s what’s friends are for.
The first place they went to pitch the idea responded by saying some classic “we’re passing” language — loved the material and the auspices, not engaging in this area right now — but added something that I kind of anticipated, but didn’t share with my friends because it wasn’t something they could really fix anyway.
“The story and the arena,” said one of the non-buyers, “didn’t feel personal to the writers.” That’s an important thing, these days — well, it was always important, to be honest. Whenever I pitch something, I usually come up with a compelling-sounding lie about how the thing I’m about to pitch — the story, the characters, the whatever — is something that’s personal and deeply connected to my own experience, blah blah blah, because I know that when people hear something that they think is true and rooted, they are more likely to pay for it.
The story and the arena wasn’t personal to them, but it’s still a great idea and would be a terrific show, so in retrospect they should have come up with a convincing and totally false backstory just to help the idea go from the pitch meeting to the crucial business affairs calls your agent phase.
But I told you that to tell you this, which I’ve sort of alluded to for a while but it’s something that’s going on in my life that may or may not eventually be a script, and if it does, I won’t have to lie about it.
Last autumn, I did a very odd thing for a man of my age. I went back to school.
To be specific, he went back to seminary.
My initial inclination for a story was to have a priest with a story to sell who — as a complete innocent — schleps all around Hollywood pitching his project … then setting it up … then rewriting it … then the movie gets greenlit… then production … watching this priest struggling to avoid sliding down the slippery moral slope lubricated by the film and TV business.
But then I thought, “We’ve seen so many movies about Hollywood. What we haven’t seen are many movies set in a seminary.”
So …
Rob has flamed out in Hollywood. A successful TV writer-producer, the wear and tear of living with the incessant pressure placed upon showrunners causes Rob to rethink his life. Having grown up religious, he leans back into those roots and decides to apply to theological seminary.
He’s accepted.
[Note: I spent three years at Yale Divinity School, so I know this subculture very well.]
One of the classes Rob takes in his first semester is a preaching class.
The students are all terrible.
If only they had someone who had vast experience pitching stories.
Suddenly, Rob is using his Hollywood training to school these seminary students on the art of pitching a good story.
It’s Good Will Hunting in a seminary, only instead of poetry, it’s preaching … with a Hollywood spin.
That’s my 5th story idea in April. What would you do with this concept?
Previous articles in this year’s series:
Here are links to previous series:
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2017)
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2018)
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2019)
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2020)
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2021)
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2022)
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2023)
A Story Idea Each Day for a Month (2024)
Note: The articles from 2010–2016 have corrupted URLs. I am in the process of cleaning those up.
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.