A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 6
This is the 11th 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 11th 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:
Around 1990, writer Stephen Brill came up with this idea: “A self-centered lawyer is sentenced to community service coaching a rag tag youth hockey team.” That eventually became the movie The Mighty Ducks. That seemingly innocuous family comedy grossed $51M, not bad for a movie with a reported $10M budget.
Then came D2: The Mighty Ducks. Then D3: The Mighty Ducks. Then “Mighty Ducks”, a TV series. Then Mighty Ducks the Movie: The First Face-Off, a DTV animated movie. And then came this:
The Anaheim Ducks [formerly the Anaheim Mighty Ducks]. An NHL franchise. A professional franchise worth an estimated $188M.
All based on the fact that one day, a writer was walking around and came up with a story idea about a youth hockey team named the Mighty Ducks.
As I said… in Hollywood, story ideas are worth gold.
Today’s story idea: “48 Hours” disrupts alleged dark web hitmen in potential murder-for-hire plots.
He calls himself Yura — a man who says he’s behind an international murder empire named Besa Mafia. His real name is unknown.
YURA’S VIDEO DIARY: A hit man market place is like any other auction site. It brings customers and vendors together.
YURA’S VIDEO DIARY: Any hit man is welcome to sign up. But not all will be accepted.
His website invites would-be killers to send him hit man audition tapes. Because the video is anonymously posted online, it can’t be verified.
YURA’S VIDEO DIARY: If one searches online for, I quote, “shot dead on street,” one will find plenty of news about people being shot dead in the street by unknown people that shoot and leave the site. Those are our hit men. We will be waiting for you to come place your orders, and get rid of your problems.
Yura’s ominous brand of high-tech terror extends from an unknown location to the smartphones, tablets and laptops of Middle America.
That’s creepy, right? Check this out:
Late on a frigid night in February 2019, 18-year-old Alexis Stern was driving near her hometown of Big Lake, Minnesota, when she says she noticed a white van in her rearview mirror.
Alexis Stern: So, we started driving around town, taking detours.
But the van stuck with her. In a growing panic, she called authorities, who later located and spoke with the van’s driver.
Alexis Stern: He claimed he was lost. He didn’t know where he was.
Peter Van Sant: You have no doubt you were being followed, right?
Alexis Stern: Yeah.
Alexis had every reason to be worried because of something that had happened just months earlier, when out of nowhere, the police had called her.
Alexis Stern: “We have to talk to you … It’s dire and you need to come now.”
Peter Van Sant: “It’s dire,” he says?
Alexis Stern: Yes. He said It was urgent. … I had no idea what to expect. … Did someone die? Is someone hurt? Like, am I in trouble?
When Alexis arrived at the police station, she got stunning news.
Alexis Stern: He was just like, “I think you should sit down … Someone put a hit out on you … and they want you dead.” … I was like, “this is a joke, right?”
It was not a joke. On the dark web, someone using the alias Mastermind365 had gone to a hit man-for-hire site and paid about $5,000 worth of bitcoin for Alexis to be assassinated, giving chilling details.
Alexis Stern: Where I lived, where I worked, my picture of me, a description of me, everything.
FBI and Homeland security agents soon got involved. Although many dark web sites are scams, Alexis knew someone out there wanted her dead.
Alexis Stern: And that terrified me.
One wonders if the Coen brothers had come up with the plot for Blood Simple. nowadays, maybe they would have had Julien find someone to kill his wife on the dark web.
What to do with this? As long as we’ve got the Coen brothers in mind, what if we took a clue from another one of their movies: The Big Lebowski. What if the hit man murders the wrong person. Same name. Wrong victim.
And what if that victim had a sister or lover who was ex-Marine. Let’s call her Vasquez, an homage to this character in Aliens:
And what if this is a flat-out action movie? It’s a female-driven John Wick set in the dark underbelly of the deep web.
There you go, my 6th 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.