A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 9

This is the 12th 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.

Initially, I provided a daily explanation about why you should make it a habit to be generating story ideas. This week, I’ll give you some tips on how to come up with stories.

Tip: Look at news sites.

I’ve been demonstrating that in this series, every idea from a news article. While you can surely keep an eye out when reading the NY Times or LA Times, you’d better believe there are plenty of writers already eyeballing those pages. So troll smaller newspapers. Offbeat news sites. Have you ever checked out Weekly World News? I used to subscribe to the print version way back when and actually wrote a spec based on one of their articles: “Couple Adopts the Child From Hell.” Unfortunately, the spec script “Problem Child” beat us by 2 weeks: same premise.

Today’s story: Pigs can play video games with their snouts, scientists find.

Four pigs — Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory — were trained to use an arcade-style joystick to steer an on-screen cursor into walls.

Researchers said the fact that the pigs understood the connection between the stick and the game “is no small feat”.

And the pigs even continued playing when the food reward dispenser broke — apparently for the social contact.

Usually, the pigs would be given a food pellet for “winning” the game level. But during testing, it broke — and they kept clearing the game levels when encouraged by some of the researchers’ kind words.

“This sort of study is important because, as with any sentient beings, how we interact with pigs and what we do to them impacts and matters to them,” lead author Dr Candace Croney said.

I see family entertainment all over this concept.

We’ve got these four pigs — Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory. They’re part of this scientific study. Best pals. And they love playing video games.

Here’s a narrative fork-in-the-road: Either one pig is preternaturally amazing at playing video games… or there is some scientific gizmo zapping thing that goes awry. But Hamlet not only can use their snout, they can use their hooves as well. And in particular, they rock at soccer.

Hamlet is amazing! The pig is as good at playing the soccer video game as Tommy is at pinball.

Naturally, the scientists in charge of this project, Vijay and Alicia — yes, they’ll finally fall in love — take Hamlet onto The Late Late Show With James Corden to show off the pig’s remarkable ability. In fact, Hamlet handily defeats Corden in a side-by-side match of video soccer.

Watching the TV show is our dastardly villain (and sure, we’ll get David Beckham to play the part). The former footballer is a multi-millionaire and has just sunk his entire financial empire into an new eSports league to rival the established league (think: ESPN). He needs something to break through the dominance of the rival league.

He needs a star.

Vijay and Alicia show up at the lab one day and… Hamlet is missing! The other pigs are upset. They seem to know something is awry, but, of course, can’t speak. In fact the night before, they witnessed the villain’s minions kidnap Hamlet!

But hold on. There’s the villain on TV with Hamlet at his side. And Hamlet appears to be quite happy. He’s pampered in his new digs. Has access to the very latest soccer video games. Moreover, he’s working his way up through a series of eSport challenges with the villain’s ultimate plan: Take on Morty “Stud Muffin” McPhee — the current world champion soccer video gamer.

Despite Hamlet looking like he’s happy, the little pig’s friend — Omelette, Ebony, and Ivory — are acting in such a way that Vijay and Alicia know something’s wrong.

Now these two scientists and three little pigs set out to find Hamlet stashed away in a secret lair, and set him free.

There’s mayhem! Destruction of property! Taking on minions! Worldwide eSport television audiences! Video soccer challenges!

What five-year-old kid wouldn’t want to watch that!

My 9th story idea this month. If you like it, do with it what you will. It’s YOURS. And it’s free!

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8

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.