Story Ideas
Let me know in the comments which one you'd like to see written out!
3 Chances at Love
You get three chances for real, true love in your life. If you miss all three, your ability to love goes away.
Okay - weird, I know. Hear me out - I thought about some sort of dystopian reality in which people are forced to marry or couple up in some way for some reason. As I was thinking about it, I thought - wouldn’t the most oppressive totalitarian regime be one that takes away your ability to love?
Think about any dystopia in any book, movie, show, etc. So many times, people escape it or learn to live in it because of love. They fall in love and it saves them, because, as Ted Mosby would say, it is the best thing we do. Love is that last great discovery that puts an explorer firmly in the annals of History. It is the fadeaway buzzer-beater in the championship game.
So, what if the regime in the dystopia took this away? What then?
Multiple Personalities
The way I envisioned this was in an epistolary story - two people are writing letters to each other and it goes back and forth.
Eventually, it is revealed that they are the same person - multiple personalities or alter egos - just writing in a journal. The things they write about would feel like they are separate characters that live separate lives, but in the end, the narrator is just viewing the world from two different points of view.
Why? Because A) I thought it would be a fun writing challenge, and B) One of the most valuable lessons I have learned in this life is that of multiple perspectives. So much so that the novel I am currently working on is written in multiple perspectives. Having an open mind and seeing the world from more than just my limited point of view has been so revelatory.
Student with ADHD
For those of you that do not know me, I was a teacher in Chicago for a few years before I started writing full-time. In that time, I met a lot of underserved kids that were failing not because of their own lackings, but because of the system’s shortcomings. In my time, I met a lot of students that were diagnosed early on with learning disabilities and medical conditions that had them work with educators and caregivers so that they could get through their education safely and successfully.
So then, I had this idea about a story about a student with ADHD. Many times, educators will teach these students to raise their hand and stop fidgeting and if they don’t do this, then they are not given attention.
But, there’s a school shooter.
And somehow, the student with ADHD is the only one or first one to know about this. He goes to tell someone, but they don’t listen to him because he isn’t raising his hand and he is “freaking out.” He raises his hand, but he’s fidgeting and they still don’t listen.
And because of this precious time that is wasted, the disaster that is already unfolding, only gets worse.