Story ideas? I got your story idea right here.

Stories ideas? Here is a story idea. And it’s drawn from real life.

I have a client and friend some years older than I am who among other things is a legend in the history of doo-wop music. He is in his seventies and has never owned a computer or had an e-mail address. I was visiting with him a couple of weeks ago when a question came up. I pulled out my phone and googled the subject matter. He was surprised I could do something like that; then he got quiet for a minute, and asked if I could use the internet to find people. You bet, I replied. I have both located and been located in such a manner. He then proceeded to tell me a story. When my friend was in his twenties, he was in the U.S. Army and stationed in France. During his tour of duty he became involved with a young woman who followed him to Germany and then back to France. Their relationship ended when he returned to the United States. Though their lives went in different directions he never forgot her. And now, over a half-century later, he wondered if I could find her.

And I did. It took a bit of doing, but I found her picture, and then, with much more effort, found her e-mail address. I just sent off a message to her, which I hope she will receive in the spirit in which it is sent. I asked my friend what he was going to do if she responded. He just laughed.

Like I said, it’s a story. It’s not a mystery or suspense or a thriller but it’s…a romance? Maybe. I’ll let you know what happens. Maybe. But with a little imagination you could turn it into anything you wanted to. She receives the e-mail and bodies start dropping, in both the United States and France. Or someone tries to kill the guy who sent the e-mail. Or the long-separated couple makes arrangements to meet in say, Montreal, where someone shoots at her when she is but steps away from his embrace. You want stories? You want ideas? They are all around you, like piles of bricks. It’s the mortar that’s hard to fill in. But the bricks? They are around you by the yardful.

5 thoughts on “Story ideas? I got your story idea right here.

  1. “Where do you get your ideas?” is sort of the metaphorical stand-in for the reactions of non-writers to writers, whether it actually gets asked any more than, say, “Are you going to put me in your next book?” or not. I’ve only been asked a handful of times, and I tell pretty much everybody I meet that I’m a writer.

    But my response has always been “Where writers get their ideas is not the question. The question is What in the world do non-writers do with all of theirs?

  2. My problem is that there are too many ideas and not enough hours to write them all down.

    I desperately need a few of my books to sell for enough money that I can quit my job and have time to write all of the other stories that keep bubbling over the edges of my brain bucket.

    That or I need to find a way to not need sleep anymore, so I can spend that six hours a night making stories.

  3. I never find stories in the same place twice. To harvest them, you got to move around.

    McMurtry took a real story about two partners and built Gus and McCall around it. His story is better than the real story of course because he added himself and his imagination to the bare frame.

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