This posting is part one of many (probably). I often have ideas for stories or films or… and I would love to develop the story and write a great essay, short story, or script. But, alas, I have learned that I am not so talented at writing stories. I could probably get better at it and have taken a couple of writing courses at the community college but life is too hectic these days for that. I’ll prove my weaknesses in creative writing by linking to my short story (maybe a vignette?) called “Mina’s Day.” A little more about that later.
These are stories or films that I would love to experience, so I want to release the ideas into the wild and let them develop on their own (with your help, of course).
So, here are some of my ideas:
- We humans have been sending probes and rovers to various planets and other celestial bodies for a while now. I imagine that approach will continue even when we start sending humans to far away places. Now imagine that we are on the planet that is being investigated by aliens. What would we think? This question is the starting point for my little story called “Mina’s Day.” In that story, I fast-forward to a point in time when these probes/rovers arriving on Earth have become commonplace. The bigger purpose for exposing you to “Mina’s Day” is to prove that my creative writing skills are lacking and to encourage you to rescue me and do something with these story ideas.
- This idea stemmed from an interview I heard with Alice LaPlante, the author of the novel Turn of Mind. In this novel, a retired orthopedic surgeon suffering from dementia and accused of killing her best friend. The retired surgeon doesn’t know if she committed the murder. Since that wonderful interview, I have imagined a screenplay where you see the events that are going on through the eyes of someone with dementia. You see what they see or, more accurately, what their mind tells them they are seeing. For example, even though the person’s daughter is talking to her, she sees a friend from her childhood in a room that looks like it could be from that time period. She responds to the daughter as though it is her friend. Perhaps at some point, what she sees morphs into the current period and she knows she is talking to her daughter but is confused. Anyway, this idea is more about the cinematography for a film and desperately needs a story to go along with it.
- Another POV story idea. In this case, you see the world through a homeless person, maybe someone who has mental or addiction problems. The story could include the story (or clues to the story) of how they became homeless but focus on what it is like to be this person day-to-day.
That’s three. I’ll stop there and pick it up at some point in the near future. Below is the link to “Mina’s Day” on Medium.com.
