A Few Ideas

I’m on a mission here at MonDAVES to provide loyal readers (you MonDavers know who you are) with fun content that gives you a little break from the work week and the daily insanity that is the world at large.

This is getting increasingly difficult to do.

While I was stuck trying to think of a topic for this edition, my wife handed me a book of writing prompts she bought for the kids to help them in their creative writing classes at school. This particular book, The Amazing Story Generator by Jason Sacher, is essentially a flip book. It allows the reader, or, um, flipper, to combine three different elements (setting, character, and plot) together to generate new story prompts. Most of them come across as pretty wacky, but that’s the fun of it. It should spark the imagination of pretty much any writer, and perhaps help bring a new story, poem, novel, or play into being.

Unfortunately, fiction is not my forte. I’ve tried many times, but I have yet to write much of anything fiction-wise that I would deem suitable for human consumption. However, being the creative type, I was intrigued by the concept. Even though this book may not spawn any stories from me, I did enjoy playing with the combos. I think you may enjoy them too.

So I now present to you the top ten story ideas I got from randomly flipping through The Amazing Story Generator. who knows, maybe one of these ideas will help one of you write something. If so, feel free to share it with me, I’d love to read it!

Let’s start with the first page. The flipbook reads as follows:
“Upon winning the lottery,
a reformed hitman
meets the ghost of Ernest Hemingway.”

Each part of the sentence, as I have typed it here, is flippable, so you can have any character in the book meet Hemmingway’s ghost. Or win the lottery. Or whatever. There are hundreds of combinations to choose from. The following are my favorite ones that I have chosen while flipping through the book. Put on your writing hats, if that’s a thing, ’cause here we go!

-After a monthlong fast, an avid comic book collector joins the mafia.
-In a post apocalyptic world, a clown in training leads the charge against a zombie army.
-After prolonged exposure to radiation, a talking dog has a showdown with a sheriff.
-Vowing not to bathe for an entire year, the illegitimate son of a king forgets to mail an important letter,
-After misreading an e-mail, the drummer for a punk rock band founds a nudist colony.
-Hoping to disprove a long held superstition, a wise garbage collector travels back in time.
-Forced to join the family business, an unsuccessful comedian is initiated into a secret cult.
-Longing for a simpler life, a former child television star develops the ability to fly.
-Having poisoned the soup, an Elvis impersonator receives a message from God.
-Blinded during a freak lightning strike, an apprentice bee keeper inadvertently starts World War Three.

And it goes on from there.

You know, even if you’re not a creative person, it can still be fun to flip through all of these ideas. Maybe order yourself a copy of the book. Maybe write something. Or don’t. I’m not here to pressure you or tell you what to do.

But I will be here again soon with another edition of MonDaves! Assuming I can generate any ideas that is.