We’re All Testing the “Stranded on an Island” Narrative

Alone Together: Writers are suddenly living out story ideas we previously only imagined as science fiction or fantasy…

Sacrifices are the seeds of great stories. For the first time in eight decades, the whole world is called to make genuine sacrifices for a higher purpose.

Suddenly, 4 billion people worldwide are ordered to “stay home’’ to primarily help others. As it was during World War II, everyone is called to sacrifice and live differently, to help save someone else’s life.

“I don’t think we get back to normal — I think we get to a new normal,’’ New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently concluded.

How does the “new normal’’ change our own stories?

Spring 2020 was supposed to be the time I finished revisions to a book. But most of the institutions and behaviors I’m writing about are testing extremes or being turned upside down. These new developments can't be “left out.”

So it's back to fact-gathering. “War stories” with unusual twists are fermenting with scary, exciting stories of risk and ruin, life and death, isolation, fear and tests of love. Funny stories too. Pick a genre or cultural, historic or social issue and there’s a new story idea connected to the pandemic.

The absolute best way to find story ideas

When I was an 18-year-old journalism student, Michigan State University welcomed a visiting professor in residence named Bill Giles, a Wall Street Journal editor who started America's first truly national newspaper. I asked “the master” how to find story ideas.

“The secret is to start by looking at the world around you,’’ Giles said. “Whenever you walk or drive, look around with that question in your mind. What’s unusual? What’s different? If it's unusual and new to you it will probably interest someone else. Start by looking for ‘what’s new’ and you’ll start seeing good stories all around you.’’

Giles’ advice worked. I asked myself what was unusual around me and realized it was his very presence. I pitched “the story of Bill Giles’’ to The State News, which helped me land an internship that started my daily newspaper career.

How to find the best story ideas: Ask yourself:

1. What are you called to write?

2. Which ideas make you feel you “need’’ to write about them?

3. What do you know really well? What can you become an expert or specialist on?

4. What do you feel you need to share with others? What can you write to truly help someone else?

There are so many story ideas swirling around that we have to get even more selective, choosing the best ones, the ones we feel an urgent calling to write and share.

We’ve never faced a war — or so many stories — like this…

More than 327 million Americans have new stories, lives transformed to save an estimated 2 million who might otherwise have died.

War stories are “evergreen.’’ Every year there are new books and films about people living through wars that happened decades or centuries ago. Such times have an appeal that lasts centuries:

For much of history, wars involved the few (military and their families) sacrificing for the many. Since 1945, life has allowed Americans to largely tune out of the biggest news stories of their time. A minority focused on life and death: until interesting times such as right now.

Stories that would never otherwise happen, now are possible…

As it was during World War II, everyone is part of the story, thinking of life and death. If you don’t like your own story, look around.

Old plot devices are being transformed. Now it’s like every couple becoming a new Adam and Eve, kicked out of Paradise, forced to begin again, their homes turned into islands of isolation.

Who would you want to be stranded with?

Google has more than 6 million results about being “stranded on a desert island.’’ Our homes are now “virtual islands’’ isolating us from each other. In my native Michigan, we aren’t allowed to visit neighbors or relatives.

On “Gilligan’s Island,’’ (a 1964–67 situation comedy), seven castaways were marooned on an island and had only an AM radio for information from the outside world (introducing new story ideas for the show). We, at least, have TV, smartphones and the internet.

“Ginger or Mary Ann?” we still ask in a classic character test. Who would you rather be stranded with on a desert island? “Gilligan’s Island” had seven castaways, each with different strengths and weaknesses, stuck together, hoping to find a way out or at least to make do in their new “home.”

Our newest story: we all are stranded on a little “home” island with someone (even if our new existence means that “someone” we are spending more time with is the person you face in the mirror).

EscapeNormal.com came up with a list of 22 different films between 1957 and 2009 about being stranded on a desert island. Netflix last fall debuted “Stranded’’ about people stuck on an island as well as the more romantic, “Who Would You Take to a Deserted Island?’’

What if you were stuck in a confined place?

The “stars trapped together’’ story idea was a classic narrative for decades, especially for adversaries:

• Throughout the 1970s, “All in the Family” featured ongoing battles between working-class conservative Archie Bunker and his liberal son-in-law Michael Stivic. They hit a turning point in “Two’s a Crowd,” a 1978 episode where they were locked in a cellar for a weekend, forced to get to truly know each other.

Throughout the 1980s, “Dallas” dominated the airwaves. In the 300th episode of the series aired in 1989, the rival brothers, J.R. and Bobby Ewing get stuck in an elevator with a case of rare wine. It was a turning point episode enabling the two to discuss things they could never otherwise say to each other.

These were classic “turning point’’ stories for these fictional families just as 2020 will wind up offering several more “milestones” for us.

Now most families face this “trapped in a confined area” plot device

Being confined at home has caused real life drama: increased domestic abuse, new tensions for people with addictions. I just read about a couple planning to divorce when they were instead ordered to quarantine.

In Michigan, a passive protest movement has begun stressing quarantines are designed for sick people meaning the healthy are truly under house arrest. But there are more stories of people growing closer, finding deeper love, making music and new ways to enjoy life.

Memes remain a fixture of our era and a new one asks “Remember wishing the weekend would never end? Happy now?”

Introverts vs. Extroverts? Some are perfectly happy to stay home as long as possible “to be safe.” Others can’t wait to get out and do something as soon as possible. Conflict is the essence of stories.

People are already predicting a new baby boom starting in December 2020. But for writers, 2020 is shouting about other types of new creations: “now is the time you will have to finish that book…”

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