Story idea:
Title: Big Footprints.
Three years after the Great Cryptid Emergence, when mythical monsters began creeping into the spotlight, a social media craze to capture their entrances takes the world by storm. Tempers collide when a seasoned cryptid hunter, a self-obsessed influencer, and a shameless merchandise vendor battle each other for the first glimpse of the latest big footprints.
I have always been an avid cryptid fan. For those who don’t know, cryptids are animals whose existence has not yet been proven. So, mythical creatures like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Mothman.
For decades, the world’s been taking blurry photos and recording unreliable testimonies about these monsters. But the very definition of a cryptid holds out hope that we’ll one day find solid proof. And it is what inspired this story idea.
The existence of cryptids have not yet been proven. YET. What would the world do if it had high-definition photos and reliable testimony?
Of course, in our social media obsessed world, my mind immediately answered that question with influencers.
Unlike the story ideas I’ve shared so far, this is a story that has found legs (and big feet) in a 10-minute stage play. Inspired by the social media boom that came in response to Covid-19, the play examines the disconnection that happens when a world-changing event fails to change the world. With, of course, a good sense of humor to accompany it.
The play was featured in the 2023 8X10 Festival of Ten-Minute Plays in Fairbanks, Alaska and now it’s going to be hitting the road.
Big Footprints has been accepted into the 2024 Midwest Dramatists Center Conference on September 26-28. I’ll be traveling to Olathe, Kansas to see this story brought to life once again.
It’s an interesting experience to see a story become shaped by the world around it. I started writing it at the beginning of the pandemic, but the experience of watching what the pandemic did to the world altered how I saw the story.
This will be the second time I will get to see the play on its feet. It has changed a lot since the 2023 Fairbanks festival. I wonder what new changes await it?
What stories of yours have been altered by the world around it?
Start your story in the comments below…