Need a little advice on focusing my script plot

Well, I'm no expert but here is how I work on my stories -

First, there is an idea. May be just a vague one. I try to expand it in my mind and on paper. I expand it in different ways so that I have three or four good stories out of that one idea. Now I decide which one among them is the most suitable for a script. I decide this by keeping various factors in mind such as If the story is interesting, has mass appeal, can indeed be made into a movie etc. Once decided, I stick to my selected version.

Next, I decide on the main character. For this, I think about the character who is the most suitable one to tell the story. I try it with different characters. So far, my stories are not very complicated so I know whose point of view I'm going to show. Must be an interesting character with a distinct voice and a character that could be developed over the story. And since each character has a different perspective of the events in the story, I select the one who will capture (hopefully) audience interest.

Okay, now I write a detailed outline describing all the plot points, twists and turns of the story. I also write down the subplots here. This outline is usually several pages long and I use it for reference while writing the actual script.
Without an outline, I find it difficult to stay on track. I want to finish the thing on time and I want to remain focused on the story once I get to this stage.

That's it, i guess. As for your story, you have options for the MC. One of the cops maybe? Or one of the kids who is yet to join the others (okay, it somehow reminds me of a Stephen King story but anyway)? How about a parent who sees his kid(s) behaving strangely? What about the owner of the mask company? Being a suspect, won't he/she try to look for clues and prove his/her innocence? What if he/she has a kid who is involved with this murderous cult?

Regards,
Deepspirit

weaponx said:

Hey everyone,

I new to the forum and just wanted alittle advice on how you guys focus a concept to what will eventually be your movie? I usually have little problem deciding these type of things but for the script I am currently working on I'm having a hell of a time pinning down the direction I want to take the story. And an even harder time figuring out who my main character should be, which is probably the man cause of the problem. It seems everytime I write a plot summary or tag line it's differant. The worst part is I know how the movie will start and I know the ending. plus a few parts in the middle.

Just to give you a better idea of what the idea with here is a logline and a general plot that don't exactly match up.

A group of murderous children who worship Samhain, the demon god of Halloween, begin a rampage to collect souls for his return on All Hollow‘s Eve.

In a small town, just outside of Philadelphia, a string of mysterious brutal murders begin to occur the weeks before Halloween. Adults are being murdered in a violent ritual manner, often with strange demonic symbols left behind. The only witnesses to these terrible murders are the victims children who often remember little to nothing about the events and appear quite distant when police arrive. The police are bewildered by these events and fear that this may be the beginning of a long string of terrible murders. As Halloween approaches the police begin to suspect that the owner of a local mask company(or funeral home) may be behind the recent slayings. But with little evidence to prove it, they are left to chase the clues through the streets as the town begin to tear itself apart.

Any help would be greatly apprehiated.

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I think this may be of help.

You can ask yourself a series of questions in order to focus on what your story is.

First, you ask yourself -- what is the central problem of the story?

Then ask yourself -- whose problem is it?

Now, that may not get you all that far, because it may be a problem for a lot of different people, so you have to ask yourself one more question.

Whose problem is it -- more than anyone else's?

That is the person who has more to lose, who is more deeply invested in the outcome, for whom the "problem" of the story, in fact, mirrors a problem that is central and internal to him.

That guy is your protagonist.

Take a look at something like Jaws.

We all know what the central problem is -- a great white shark has turned up at this New England Resort Island and it's swimming around eating people.

Whose problem is it? Well, it's a lot of people's problem. The whole island who might go bankrupt. Anyone who goes swimming and might get eaten. Anyone whose job it is to get rid of the shark.

But when we look at Chief Brody, it is particularly and personally his problem.

Why? Because he was told up front that there was a shark and then he let the city fathers persuade him to change the report and reopen the beaches -- and he knew that it was bull. And then an innocent boy was killed. And he knows that it was his fault. And again, the expert tells him that the wrong shark is caught, and again, he lets them run over him and open the beaches for the fourth of July, and someone else is killed and his own son is almost killed. So he's failed in his duty a second time.

Now, those others, like the mayor, they may have screwed up and their actions may have led to those deaths -- but they didn't have Brody's responsibility to protect those people.

So he, unlike them, has this burden of failure. They may want to get rid of the shark. Hooper and the Shark Hunter Guy may be at equal risk when they go out after the shark.

But he's the one with the most at stake because he carries that burden of failure, that burden of responsibility with him.

So you need to look at your story and find that character -- the character who is the most deeply invested, who has the most to lose. It may or may not be a cop. It may or may not be a parent of one of these children or a brother or sister of one of these children, or a teacher. I don't know.

But ultimately, it's got to be that one person, the one player who has the most at stake, both externally and internally.

NMS

It sounds to me like you need to decide on a main character. Someone to follow the story through. Your brief synopsis seems to suggest your main character might be a cop. It depends on whether or not you want to keep the fact that the children are the ones doing the killing until the end of your movie. Is it a mystery in this way?

You might wish to consider not using the plot from Halloween 3: Season of the Witch - it didn't do all that well.

Beyond that, what point of view are you looking for? The detective? One of the children? A parent?

Have to agree with 8thSmaurai on this. When I first read it, the first thing that popped in my head was "Halloween".

From the sound of it, you have several different characters you could choose from, many of which have already been mentioned.

If I may though, I would like to add another character/perspective that seems to have been missed. Why not try the audiences perspective?

What I mean by this is a method I use when writing my stories. I have in a sense two main characters. The one telling the story and the one the story is about. The one telling the story is of course wrapped up in it somehow but ultimately they are NOT the one with the most to lose.

Think of it like a News Reporter. There is a horrific murder. The police are investigating. They think it might be linked to a huge series of murders recently, but they can't say anything so as not to arise panic. A reporter comes up and asks the chief/main investigator "What happened here?" "Why did it happen?" "Is it linked to any of these other murders?" Etc. etc. The chief answers what he can but won't give everything. He has a problem to figure out.

He is one Main character of the story. His arc is what truly matters. He has to solve the problem. The other main character is the reporter. She wants to know who did it. Why? Because the news viewers want to know. The people want to know.

So now you have your main character(s). You then can look at it not so much as an Antagonist vs. Protagonist structure but as a Protagonist vs. Protagonist structure.

Granted at times you have to do the whole omnipresent thing and show things that the news reporter might not know, but that's where the whole storytelling element comes into play.

Have fun with it.

weaponx said:

Thank you everyone for your comments. They were very helpful and were greatly appreciated. Some of your ideas were things that I was thinking of myself and it was good to hear them come from others. nmstevens, ricetalks, WMcQuaig and Deepspirit I used what you said and tried to get a better idea of the story I'm trying to tell. I have just had so many ideas for this one idea that I overwhelmed myself. As of right now I have a better image of the final project so once I finish my outline I plan to start the script. The idea is differant slightly differant once again but I think it's a great start.



8thsamurai comment about me copying Halloween 3 is slightly ridiculous. I don't want to be rude but simply because the movie takes place during halloween and involves a mask company doesn't mean I'm copying Halloween 3 at all. I don't know if you read my post but the plot of Halloween 3 wasn't even close to the plot I described. Halloween 3 is about a man trying to kill all of children in America using pieces of stone henge.
The two original script ideas I was torn between were a man and his children put hallucinogenics into masks causing the people in the town to become violent and kill; the second was that 3 children who are trying to cause mischief end up being possessed by a demon and "collect souls" for his return. I honestly don't know where you drew the comparison to Halloween 3 besides the fact that the holiday is involved, but I'm not going to worry about it. You just don't see the concept I do.

Once again thank you everyone for the helpful comments.

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While I wouldn't go so far as to say that you're using the same plot, there's no question but that there are story elements in common -- not simply that it takes place at Halloween, but that (at least in some version or other) the head of a Halloween mask company is involved and that the wearing of the masks produced by him is central to the killings.

From your perspective, you can look at the differences and say that they're enormous and that the similarities are slight and on balance a fair analysis would probably show that you are right.

The trouble is, execs are really in the business of looking for virtually any reason to say no -- and if you give them one, they'll take it.

Being similar to a movie that just came out, successful or unsuccessful -- good reason to say no.

Being similar to a movie that failed, recent or not recent -- good reason to say no.

And the similarity does not have to be great. There just has to be a line that they can draw in their heads. Halloween? Halloween. Masks? Masks. People getting killed because of the masks? People getting killed because of the mask.

Pass.

You may think that that's ridiculous, but I've had scripts passed on because of far less explicit similarities to recently released movies.

That is, it has nothing to do with whether its a fair argument. It just has to to do with not giving somebody who's looking for a quick reason to say no, something to hang their hats on.

NMS

As you can see, not ridiculous at all - and I'm not the only one who noticed the parallel plot points.

Doesn't mean you can't write this movie, it means that you have to describe it differently, or all the producer (which, btw, I have been) sees is 'this sounds like a movie I remember that bombed. pass.'

Fair? Of course not. Life in general is not fair, and it gets worse the more competitive the industry you want to be in.

weaponx said:

Regardless of any similarity that may seem to be there I just found your comment very rude. And your response very rude as well. If you have an opinion that's fine but I think it was unnecessary for you to come one here and be very impolite for my first post. It just wasn't needed.

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I'm afraid I don't see the rudeness. He said you probably don't want a similar plot to a movie that flopped. Other people saw the similarities as well. Where's the rudeness?

If you mean he criticized your work, that isn't rudeness it's an honest critique. If you think that's rude, you're in for a ride.

Have to agree with Icerose on this one.

Rude or not? Don't know. I can't really see it but at the same time that's the problem with words on websites. You can't tell inflection or sarcasm, so someone can say something that comes out sounding very rude with not actually meaning to be rude. But that's beside the point.

Just because one or two or three people say they see the similarities doesn't mean its terrible. There are plenty of Halloween themed films out there that have done well. Unfortunately, 8thsamurai just happen to associate it with a bad one. Producers will do the same thing. Unfortunately that's how the business is. Take or leave it.

Not trying to attack you or anything, but some of the people on here can be pretty blunt, myself included, if that sounds like something you don't want to hear, you might want to reconsider a few things.

weaponx said:

Regardless of any similarity that may seem to be there I just found your comment very rude. And your response very rude as well. If you have an opinion that's fine but I think it was unnecessary for you to come one here and be very impolite for my first post. It just wasn't needed.

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When you post on forum like this you are going to get all kinds of feedback - good, bad and indifferent. And all types of tones from kid gloves treatment to encouraging to polite, to impolite to discouraging to snarky to rude.

But regardless of tone, each and every person who takes time to respond to your question or give feedback on your pages is taking time out of their day to help you. 8th Samaurai brought up a very valid concern.

The way to get the most out of these forums is to focus on the substance of what a poster says rather than the style. Some of the best bits of information are going to come from those who may communicate in a tone you find off-putting.

So Halloween 3 sucked? Damn, I was going to queue that.

weaponx said:

Regardless of any similarity that may seem to be there I just found your comment very rude. And your response very rude as well. If you have an opinion that's fine but I think it was unnecessary for you to come one here and be very impolite for my first post. It just wasn't needed.

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I apologize if you felt I was being rude. Being in production, I would pass on any pitch described in that way, and thought it would be a nice gesture to tell you now, before you knock on a bunch of closed doors.

This is why screenplays are generally not critiqued, nor do we answer when a writer or new filmmaker asks why their pitch was rejected. There is a difference between rudeness and an honest answer, and too many new writers are too close to the work to be able to discern the difference.

Having been on both sides of the desk, I do try to help out in the writing forums. I will avoid commenting on your posts in the future, and apologize for offending you in any way.

First of all, I would say to myself: 'Why will people watch this? Why would someone bother to film it?'
Probably you can come up with a list of popular films which it is a bit like. Then you have to say: 'Why wouldn't they watch one of those then?'

And that's where nearly everybody gets stuck. Find your big idea- your concept. So far the movie sounds a bit run-of-the-mill horror. I can't visualise it in my head.
You want a story which is visual and evocative- one which people can just imagine watching and one which will look fabulous.