Need Help Writing A Crucial Scene

E

eddie777

Member
I'm 5 scenes away from finishing the first draft of my feature length screenplay, but I need some good ideas to work on a crucial scene. I call this the scene that finally broke the camels back. The scene consists or a guy who is packing up to finally go through with leaving his obsessively jealous girlfriend because he is fed up with her, but I have to come up with a very good reason for why he finally gets up and leaves her. She is basically insane, insecure, paranoid, and obsessively jealous. She is constantly accusing him of cheating on her even though there is no evidence of it. She would never cheat on him because she is obsessed with him, so that idea can't be used. Any good ideas would really be appreciated.
Thanks,
Eddie
 
Is the fact she is insane not enough?


What if she starts threatening self harm in order to manipulate him, something like "every time you even look at another woman I'll cut myself". That could be very creepy if she actually goes through with it once and it is that display that makes him crack.
 
Up to the point her leaves her, he should still have a reason for being with her / liking her / putting up with her. Break that line of connection.
 
He can't leave her over just anything because he feels guilty because he is indirectly responsible for her crazy behavior and she is pregnant with his child. If he leaves her it would have to be because something really big that he just can't ignore no matter how guilty he feels.
 
Whoa, the fact that she is pregnant would change everything.

Perhaps it is something she is doing that is putting the baby in danger. Could he, instead of trying to leave, be trying to get her committed to a psych hospital for the protection of his unborn child. So in a way he is leaving because he is cutting ties with her, as well as trying to deprive her from their child. I wouldn't have him just leave her as that would be deliberately deciding to leave his child in the hands of a maniac, and that will make audiences feel less sympathy for him and see his actions as more selfish than justified, even if they are justified.
 
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She already has threatened to kill him and herself if he should ever leave him.
She has isolated him from his friends and his family.
She has physically attacked him to keep from leaving.
She has begged and pleaded with him not to leave her. I basically used these ideas numerous times to establish a pattern of psychosis.
The only 2 things that I can think of that would break the camels back is if she nailed the windows and the doors shuts to keep him from leaving or if she tried to chain him to the bed to keep him from leaving. If you guys come up with a better ideas than the 2 I mention please let me know. I do like the psych ward idea. I'll keep that one in mind.

Thanks,
Eddie
 
Perhaps she finds out that he is trying to commit her, so does something in retaliation.

You will have to handle the fact that she is pregnant with tact, it can be a dangerous minefield if not handled carefully and certain actions could be viewed as morally repugnant. Not that it was a great movie to begin with, but it was the whole infecting pregnant women with aliens in Alien vs Predator2 that pushed even fans to question that filmmakers taste level. Fans turned off the movie because they were disgusted. That's got to tell you something. He pushed the envelope too far and it was not cool to unnecessarily hurt innocent children or babies.

Just remember that because you have made her pregnant, depending on how pregnant she is, the unborn child itself becomes a character in the story, so anything your main character does to her, even to free himself, wont be just seen as being done to her but also being done to that child - unless of course she isn't really pregnant and it is a phantom child as part of her manipulation.
 
He finds out that she's tries to stay awake all night to watch him in case he leaves.

The phantom baby idea is also good.
 
He finds a creepy serial killer-like shrine she has built to him hidden somewhere that she would never let him access... could couple this with the surveillance idea equipment idea in that this area where the shrine is also happens to be monitoring central for all the spy gear.

Or you could do something completely off the wall, like he discovers (by catching her in the fact) that in addition to obsessing over him, she also has developed some weird, bizarre sexual fetish which she somehow equates with him like having sex with a rose bush or something.
 
somehow, she has to lose the child. your man can not leave her while she's pregnant. sometimes women can have instant abortion due physical effort.
 
An obsessive person is very likely to cheat on the subject, just to harm him/her or make him/her pay for something.

it would be ironic and shocking for your character, if his obsessively jealous girlfriend cheats on him and let him know that she did. THAT would make him pack up and leave.
 
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