Need a little help creating a plot

C

Crash_GRAVITY

New member
PLOT:
Ryan Shaw, 20, begins a journal about 6 months after the disappearance of his girlfriend. He was seeing a therapist to deal with the incident and its emotional attack on him. Things are somewhat getting back to normal. He no longer wants to speak to his therapist so he begins writing entries in a journal. These entries will be narrated by him throughout the film.

The introduction starts 11 months after the first entry, its just a quick taste of where he will end up. Something along the lines of he has a recurring nightmare, where he wakes up with the most horrifying feeling he's ever felt. But in this dream he continuously wakes up before it's over. Cut back to the beginning where he is introducing himself. He's 20 years old, normal kid except for his mother's death when he was young and his drunken father who supports him.

I want him to work in a fairly casual, yet business-like/corporate-like type of job. I was thinking a secretary for something. I need some help with that.

I need some sort of a twist for the end as well. Twist will obviously have to do with his missing girlfriend. Was he the one to do it? Did he kill her? What else could I do? That seems to simple, I need more thought but then again I've got so little developed it's difficult to develop the end...I've been toying with this idea for years. I created one piece (my first real piece) but that's lost now. It wasn't detailed enough for my liking. It was loose, it was missing things. I want to make this solid. I know what I'm throwing out there isn't much. If I can find my old write ups I'll post it. The original title back then was Never Wake Up. Basically the nightmares will pull him in so deep that while in the dream he is going to kill himself.

Any advice, insight, comments, whatever are welcome. I'm new, :)

Side note: This is all just for fun. Something to keep the creativity flowing in my head.
 
Hmm, you have lots of spurious notions but they're not cohesive so it's a bit tough to ask others to both join the ideas and come up with comprehensive plot points. For sure, you'll want more characters to avoid a monolith story. I suggest you review books or websites on script writing, making notes on possible themes that you could blend into your story.

Good luck, Michael
 
All due respect, how does a writer even begin to craft any story that he doesn't already know the conclusion to?

The ending is the FIRST thing I know about any story I'm sitting down to write. I always know the destination from the very beginning. I then decide on a starting point that puts my main character in a completely different circumstance, frame of mind, etc. from where he/she will be when we reach the end of the story. From there, I begin to explore the pathways that will take my main character from where he starts to where he ends up. That's the creative journey.

I'm not saying "I'm right and you're wrong." I'm just explaining my process, and hoping to understand yours.

.
 
I agree with the poster above me. It’s always better to know your ending before you start writing. The more pre-writing, the less re-writing.


Crash_GRAVITY said:
I need some sort of a twist for the end as well. Twist will obviously have to do with his missing girlfriend. Was he the one to do it? Did he kill her? What else could I do?
Click to expand...


What if he never had a girlfriend? The guy is delusional. Either he made her up or she was real but he killed a complete stranger.
 
Matias Caruso said:
I agree with the poster above me. It’s always better to know your ending before you start writing. The more pre-writing, the less re-writing.





What if he never had a girlfriend? The guy is delusional. Either he made her up or she was real but he killed a complete stranger.
Click to expand...

That's the direction I'm thinking of going. I want the twist to be open to interpretation. I spent a couple hours on it last night.

Basic Idea:
Ryan Shaw, 21, is a self sufficient college student going to school on a scholarship. Ryan is a fairly quiet person but very intelligent. In his freshman year, Ryan met a beautiful and intelligent girl whose name was Sarah Gale. They dated for about a year before she disappeared. With no goodbyes and no answer to the question as to what happened, Ryan is lost. Having no familiar support, he is left to deal with the incident with the help of his therapist, Dr. Barren. After a few months of treatment, Ryan no longer wants to continue seeing Dr. Barren. He begins writing in a journal to release some of his feelings. Since Sarah’s disappearance, Ryan has had trouble with sleep. Haunted by thoughts and dreams of his first love, sleep never came easy.
About a year after her unexplained disappearance, Ryan begins to have nightmares. They pertained to nothing specific, but they left him awake in the middle of the night with that horrible feeling one can only experience when waking from a terrifying dream. It’s inexplicable, but it’s there, every night. Soon it begins to overwhelm him; he begins to slip into these “nightmares” at any time. He begins questioning things he sees, whether it’s another nightmare or if it’s from the lack of sleep.
There’s one thing that is recurring from these “nightmares”. He continues to see this mysterious man, always dressed in dark and always hooded. He always seems to be watching. Ryan is beginning to lose grip and an encounter with the man ends with a violent attack. Ryan charges the man and stabs him. Black out.
Ryan awakes in the driver seat of his car, which is off the road against a tree. The car won’t start. He’s cut on his forehead. His phone is vibrating on the passenger side floor. He has a voicemail. He checks it and it’s from Sarah. The date is the day she went missing. Bewildered, he checks the date on his phone. It’s the same day. Somehow he is back in time a year. In the message, she asks him to call her. In the message, she’s clearly scared. He’s pacing beside his car, which he has nearly forgotten about, while he calls Sarah. Vibrating is heard. He starts looking around, when he moves towards the trunk. He is wearing all black. More importantly, he’s wearing a black hoodie. Zoom in so only his face/eyes are seen. CUT to the exact scene, but in daylight, and no car; Alone on an empty road except for a woman passing by walking her dog who says hi.
CUT to black.
 
Hi Crash,

Okay, now you've developed several interesting story elements and the plot could a variety of ways leading to various conclusions. Before you get too deep into this, you may wish to begin the "3x5" card exercise, writing a short sentence to describe each scene. Using a top-downs approach will help you focus on your structure. You'll want about 15-20 cards in ACT I and III, about 30 in ACT II. Each card should advance the character and each ACT will typically provide a major plot point (try to avoid too much exposition that does nothing to move the character, vis-a-vis protaganist/antagonist).

On the other hand, if you're simply wanting to explore various bottoms-up scenarios that will help you determine the story arc, conclusion, characters, etc, then keep on trucking (I see you're latest submission is significantly different than your first treatment).

Keep having fun - you've got some interesting ideas,

Michael
 
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