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My new plot outline!



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Sun Dec 25, 2016 5:46 am
JoeyCobalt says...



I've been working on the plot outline for an action-comedy screenplay called "The Hall Monitors." Here is my finished product. Any advice, criticism, and general ideas would be greatly appreciated.

The Hall Monitors

Summary: Comedic tale of five teenage underdogs, the titular hall monitors, and their escapades as they investigate the mysterious death of one of their peers.

Setting: Present day, in the town of Simpleton, KY, primarily in and around Gerald Dick High School

Main Protagonists
• Allen “Corny” Cornwallis - Eccentric leader of the GDHS Hall Monitors Club. Highly intelligent and hyper observant, but socially inept. Fanatically devoted to the GDHS code-of-conduct. His parents died in a car accident when he was eight years old. Lives with his rich aunt and uncle.
• Sharon Butts - New student at GDHS. Sardonic and pessimistic. Emotionally scarred by the recent death of her mother. Her father, Mark, is a cop.
• Charles “Buzz” Cortez - Corny’s dimwitted but loyal best friend. Struck by lightning in his youth; he hasn’t been the same since. Nicknamed “Buzz,” because that is the sound he makes when he’s stressed.
• Viktor Lazarevic - A gentle giant. Speaks very little English. Ricky’s best friend.
• Richard “Ricky” Boone - Has gone several years without speaking a single word (he is attempting to set the world record.) Viktor’s best friend.

Plot: One day, new student Sharon Butts gets lost in the halls of GDHS. She is flagged down by Allen “Corny” Cornwallis, who promptly points her in the right direction and tells her that if she ever needs anything, he is the guy to ask. That night, Sharon’s father, Mark, recommends that she find an extracurricular activity to participate in. Remembering Corny’s kindness and believing that it will be easy, Sharon decides to join the GDHS Hall Monitors Club. She soon finds that she has bitten off more than she can chew, as the hall monitors are the most reviled kids in school and Corny is a complete loon.

Late Tuesday night, a couple of unsavory characters drive up to GDHS. They remove the body and bicycle of GDHS student Annabelle James from their trunk. They place the dead girl in front of the marquee, plant an empty bottle of bleach in her hand, and spray paint the words “goodbye, cruel world” on the marquee, intending to make her death look like a suicide.

The next day, Corny and his troop arrive at school to find the police, including Captain Logan Ratner and Sharon’s father, investigating the scene of Annabelle’s death. The cops, noting the old scars on the girl’s wrist and the bleach bottle in her hand, immediately write off the case as a tragic but textbook suicide. Corny, however, finds the situation unusual. After all, why would Annabelle go through all the trouble of killing herself at the school when she could just do it at home? After school, the hall monitors head to Annabelle’s house to talk to her parents. Her parents make it clear that Annabelle had struggled with major depression, anxiety (including stress vomiting), and self-harm in the past, but that she had seemed a lot happier lately. Corny looks around and finds a full bottle of bleach in the laundry room. That’s strike two for him: if Annabelle was going to kill herself with bleach, why would she not just use the bleach she had at her house? Corny sneaks upstairs to her room, and manages to discover Annabelle’s secret diary. He finds that the entries are written in Latin, so he and his comrades meet with Latin teacher Mrs. Colleen White to decipher it. Mrs. White translates the book, and the group discovers that Annabelle had become part of a secret cult of unpopular students (referred to as Club Alpha in the diary) that had been committing crimes all over Simpleton, starting with simple vandalism and then escalating to looting. Their leader is referred to only as a codename: “Mayhem.” The last diary entry, made several hours before Annabelle’s death, reveals that Mayhem was planning something big for his 18th birthday, which is that Friday. Corny theorizes that Annabelle, who was once a good girl, simply fell in with the wrong crowd, and that her good conscience caused her to be killed. He makes it his mission to discover who Mayhem is, and to find what this person has planned, as it can only mean trouble.

Corny soon discovers that, on the night of Annabelle’s death, a pawn shop was broken into, and set ablaze. The perpetrators were in and out in a matter of minutes, leaving no trace. He immediately deduces that it was Annabelle’s cult that carried out the crime. The group watches the news and discovers that a lone witness, a homeless man named Joe Aykroyd, saw the crime. However, the man believes that the culprits were aliens, as they had cone-shaped heads. Corny finds the situation alarming; the pawn shop sold guns.

The five of them ask around the school to discover who is turning 18 on Friday. They find that only two students fit the bill; Kenneth Stevens, a serial prankster, and Edward Mayhew, a charming and popular student. Corny believes Mayhew to be their man, as “Mayhem” is likely a play on his name and his charismatic nature would make him perfect as the leader of a cult. The crew heads to Corny’s house, where they meet his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Sharon talks with Corny’s family and discovers the reason why he is such a lunatic; his parents died several years in the past, and it still hurts him very much. Corny reveals a birthday present of his; a tiny, video recording drone that will allow the group to keep a close eye on Mayhew. They send the drone to Mayhew’s house to spy on him.

Late Thursday night, Mayhew leaves his house. The hall monitors use the drone to follow him, and they discover that Annabelle’s cult has been meeting at an old, abandoned, and supposedly haunted campground on the outskirts of Simpleton. They discover the cult to be a group of 12 aluminum hat-wearing students that call themselves the Aluminumati. While the drone’s camera records everything, the sociopathic Mayhew reveals his plot to, on his birthday tomorrow, have one of his cultists drive a van full of homemade pipe bombs and propane into GDHS, causing a massive explosion and killing hundreds. The rest of the cult will then head into the building to pick off the survivors. This act will be one of the deadliest domestic terrorist attacks in the United States. During Mayhew’s insane tirade, Ricky notices a two-day-old vomit stain on the floor. Corny deduces that on the night of Annabelle’s death, Mayhew revealed his intention to destroy the school, and in a fit of stress the girl began to vomit profusely. This revealed to the cult that she did not want to participate in this act of bloodshed. Thus, she had to be eliminated. The cult plans to spend the rest of the night at the campground, partying, as it is their last night on earth and they want to make the most of it.

Corny and the gang present the footage of Mayhew’s psychotic rant to the police, and a raid of the campsite is promptly planned. Corny provides the cops with a bird’s-eye view of the scene, and with his help the police manage to take down most of the cult. Mayhew and a few others manage to escape in the car with the pipe bombs and propane, and a chase ensues. One of the villains begins chucking pipe bombs at the pursuing cops, but Corny puts an end to this by crashing his drone into the head of the bomber, knocking him out and causing him to drop his lit explosive. Mayhew stops the vehicle, and him and four others bale out. The car explodes gloriously, burning Mayhew, while one of his minions grabs the broken remains of Corny’s drone. They run from the police, and eventually they jump into a ravine. The police begin to search the ravine for the terrorists, and in the meantime, they cancel school for the next day and put officers in and near each of the hall monitors’ houses to ensure their safety. Corny and his friends are applauded for their heroism.

Mayhew and three of his goons survive their fall, and they discover Corny’s address written on the remains of his drone. Mayhew, spiteful that his birthday was “ruined,” vows revenge. They steal a car, and head to Corny’s house.

The hall monitors celebrate their success by eating dinner at Corny’s house, and during this festivity, Sharon begins to fall for Corny. Mayhew and his cronies arrive to crash the party, crashing their car into the guards outside and shooting them dead. They breach the building, getting into a shootout with the two police officers and killing them both. Corny, his friends, and his family head into the attic, and escape onto the roof. They climb down, and get into Corny’s car (a van that Corny customized with a water cannon, oil slick, various disguises, a first aid station, and a t-shirt cannon) and an epic chase through the city ensues. The chase ends with Corny and his clan getting cornered in an abandoned building. Mayhew reveals that he killed Annabelle exactly for the reasons that Corny had deduced; she started to stress vomit, the cult interrogated her, and discovered that she did not want to go through with their heinous plan. The psychopath makes it clear that he is going to draw out Corny’s suffering by killing all his family and friends first. He shoots at Corny’s cousin, but Corny jumps in the way of the bullet. Before Mayhew can pull the trigger again, Ricky breaks his silence and begins singing “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap. This distracts the monster long enough for Viktor to break his arm. Corny presumably expires from his wound, but he immediately starts laughing, as he was only faking everyone out. Everyone takes turns hitting him as the police arrive.

Please, tell me what you think!
  





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Sat Dec 31, 2016 5:12 am
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Kale says...



Is there anything specific you're looking for feedback-wise, i.e. are you planning this to be the official synopsis you send out in your queries, or is this the outline for a work you have yet to write?

Knowing what you're looking for will help a lot.
Secretly a Kyllorac, sometimes a Murtle.
There are no chickens in Hyrule.
Princessence: A LMS Project
WRFF | KotGR
  





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Tue Jan 03, 2017 10:36 pm
JoeyCobalt says...



It's a plot outline for a screenplay I have yet to start writing. I just want to know if it makes sense, or if anyone has any ideas on how to improve it.
  





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Thu Jan 05, 2017 4:37 am
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Kale says...



Well, the one thing I will say about outlines is that they tend to work best when not formatted in paragraph form.

I use pretty lose outlines when I'm planning things (mainly because I change things around a lot as I'm writing the initial draft), and I find that nested bullet-point lists work best for me.

A typical outline for a short story of mine will look like this:

Title

One-sentence summary.

First big event
- Character A does a thing
-- Motive for A
-- Things A knew going in
-- Things A DIDN'T know
- B reacts
-- Ideas on reactions
- A reacts to the reacting
-- Calls character C for advice
-- C is busy but still provides
- A talks to B
-- Messes up following advice
-- B is more upset than ever
--- Calls C
---- C is STILL BUSY
---- Still provides advice
- B TRIES to forgive A
-- Messes up
-- Now A is upset at B
--- Both of them call C
---- C puts them on a conference call and provides advice
----- They fail to follow the advice
- The shouting over the phone draws the attention of C's boss

(and so on)

My sister, on the other hand, prefers using one-sentence summaries of major events and motives, so the above outline would look more like this:

Character A does a thing because of Z motive.
A knew about Y but didn't know about X, and this upsets character B.
B reacts poorly.
A calls character C for advice.
C is busy but still provides advice.
A tries to follow the advice, but botches it, and now B is more upset than ever.

(and so on)

I personally like the bullet points because it leaves me more freedom to add or move events/details/ideas around without affecting the rest of the outline too much.

My sister prefers the sentence style because she usually has a pretty good idea of what she's going to write and how it's going to play out, so the outline acts more as her quick reference between writing sessions.

In either case, having the outlines simplified to shorter chunks of information makes finding the information a lot easier, especially if you use formatting things like headings (which most word processors will let you jump to specific ones directly).

You can also more easily organize the events by acts/chapters/scenes which will help you keep track of things.

Another thing outlines are really good at is helping you figure out the overall atmosphere/tone/themes you plan to convey.

Right now, I'm not sure what the overall structure of this play is based on the summary here. Is it a single-act play? A three-act? A five-act? What are the divisions between the acts/scenes?

I'm also a bit confused about the overall tone of this play. Is it supposed to be a drama? Comedy? Dramedy?

Like, on the one hand, there is murder, intrigue, cults, and crimes!

And then there's the Aluminumati. I still can't look at that name without giggling.

So, a bit of clarification on what you're planning to accomplish with this play would be really helpful. What sort of themes are you aiming for? What tone?

I personally think this has great potential to be a dark comedy, but I'm not sure if that was what you're aiming for.
Secretly a Kyllorac, sometimes a Murtle.
There are no chickens in Hyrule.
Princessence: A LMS Project
WRFF | KotGR
  





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Fri Jan 06, 2017 12:03 am
JoeyCobalt says...



Kyllorac wrote:Well, the one thing I will say about outlines is that they tend to work best when not formatted in paragraph form.

I use pretty lose outlines when I'm planning things (mainly because I change things around a lot as I'm writing the initial draft), and I find that nested bullet-point lists work best for me.

A typical outline for a short story of mine will look like this:

Title

One-sentence summary.

First big event
- Character A does a thing
-- Motive for A
-- Things A knew going in
-- Things A DIDN'T know
- B reacts
-- Ideas on reactions
- A reacts to the reacting
-- Calls character C for advice
-- C is busy but still provides
- A talks to B
-- Messes up following advice
-- B is more upset than ever
--- Calls C
---- C is STILL BUSY
---- Still provides advice
- B TRIES to forgive A
-- Messes up
-- Now A is upset at B
--- Both of them call C
---- C puts them on a conference call and provides advice
----- They fail to follow the advice
- The shouting over the phone draws the attention of C's boss

(and so on)

My sister, on the other hand, prefers using one-sentence summaries of major events and motives, so the above outline would look more like this:

Character A does a thing because of Z motive.
A knew about Y but didn't know about X, and this upsets character B.
B reacts poorly.
A calls character C for advice.
C is busy but still provides advice.
A tries to follow the advice, but botches it, and now B is more upset than ever.

(and so on)

I personally like the bullet points because it leaves me more freedom to add or move events/details/ideas around without affecting the rest of the outline too much.

My sister prefers the sentence style because she usually has a pretty good idea of what she's going to write and how it's going to play out, so the outline acts more as her quick reference between writing sessions.

In either case, having the outlines simplified to shorter chunks of information makes finding the information a lot easier, especially if you use formatting things like headings (which most word processors will let you jump to specific ones directly).

You can also more easily organize the events by acts/chapters/scenes which will help you keep track of things.

Another thing outlines are really good at is helping you figure out the overall atmosphere/tone/themes you plan to convey.

Right now, I'm not sure what the overall structure of this play is based on the summary here. Is it a single-act play? A three-act? A five-act? What are the divisions between the acts/scenes?

I'm also a bit confused about the overall tone of this play. Is it supposed to be a drama? Comedy? Dramedy?

Like, on the one hand, there is murder, intrigue, cults, and crimes!

And then there's the Aluminumati. I still can't look at that name without giggling.

So, a bit of clarification on what you're planning to accomplish with this play would be really helpful. What sort of themes are you aiming for? What tone?

I personally think this has great potential to be a dark comedy, but I'm not sure if that was what you're aiming for.


A dark comedy is exactly what I was aiming for. The main protagonists have pretty tragic backstories and are generally despised by the entire school, the villains are inspired by real life criminals, and the catalyst of the plot is a rather brutal murder. Sorry if my intent was a little unclear. I like to use juxtapositions of tones in my plotlines, to keep the audience on edge. Also, I suppose that this isn't so much an outline as it is the plot of the screenplay itself. I was just hoping to see what people thought about it, and if they had any recommendations or input before I started to get into the script. Thank you for taking time to read it!
  








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