An adventure-seeking elderly wife convinces her risk-averse husband to go on a European road trip to honour their friends’ will by scattering their ashes following their unexpected death.
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An adventure-seeking elderly wife convinces her risk-averse husband to go on a European road trip to honour their friends’ will by scattering their ashes following their unexpected death.
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Gaia.
I’m not sure what your intentions are, but it seems as if you have not taken on board many of the helpful suggestions made in regards to your concept. As all previous comments still apply, I invite you to study the comments made to your previous post.
What is the point of using death as an inciting incident?
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Hi both, I have actually been trying to incorporate all the suggestions, but apparently it doesn’t?read that way.
I guess it is still not clear enough.
The death and will is the inciting incident that shakes the wife into realising how fragile life is and she seizes that chance to go on this road trip as she has always dreamed of travelling and going on an adventure. ?The wife’s life long desire to go on a journey drives her to convince her husband to come along hence the: ‘adventure-seeking elderly wife convinces her risk-averse husband to go’.
I kept European because I think place is important. It is not going to be a road trip in China or Russia or the US.
And I kept two adjectives to describe the opposing character of the husband and wife, one adventure-seeking and the other risk-averse, as the journey really brings them head to head.
Death wakes the couple up to their own mortality and to how their time is running out and sets them on this journey.
Where do you propose the journey to end? ?That is, what is the destination (part of the objective goal) where the ashes will be scattered?
?And where does the journey begin? (That can be succinctly indicated by their nationality. ?”A Scottish couple” infers a different point of origin than, say, a “Portuguese couple” ?It also indicates the native market for the film. Even though it’s a journey through Europe, it doesn’t necessarily follow that ergo it can ?target every movie audience in the countries visited.)
IOW: pretending that I’m a producer, I?would like?to get a rough idea ?from the logline not only what the story is about — but how much it’s going to cost, how difficult it may be to make. ?And what is the primary language market.
If the story were a cross country journey in Australia or the USA, there wouldn’t be a question as to language and the default target audience. ?But multi-national, ?multi-lingual Europe is a different matter.
The lack of detail extends to both inner and outer journeys. It’s this lack of detail that we keep urging you to correct.
As DPG wrote, the locale will have a huge impact in this instance, and needs to be specified.
In addition you need to add obstacles, of some sort, and higher stakes. In previous comments to this concept in other posts of yours I suggested including a ticking time bomb in form of a fatal condition and stakes character.
You wrote “…?death and will is the inciting incident that shakes the wife into realising how fragile life?”. Great I love a good and meaty philosophical discussion around existentialism, however this can’t make up a whole plot. If this is the subject matter you’re interest in, I suggest researching SUCCESSFUL stories?that dealt with similar topics – The Matrix, Tender Mercies, The Trip even Hamlet. A literal discussion of the theme will bore the audience to tears, it’s through metaphor that a writer can discuss it.
Point is, the above is not an inciting incident, please accept this. What the above does, is prompt the wife to think and reconsider not take action – action is what drives a plot. However the action you have, taking a road trip, has no real motivation. Outside of her emotions and thoughts, what is it in the REAL world that MAKES her NEED to go on the road trip? What is her goal and what is her practical?motivation?for achieving it except for life long desire to travel?
Consider The Trip, ?a low concept and fantastic film. Two brilliant comedy actors are paid to go on a road trip in England and review restaurants – it’s their job they have to do it or else the mortgages and alimonies won’t get paid. On top of this practical need for a trip, the writers built a subtle and yet interesting inner journey that exposes the superficiality of one character and the depth of the other.
Thank you Nir Shelter for your input.?Gives me plenty of food for thought!