When a desperate fugitive randomly chooses the house of a reclusive lock-in to hide out in, he must pander to her love-starved attention or risk being discovered by the police. – A dark romantic comedy.
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When a desperate fugitive randomly chooses the house of a reclusive lock-in to hide out in, he must pander to her love-starved attention or risk being discovered by the police. – A dark romantic comedy.
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I LOVE this premise! Would like some kind of ticking-clock or increasing stakes beyond simply being discovered by police. Does she make him go out to buy her lingerie?? ?Is he engaged to another woman?? Is he gay? Although it’s a different genre, it might be worth watching Misery!
I like the sound of this.
How does he randomly choose? Does he just run into the first house or does he see her in the window and think she’s attractive so selects that one? I think saying randomly chooses is a bit of a null statement – a choice suggests forethought, even subconsciously. As the protagonist, I want him to have a reason for picking her house. Comedically I think you could play around with reasons he picks her house – maybe he likes a drink and notices an empty bottle of his favourite whiskey in her trash, or she’s got a confederate flag hanging outside. Alternatively, think of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – Robert Downey Jr is running away from the cops and finds himself in an audition right after his partner has been killed ?(spoiler: he nails it!) – mistaken identity works great! Maybe she believes he’s a plumber and she’s watched one too many 70s porn films?
Really minor point, “lock-in to hide out in” – I would tweak to remove the repetition of “in”. You could maybe say agoraphobic or (possibly a better suggestion) give her another characteristic and call her a recluse e.g. lonely recluse or even love-starved recluse and then remove that before “attention” to reduce the word count further. Use this to set the comedic tone.
His characteristic as “desperate” – he’s a fugitive… the fact that he’s desperate is a given. Use the characteristic to tell us something else about the character – suggest his arc or set up the comedy – he hates physical contact so finding himself with a love-starved crazy lady immediately creates humorous images in the reader’s mind.
Hope this helps.