When the town bully humiliates him, a mild-mannered cowboy sets out to reclaim his dignity, only to accidentally kill the man, and set off his violent outlaw family.

I had some other versions of this – but thought I’d lead with the shortest.

When the town bully humiliates him, a mild-mannered cowboy sets out to reclaim his dignity, only to accidentally kill the man, and set off his violent outlaw family, who soon take over the town. – last 6 words I thought were redundant.

and…

When the town bully humiliates him, a mild-mannered cowboy sets out to reclaim his dignity, only to accidentally kill the man, and set off his family – a gang of violent outlaws. – again, I thought the one I used was quicker. But I dunno, this one seems clearer to me.

What are your thoughts?

Hey. Thanks AHarper. Yeah – I’ll think about “town bully”. I kept thinking it should start out small – not unlike a bully in the playground.

The theme throughout is how violence escalates. You have this mild mannered guy who decides to fight back for once but it soon escalates into something far worse and involves the whole town.

Should you fight back? Should you stand your ground? Should one fight violence with more violence? Will it end?

Hi OlDustyDogg, I figured the family come to the town, take it over, and start beating/killing town members until our cowboy does something.

Ha. Yeah it could be a comedy. In my head, I’m leaning more towards Greek tragedy ha.

TRIX –

Town bully definitely brings connotations of school ground or teen players.

Well – I figured he is. He’s a drunk. An idiot. Perhaps he’s not even all that bad. (Again I want this to be grey. Not black and white.) This guy probably has a wife and family and kids, etc.

How does he set out to reclaim his dignity? By being a bully to the bully? Is this a realistic motivation for a mild-mannered guy even if he didn?t intend on killing him?

Yeah – think of Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs. The little guy can only be pushed around so much. Perhaps this guy has spent years being emasculated, hen pecked. Masculinity is a big deal for him. Heck – perhaps psychologically it’s less about dignity and more about masculinity. And perhaps he discovers this later on.

Who is your new antagonist? Needs to be a specific person in the outlaw family.

I don’t think you’d need it in the logline. Admittedly that’s why I went with “- violent gang of outlaws” in that other logline. I mean there’s bound to be a leader of the pack. Perhaps in another reversal – our hero kills him off quickly. What do the other band members do when they’ve lost their leader – they get more band members, they get edgy, more violent.

I have a sense of the trouble he?s now in, but it?s not clear exactly what the outlaws are planning or what the cowboy intends to do about it ? as Dusty says, he could just run. Feels like this is conflict, but no stakes.

The interesting thing here is I don’t see our cowboy as a John McClane type – I think a part of him is leaning towards running away. If he does, how would he live with himself. I mean perhaps he does run? If this happens, I’d say the All is Lost/PP2. Our hero then realizes this outlaw family is very much here to stay – I mean they’ve taken over a town, rule over it with fear, why would they leave?

Not only that, our hero is very much responsible for bringing them there – he would want to redeem himself before it gets even worse.

You mentioned the family coming to town and killing people until the cowboy does something, but that made me think ? why aren?t they already in town (they?re his family) and why wouldn?t they just string up the cowboy?

A family of outlaws – would probably be nomads, always moving. I imagined it would be a shock for everyone – this town bully is blood-related to some pretty hard people. Perhaps even the bully was running away from his family.

Perhaps they do string him up… and then once in town, they take it over. Our cowboy escapes. Cause and effect. Cause and effect.

I wonder if it would be worth considering this as a mafia story in the Wild West ? a sort of Godfather meets High Noon? That way you could have the ?family? an outlaw gang running a protection racket on the town and the cowboy being driven to react for some reason. They would then come to town to flush out the killer of their goon, killing people until he shows himself?

Good idea. But I want to go by the KISS rule – keep it simple, keep it stupid. Certainly – it should be contained to 24 hrs.

E.g. A mild-mannered cowboy must rally his tyrannised town into defending themselves after a protection racket goon is accidentally killed during his weekly collection.

I like the irony of a mild-mannered cowboy being the one to have to rally defences. My example doesn?t give you the stakes though?

Nice logline. Very specific. But there’s a lot more to digest there.

Thanks for your input.