With the Wild imagination that Chase Jones has, even he is surprised to be teaching ESL to a group of cocky, confident, sexy, funny, and all around goofy set of Immigrants who at all cost must pass the class, or risk being deported from the United States.

Have a look at the “Our formula” page to help with formatting. It’s not far off and most of the components are there but at 47 words it could definitely do with being trimmed down. Ideally it needs to be 35 words or under.

Inciting incident – currently this is the protagonist finding himself teaching ESL (don’t assume everyone knows what ESL is by the way – maybe just say English). We need to understand why this is a big deal, why is he so surprised at it? This also needs to relate very closely to his goal (more on that in a bit).

Protagonist – You need to tell us information about this character that is directly relevant to the story you’re trying to tell. Firstly, scrap his name – it doesn’t tell us anything about him and it’s a waste of two words. Replace this with something informative – a profession, age, etc, as long as it’s related to the story. He’s wildly imaginative… great but how does this have any bearing on what will happen to him. Instead consider his major character flaw – this is what will change over the course of his story – otherwise known as his arc. In my head this would work better if you described him as “xenophobic”. Conflict is story and immediately you’ve thrown a guy who doesn’t like anything foreign with foreigners who can’t even speak the language… makes for entertaining viewing in my book. Dramatic irony is your friend!

Goal – As I mentioned previously, this must relate very heavily to the inciting incident. The I.I. asks a question of the protagonist and the goal is his answer e.g. What do you do when a shark kills a tourist on your beach? You try to kill the shark. Question and answer. As Richiev pointed out, your students have goals – to pass the class – but currently your protagonist doesn’t.

Stakes – It’s not essential to include stakes but we must have some idea why this is important to the protagonist – why can’t he just walk away. If the I.I. includes someone’s life at risk then the stakes are obvious but here it’s a little less apparent. The students risk being deported but what does the teacher risk? What happens if he fails?

When financial instability forces him to teach English to immigrants, an unemployed xenophobe must help a ragtag bunch of foreigners pass the class or risk losing his house and his family.? (31 words)

It’s not perfect by any means but I can see conflict, I can see a goal, I can see stakes, I can see humour, and I can see a nice arc for the protagonist.

I like the premise though and I look forward to seeing how this develops.

Hope this helps.