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When a humble bingo floor clerk discovers ability to predict Powerball lotto winning numbers, she must fight her family’s deadly urge to get rich quick.
Firstly, I think you could easily trim this down by removing some unnecessary words. I'm not sure we need to know that she is a bingo floor clerk unless it is essential to the story. Replace "predict Powerball lotto winning numbers" with simply "predict the lottery". Don't use 5 when 3 will do. TheRead more
Firstly, I think you could easily trim this down by removing some unnecessary words. I’m not sure we need to know that she is a bingo floor clerk unless it is essential to the story. Replace “predict Powerball lotto winning numbers” with simply “predict the lottery”. Don’t use 5 when 3 will do.
The characterisation used often goes some way to suggest the character’s arc through the story. Is this the case? Does she go from humble to proud? If not, perhaps consider another characteristic that gives us more information about this character and why we should be interested in her story.
Why must she fight her family’s urge to get rich quick?? Surely that’s exactly what anyone would do if they discovered this superpower? You’d only need to do it once and the whole family is set for life… so why is she fighting? Why is their urge deadly? Whose life is at stake? I feel like this goal is a little bit vague and overly dramatic. Specifically, can you tell us what’s going on? What are her family actually doing and why?
Currently the goal is simply “to fight her family’s urge…”. Fighting is what she does in order to achieve her goal – I’m not really seeing a goal though. Is it stop her family getting rich? (if so why?) Get rid of the ability? Get rich and run away from her crazy family? She needs a specific visual goal. Without that, a reader has no idea where this story will end up.
Hope this helps.
See lessIs it interesting? For non climbing audience
The best way to ensure that audiences will get on board, as Nir has pointed out, is to make it about the struggle. There are a lot of films that focus on mankind's struggle against unbelievable odds - Everest, 127 Hours, Touching the Void, Cast Away, Life of Pi, etc. etc. Usually, it's not that impoRead more
The best way to ensure that audiences will get on board, as Nir has pointed out, is to make it about the struggle. There are a lot of films that focus on mankind’s struggle against unbelievable odds – Everest, 127 Hours, Touching the Void, Cast Away, Life of Pi, etc. etc. Usually, it’s not that important what the circumstances but the stakes have to be high – it’s about survival. The kid in your story can’t just choose to learn how to ice climb and find it difficult – he can quit at any time. Instead consider putting him in a situation where he has no choice because his life depends on it. A lot of the movies mentioned take experienced people as a means of highlighting the extremes – even the best of the best are struggling. So another option for you is to make him an experienced climber doing something that pushes him to his limit and beyond – maybe the protagonist is the veteran who has to go rescue the inexperienced guy like in Everest? Or he finds himself stuck somewhere like Touching the Void?
The other thing you could consider to help with marketing is include a location that even the average film-watcher has heard of. ?The Eiger, Everest, K2, etc, etc. By giving us a familiar name we immediately know the risks.
The most important thing for this kind of story though, in my opinion, is the stakes. He can’t have the option of turning back and his life has to be on the line. Get busy living or get busy dying!
See lessVERSION A: “Consumed by fear of his impending mortality, a 31-year-old man race against time to break an ancient curse that kills all males in his lineage by age 32.” VERSION B: “A 31-year-old man races against time to break an ancient curse that kills all males in his lineage by age 32.”
Agree with Richiev. For this to work he potentially needs to have only just found out about the curse. This way the inciting incident (discovering the curse) and the goal (breaking the curse) are perfectly in keeping with each other. Who's cursed the family? That's fairly significant in my opinion aRead more
Agree with Richiev. For this to work he potentially needs to have only just found out about the curse. This way the inciting incident (discovering the curse) and the goal (breaking the curse) are perfectly in keeping with each other. Who’s cursed the family? That’s fairly significant in my opinion as that gives us our antagonist. Alternatively, ?maybe the protagonist has been hunting, Indiana Jones style, for the last 12 years and on his 31st birthday makes a discovery that no one else has? We just need the key moment that flips his life upside down.
Is there a characteristic you can give us that gives us more information about this character? What’s his arc?
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