After a childhood of abuse, a young woman decides to write a memoir to help her heal.
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5 reviews
In order to raise stakes and obstacles, I'll tell you where my mind went straight away with this one.
Perhaps the main character is older, and is starting to get dementia. She has carried this burden with her all her life. After years of denial and shame, she finally finds the strength to write this memoir in order to get the abuser persecuted, knowing that the longer she leaves it, the less she will remember.
It only takes one scene to show someone writing a memoir. If you start writing the script with this logline, you'll run out of story 3 pages in. You need a premise that can yield a bunch of unique scenes that are going to be full of conflict. Also, you have to be specific about how exactly the woman responds to her abuse. Is she afraid of being around men? Does she have trust issues in relationships? Does she harm herself? Each one of these would be a unique character and would be the starting point of a unique story. So instead of saying "abuse survivor", if you say "an abuse survivor who has an eating disorder",? it helps the audience grasp the conflict better.
Where is the conflict?
What Ninann22 says.
In times when we have so much choice in terrific, drama-packed movies and television, who would want to watch a movie that is going to show me someone writing their memoir?
I like the idea, but it?s missing the high stakes and goal. In every day life someone would write a memoir, or go to therapy. The high stakes will force the protagonist into action. Ask yourself what happens if she doesn?t write a memoir? What is so terrible that she has no choice?
I hope this helps. Happy writing.