I've abandoned all other projects to focus on a drama that I've been wanting to write for some time now, and it's very personal to me. I do have an outline, but I'm not sure if what I've included is enough beef to get me to where I need to be.

Here it is, and I think this is the correct place to post this.

ACT I
Newly divorced Ben Jacobson works as a bartender at Sully’s Tavern, a local watering hole that serves mostly the neighborhood people. Ben has a couple of days off when Sully, the owner, tends bar himself. Benjamin Jr., who goes by Junior, is Ben’s 13 year old son that has to be left at home during the nights his dad works. Their relationship isn’t great, as Ben is resentful toward his ex wife, Lauren, because she left him to take care of their son, who he isn’t very close to because he’s always working. It is revealed that she was a drug addict and that is what caused the divorce. Sully and Ben are close, like a father and son relationship, so Ben seeks guidance from him. Sully tells Ben that he is terminally ill, and decides to leave Ben the bar and a large sum of money.

ACT II
Sully dies and Ben uses the money to pay off his house, property taxes on the bar, and to slightly renovate its interior. This gives Ben a chance to bond with Junior, as Ben and Sully did these same things years prior.  Ben doesn’t know how to be a father, but he uses what he’s learned from Sully. With the bar closed for renovation, Ben attends a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and shares his own story of struggle and we learn that he’s been sober since the birth of Junior. He’s welcomed back by the people at the meeting as he hasn’t been there for some time. He shares the story of Lauren and that he’s recently divorced. With the bar reopened, Ben takes Junior to work one weekend where he hangs out in the back office playing video games. The patrons know Junior, so after a short while he’s shown how to make simple drinks by Ben and their relationship grows stronger. One night after work, Lauren leaves a message for Ben, begging for him to call her.  He does, and agrees to meet with her at a local restaurant, without Junior. She explains where she went and what she did, and that she’s been sober for a short while and wants to rebuild her family. He tells her that he’ll think about it and talk to Junior.

ACT III
Hesitant to let Lauren back in his life, Ben talks with Junior as their relationship has grown strong. He treats Junior as somewhat of an adult and appreciates his opinion. During a shift, Lauren walks into the bar wearing long sleeves on a warm day and brings up money numerous times which makes Ben suspicious of her true intentions. When he asks her specific questions regarding where she’s been, who she’s been with, and what she wants, she gets frustrated and snaps at him, throwing insults and causing a scene. He grabs her arm and lifts the sleeve to show track marks not fully healed. He knows now that she only wants the money he’s received. Ben then explains to Junior the situation, and how Lauren can’t be involved in their lives. Junior is ok with that fact.

Steven

Not really sure what the question is?

If it's about the outline process itself, then whether or not this is sufficient is purely your call, it's only for your benefit... personally the only time I outline now is if I'm writing for hire and I need to agree the story in reasonable detail with the Producer.

If you mean, is there enough meat here for a feature... I think it might be a little light, perhaps a B story, maybe someone muscling in on the bar, or a schoolmate bullying Junior? The end above seems a little flat... and downbeat.

My thoughts - but what do I know!

Yea see, I don't want to write a thriller, murder-mystery, or anything of the like. This is character driven piece. Ben is distant from his son, never had to worry about the day to day stuff (school, feeding him) because Lauren always did it.

Now that he's alone with Junior, he's somewhat mean, says the wrong things, etc. Junior is 13, so he's just at the right age to completely understand what's happening, but not old enough to really get involved. He's a bystander in a messed up living situation.

That is until Ben wises up, starts to try, and it progresses with help from Sully (more advice than help). Then Sully passes, leaves things to Ben. So Ben uses this opportunity to take on the father/mentor role as Sully once did for him.

I don't need to have anything going on like child protective services threatening to take Junior away, or an out of town relative popping in to take him. I am open to some type of other "thing" going on but I'm not sure what that is yet. Something may come to me.

This is a story about a father and son. There are very personal pieces to this which I haven't fully shared in the outline. The main being the drug addicted mother. I want to show in a flashback some of the things she's done while taking care of Junior.

So, the mother is an addict and the father is inconsequential?

Your story should be how Junior didn't end up with child services in the first place. He is going to be really resistant to a lot of things coming from his situation with his mom and then going with his dad.

Hmm, what I would do is rearrange some things around. It's more effective to have Ben get the money first and then discover junior is now under his custody turning his life into flux. Maybe, Ben has a lot going for him and a son isn't part of that picture. Why isn't he in his life in the first place?

I do agree that what you have is a more B-plot than anything.  

For outlining character-driven drama, you need to focus on the characters more so than the plot. The characters create the story. So write each of them in and out.

Right down to favorite color and why?

Ben, junior and Lauren all lived together until just before the start of the story. It will be explained through interactions with Ben and others just exactly what happened.

Ben always worked at the bar from afternoon until basically overnight. Lauren handled the day to day stuff with junior. So basically, Ben is a new dad since he now has to be responsible for junior 24 hours a day.

I'll have more meat as I get into it. Planning it out was never my strong suit.

umm, no. It doesn't work that way...I can see what you mean...but the wording is off.

13 years is a long time to just be figuring it out. I can see maybe 3 or 5 even but 13? And still drugs? That's a hard pill to swallow story-wise.

Was she doing drugs the whole time? or? was she recovered and became addicted again? Where did Lauren go? rehab? Did she abandon them? At 13 Junior most likely knows how to care for himself at this point simply out of necessity.

I would prefer just to watch Junior go through the day to day taking care of himself. And maybe having Ben watching from afar.

You're worse than me!
Mister attention-seeker!

The idea sucks, sorry, dude, kill it.

It's an awful story told by an awful storyteller. You might need to read up on how to write a script, baby.

NO ONE CARES!

Stop making posts about your amazing ideas, just post your scripts!

CLASSIC DUMBASS.

Quoted from Female Gaze umm, no. It doesn't work that way...I can see what you mean...but the wording is off. 13 years is a long time to just be figuring it out. I can see maybe 3 or 5 even but 13? And still drugs? That's a hard pill to swallow story-wise. Was she doing drugs the whole time? or? was she recovered and became addicted again? Where did Lauren go? rehab? Did she abandon them? At 13 Junior most likely knows how to care for himself at this point simply out of necessity. I would prefer just to watch Junior go through the day to day taking care of himself. And maybe having Ben watching from afar.

This is the last argumentative post I'll have.

I said this was personal to me, so here it is, and maybe it is just a unique situation but I'm certain I'm not the only one to go through this.

I grew up with my both of my parents (only child) until I was 16. My mom had a problem with prescription drugs since I was about 10 (or maybe younger, I blocked alot of it I guess). My dad was ALWAYS gone at work, from like 5am-6pm he wasn't there. He was in bed by like 9pm each night. Obviously I had a relationship with him but it wasn't very extensive. He never did the day to day stuff like cooking, grocery shopping, clothes shopping, school functions. My mom handled it all.

They divorced because they stopped loving each other, she met a guy, started getting into actual drugs AND prescription drugs. This is what happens in this story, which I'm taking directly out of real life.

My dad was then thrown into being a sole parent, because my mom was completely gone, similar to what's happening here. There was a huge adjustment period. He didn't know how to talk to me, not really anyway, and he didn't know anything about handling a teenager because he didn't have to do it. Now he has to do it ALL. Plus, he holds all of the resentment toward my mom and has anger, which gets projected on me. There was no abuse or anything, FYI.

The story differs at the bonding. We never did. I got older, joined the Navy at 18 and was gone. I'm 32 now and we still aren't really that close, and my mom is still the same person as she was when I was 16.

In this, Ben gets to know his son that he's never really known as he was growing up. Sure, he was there and had interactions and was attentive, but he doesn't know the first thing about being a sole parent.

I'm telling this story almost as a therapy to myself, and I think I can make it captivating and I hope that at least some other people out there had a similar experience. This is the first story where I'm not struggling to come up with ideas, only the order in which they happen, and when they happen.

I won't start a thread about it, but here are the first 8 pages. I changed the name of the bar and the location that I think I mentioned above somewhere.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_vHHlz3zmHYMXA3bDJ6SFdKQWc

Hey, I get it, same here. Although the drug part wasn't there. My dad worked the oddest hours in the world. Sometimes I wouldn't see him until the weekend. It was crazy and is sill very much the same now (I'm 28) So I can't imagine that your dad just spent zero time with you, that's awful. My dad at least took me on misadventures (once we hitched on a 16 wheeler back home)

Your real life story is more interesting than what you have here. No one can tell you how to make this work bc it's personal. There is nothing wrong with being RAW about all this. Put in what you feel comfortable with and embellish here and there. It will work.

I say focus on BEN in this...he's your story.

Good luck!

The story will be about Ben, and how he learns to be a father since not really having one of his own and not taking part in his own kid's life.

I've never written an outline before, so I don't know if I should include a piece of backstory there. I thought they were just a tool to explain how the three acts play out...not so much a description of the characters.

The overall conflict is Ben not knowing how to deal with being a father.

The secondary conflicts are that Ben is given a sum of money, that alleviates certain aspects of his life. Another conflict is his wife trying to come back into their lives after being gone for however long the time span is of this story (haven't figured that out yet).

Lastly, we'll learn through the story why they divorced in the first place, which will show Lauren's old drug habits and eventual relapse once they divorced.

When I said Ben attends NA meetings, that doesn't mean he's still using. Most people that get sober still have something to do with that community whether it be sponsoring others or attending the meetings themselves. He's depressed, maybe some urges come back and he doesn't want to fall into that trap.

I know they conflicts, and how I want it to end, it's the execution I'm concerned about.

I meant JUNIOR actually.  Not BEN. Since (essentially) you are Junior write from his POV. It could be highly evocative and beautiful all at the same time. Nothing wrong with having a young protag.

All this sounds fine. Just get to work is my only advice. You're going to need to dig deep into the characters to make this work and really drive home the narrative.

Sorry but no hand holding. You can do it, man!

I'm early enough where I could change the POV, or even restart. Read what I linked a few posts up, it sets the tone between Ben and Junior.

I will when I get a chance OK.

I'm with Anthony here. Not sure what you're asking. I mean there are tons of online resources that describe how to outline. Google is your friend.

I found the story you described as boring. I would not see the film based on the narrative provided. However, if it is for some personal journey - that the heck - write it or write regardless.

Quoted Text The overall conflict is Ben not knowing how to deal with being a father.

Not really a conflict, IMO and extremely common. In my view, the conflict would be Ben desires to be a good attentive father but cannot because of X,Y or Z.  If he doesn't desire - then everything else is moot.

Quoted Text The secondary conflicts are that Ben is given a sum of money, that alleviates certain aspects of his life.

Not a conflict unless Ben's desire was to be poor. Now - it may be Ben wants to be a shitty father cause he hates hanging around kids and the fact that he has to work so much gives him that excuse - and wala - falls into a fortune and now no more excuse.

Quoted Text Another conflict is his wife trying to come back into their lives after being gone for however long the time span is of this story (haven't figured that out yet).

Not a conflict unless Ben doesn't want to have anything to do with her and there is some barrier that keeps him from doing that.

I feel Steven is our special lil pony with a horn on his head. And we will just have to get used to that.

It's cathartic to him.

Let him be.

Quoted from Female Gaze I feel Steven is our special lil pony with a horn on his head. And we will just have to get used to that. It's cathartic to him. Let him be.

Totally lost.

He does this a lot.

Quoted from Female Gaze I feel Steven is our special lil pony with a horn on his head. And we will just have to get used to that. It's cathartic to him. Let him be.

Can you please explain this? I'm not going to pretend like I'm the best writer on this site, because I know damn well I'm not even close. This place is a resource and a place for people to share. So I work on multiple things at once, so what?


Maybe I'm using conflict in the incorrect way. The only conflict is that he wants to be a good father, but doesn't know how. Certain things happen that helps him along the way until his ex shows up and he has to deal with that.

It opens with Ben and Junior not knowing how to deal with each other, and ends with them knowing that they don't need Lauren in the picture because she's toxic for a number of reasons which will be covered.

Yea, maybe it's a well-known type of story, but if the execution is good, then it should be a good screenplay.

Quoted from Female Gaze He does this a lot.

Still lost with the "let it be" - but done. Cheers

Oh, goodness.

I'm defending you.

You have a tendency to post half-assed works and then want everyone to help drag the bits and pieces out of your script for you. We can't. You're the writer here. And I know you aren't doing it intentionally and frankly, no one is going to stop you from doing so, but at some point, people aren't going to be so inclined to help you either.

What I'm saying is give and take will be your friend on here. Write until you can't anymore and THEN post. Maybe, don't post every time an idea or new moment pops up in your script all the time. I said this to you before and so did a few other people.

"Defending" me or not, I'm not breaking any rules by talking about what I'm doing. Maybe I should keep a journal, or you should stop reading my posts.

So, let me get this straight? You're actually upset with me for defending you but Stevendiablo called you a stupid dumbass, attention seeker, and that's cool?

Warren told you the same exact thing only not so nicely...and eldave just called your work boring?

But I'm the bitch here? OK.

I at least helped you as best I could but by all means keep a journal....which doooooooooh? you're suppose to be doing anyway.

I'm out.

READ SOMEONE ELSES SCRIPTS AND COMMENT ON THEM. HOLY F@#KING SHIT, COULD YOU BE ANY MORE SELF OBSORBED.

Might as well pay someone to write your scripts for you.

Quoted from Female Gaze So, let me get this straight? You're actually upset with me for defending you but Stevendiablo called you a stupid dumbass, attention seeker, and that's cool? Warren told you the same exact thing only not so nicely...and eldave just called your work boring? But I'm the bitch here? OK. I at least helped you as best I could but by all means keep a journal....which doooooooooh? you're suppose to be doing anyway. I'm out.

Ashlie

No you are not. This has spun out of control.

Everyone else,  

It is OWC week. General custom is to focus on the OWC.

So, I think whatever benefit of this question has been derive and I'm locking and will delete the thread.

Don