Lesson 5

[Paul Hallasy]

ASSIGNMENT_Lesson 5
Subject line: Paul Hallasy’s Synopsis Hooks
The key to your success is to select HOOKS to tell your story through.
1. Take your list of 10 COM and 10 MIT for your story.
1. 80 for Brady, but younger and with music
2. 80 for Brady meets Wayne’s World
2. A. What is most unique about your villain and hero? My hero is a gay, 62-year-old stand-up comedian. My villain is a 62-year-old homophobe who lives in the same building as my hero and has been harassing him for 37 years!
3. B. Major hook of your opening scene? Paul loses his temp job shortly after buying tickets to the Cruel World festival.
4. C. Any turning points? After finally making it to the Cruel World festival (and getting a job), Paul leaves New York in the middle of his stand-up set and flies to Los Angeles.
5. D. Emotional dilemma? Will Paul make it to the concert in spite of losing his job and landing in the hospital, New York vs. LA, trying to find a job when the job-hunting process is riddled with bullshit
6. E. Major twists? See C
7. F. Reversals? See C
8. G. Character betrayals? Ivan sort of “betrays” Paul by saying he can’t help him any more with his job search.
9. H. Or any big surprises? See C. Also, Iggy Pop turns up in several scenes, Paul plays with The Cure onstage at Madison Square Garden, Paul imagines living in a scene from the movie “10,” only Bo Derek and the women at a party in the movie are replaced by men, Paul imagines ordering a helicopter to LA from the roof of the building where he’s interviewing for a job. (These are dream sequences.)

2. Select 6 – 10 hooks that could give an overview of your story.
Paul’s goal is to see every band that came out in the ‘80s before they die. Shortly after buying tickets to the Cruel World festival (an ‘80s music festival), Paul loses his temp job. Paul embarks on a job hunt, even though the job-hunting process is riddled with bullshit and his best friend Ivan says he can no longer help him. At the same time, Paul is harassed by his homophonic neighbor (who has been harassing him for 37 years). The stress of losing his job, combined with being harassed by his neighbor, and also having an important comedy show coming up, winds up giving Paul a throat abscess, for which he has to be hospitalized. Hanging over his head this whole time is the question of whether or not he will make it to the Cruel World festival.
Two weeks after being released from the hospital, Paul attends the Cruel World festival, but he’s still unemployed. He finally lands a job and returns to the comedy stage, but realizes that the stress of living in New York doesn’t compare to the Hollywood vision he’s been given of Los Angeles, so he leaves New York in the middle of his stand-up set and flies to LA.
3. Organize those hooks into a sequence that makes sense for the story.
4. Using those hooks as an outline, write a first draft of your synopsis.
5. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.
6. Include your list of hooks and your first draft. Post those in the forums.

[Carly-Ann Giene]

Carly's Synopsis Hooks

What I learned doing this assignment is that using hooks between exposition reengages the reader and elevates the story. I found the most interesting things about the script really helped decide what to highlight in the synopsis.

Title: Dredge

Written by Brett Wheat and Carly W. Giene

Genre: Psychological Thriller / Horror

We open with a typical day for Aaron, cleaning up blood in a crime scene. Another day another dollar.

Aaron a charismatic ex-con is rebuilding his life after the death of his son. Lilith his beautiful and intelligent wife with unrealized potential repressed to the point of breaking agrees to go on this job cleaning out a dead hoarder’s house in Detroit.

What was supposed to be a simple cleaning job turns into a couple’s worst nightmare.

After spending a full day in decades old filth cleaning out the house the next day all of the trash they cleared out is back exactly where they left it. Turns out the house they are cleaning is actually an infernal prison.

Our outspoken female hero becomes our villain via demonic possession.
While possessed the demon exposes Lilith’s horrific truth. It was her that killed their son and hid it from Aaron and the world.

Should Aaron forgive his wife and save her from this demon or murder her and escape with his life and rebuild? Some things —are unforgivable.

In a moment of humanity Lilith releases Aaron from the confines of the cursed house. Just as he is about to escape in the eleventh hour he is mislabeled as the villain and brutally killed.

Lilith is finally free, but in demon form. Ready to unleash on the world. Sometimes our demons win.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 4 weeks ago by  Carly-Ann Giene.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 4 weeks ago by  Carly-Ann Giene.

[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent’s Synopsis Hooks
What I learned doing this assignment is to be succinct in getting over the main points without giving in to the temptation to tell the whole story.

The Hooks:
Alice is a princess who believes that her royal duty is to the poorest of her realm.

Alice stares down her Gestapo son-in-law to protect the Jewish family hiding in her home.

After dedicating his life to serving his country in the military, Andrea is scapegoated for a military disaster and about to be executed when Alice appeals to her cousin, the British king, to help the family escape.

Andrea betrays the wife who saved his life.

When Alice has a mental breakdown, her mother and husband conspire to have her kidnapped and locked up in a mental hospital to avoid embarrassing the royal family.

After several years in self-imposed exile, Alice renews contact with her family when five relatives, including her daughter, are killed in an air crash.

Rather than remaining with her family in England or Germany, Alice returns to Greece to fulfil her duty as a Greek princess.

Phillip, Alice’s son, scorned by the royal family for his homeless status, nomadic lifestyle, and hand-me-down clothes, marries the future queen of England.

The Synopsis:
Audiences are fascinated by the British royal family. But what do royals mean when they talk about duty? Princess Alice, King Charles’s grandmother, believes her royal duty is to the poorest of her realm. She marries Prince Andrea of Greece and throws herself into serving the destitute of Greece.

When Andrea is scapegoated for a military disaster and about to be executed, Alice appeals to her cousin, the British king, to help the family escape.

Andrea’s affairs during the years in exile take a toll on Alice’s mental health, but Andrea betrays the wife who saved his life, conspiring with her mother to have her locked up in a Swiss sanatorium to prevent embarrassment to the royal establishment.

After three years she escapes and turns her back on her family, renewing contact only when her daughter and grandchildren are killed in an air crash. Alice returns to Greece and finds herself in conflict with the Nazi occupation. She chooses to risk her own life to hide a Jewish family in her home, staring down her Gestapo son-in-law when he visits Athens.

After the war, Alice’s son Phillip, taken from her at the age of eight and scorned by the royal family for his homeless status, nomadic lifestyle, and hand-me-down clothes, marries the future queen of England.

[Adite Banerjie]

Adite's Synopsis Hooks

What I learned: Stick to the hooks to write the synopsis of your story.

Synopsis:

Sleep deprived Devyani is going through post-partum depression and desperately needs a break. She seems to catch it when her fresh-off-training forest ranger husband Jeet is posted to picture-perfect Simlipur.

But they are in for a shock. The house that has been allotted to them is old and decrepit. Even before they can settle in, a creepy old woman warns her to clear out before the night of the new moon or face the wrath of the Yogini on whose sacred grounds the house is built.

Carcasses of dead animals, blood smeared Tantrik symbols in the sink hole and an old woman who shape shifts into a boar cause even more mental stress for Devyani. In the throes of a nightmare she almost throttles her own baby who is saved by Jeet.

Is this another manifestation of the Yogini’s wrath? Or can she tap into her long forgotten Tantric skills which she learned from her Tantric priestess mother who was falsely accused of having sacrificed and drunk the blood of a human child for one of her rituals.
Meanwhile, Jeet is thrown into the deep end when he finds that his ragtag team of forest officers has neither the skills nor the weapons needed to deal with poachers who are causing mayhem. When one of his tribal informers is found pinned to a tree with his own arrows, the villagers fear the Yogini’s wrath and refuse to help Jeet track down the poachers.

On the rainy night of the New Moon, Jeet faces a dilemma – fetch a doctor for their sick child and leave Devyani and the child unprotected from poachers?

As she prepares for the Yogini to show up, Devyani is caught between two powerful antagonistic forces. On one side are gun-wielding poachers who will kill her baby and on the other, there is a wrathful Yogini who will destroy her and her child. Tantric rituals killed her mother. But what if it’s the only thing that can save her child? There is only one to know for sure – by doing them herself.

This is a supernatural thriller like (comp movie name) filled with high-stakes action, and the unique synergy of mysticism and motherhood.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by  Adite Banerjie.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by  Adite Banerjie.

[Susan Arnout Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Synopsis Hooks for GOD'S PHOTO ALBUM

I’m really happy with this. Literally, pom-poms and cartwheels time. The synopsis, for starters, is exactly 131 words—the precise length of the Zombieland one. Not comparing it to that, but it gives me a clear sense that I’m in the ballpark of how long this needs to be.

It’s also a deeper dive into my story, and will require some thoughtful rewrites which I plan on doing concurrently with my assignments.

This is the MOST jazzed I’ve been about this screenplay in a long, long time, and that is a win, all by itself.

Current synopsis:
A child vanishes into a car, forever lost. Crushing teacher Shelly’s belief in God.
Bad news! At her next school, the entire school’s going under, Shelly will lose 300 kids, not just one. Worse news! Dark takes up real-estate in her Soul.
God yanks an Angel with a gambling addiction back into service. His job? Pull Shelly back before her Dark spreads to others.
He talks Shelly into betting her soul. Get the community to believe in God when she doesn’t. At stake? The community’s belief in Good winning. Versus her own family’s future. With the community’s help, she pulls off miracles.
The glitch? Angel has his gambler’s thumb on the scale.
She must figure out a win when the scale’s rigged.
There’s only one choice—believe even when it’s impossible.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by  Susan Arnout Smith.

[Brian Bull]

BRIAN BULL – Synopsis Hooks

What I learned today is…This is a lot simpler than when you break it down.

ASSIGNMENT

The key to your success is to select HOOKS to tell your story through.

Take your list of 10 COM and 10 MIT for your story.

MOST INTERESTING THINGS

My villain is a catfish that lurks beneath the surface and is never seen until the end when it is revealed he is the size of a station wagon and he engulfs the fisherman in two gulps.

My hero is a fisherman who’s determined to catch and kill the fish that he blames for his brother’s death but ultimately catches more than he bargained for.

The Major Hook of my opening Scene is the location – The Louisiana Bayou at night – with a fisherman loading his boat with fishing equipment, stating why people fish…and finally, he says, “I used to fish for fun…I don’t fish for fun anymore.”

The Turning Point in the story is when John changes the bait to the Rotisserie Chicken he got from the Mukatolou Trading Post – the same chicken he had used 25 years earlier when his brother disappeared in the bayou when John caught the catfish.

John, the fisherman, is emotionally struggling with the loss of his younger brother, Jim, to the point that nothing else matters, but when he is confronted by the imaginary Older Jim he is faced with carrying out vengeance or passing along the traditions of fishing to his son.

The Major Twist in the story is the ending when John, the fisherman, realizes he’s THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY!

The BIG SURPRISE is the ending with the irony that it is JOHN, the fisherman, who got away for 25 years from the catfish.

COMPONENTS OF MARKETABILITY

The location takes place deep in the LOUISIANA BAYOUS. Outside the boat danger is all around, however, inside the boat there is calm and safety; it’s the polarity of the two which creates interest.

This is a script all about fishing, including learning how to fish from dad, fishing with family, fishing jokes, catching worms, the thrill of catching a fish, the solitude if fishing, the obsession of fishing, and more which will appeal to the 50 MILLION FISHERMAN in the US alone.

Mukatolou, the Great Indian chief that fed a village but didn’t teach any of the braves to fish, then disappeared, and the tribe parished.

The relationship of two brother’s that continues even after one disappears.

2. Select 6 – 10 hooks that could give an overview of your story.

This is a script all about fishing, including learning how to fish from dad, fishing with family, fishing jokes, catching worms, the thrill of catching a fish, the solitude if fishing, the obsession of fishing, and more which will appeal to the 50 MILLION FISHERMAN in the US alone.

The BIG SURPRISE is the ending with the irony that it is JOHN, the fisherman, who got away for 25 years from the catfish.

The location takes place deep in the LOUISIANA BAYOUS. Outside the boat danger is all around, however, inside the boat there is calm and safety; it’s the polarity of the two which creates interest.

My villain is a catfish that lurks beneath the surface and is never seen until the end when it is revealed he is the size of a station wagon and he engulfs the fisherman in two gulps.

My hero is a fisherman who’s determined to catch and kill the fish that he blames for his brother’s death but ultimately catches more than he bargained for.

John, the fisherman, is emotionally struggling with the loss of his younger brother, Jim, to the point that nothing else matters, but when he is confronted by the imaginary Older Jim he is faced with carrying out vengeance or passing along the traditions of fishing to his son.

The Major Twist in the story is the ending when John, the fisherman, realizes he’s THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY!

The Turning Point in the story is when John changes the bait to the Rotisserie Chicken he got from the Mukatolou Trading Post – the same chicken he had used 25 years earlier when his brother disappeared in the bayou when John caught the catfish.

The relationship of two brother’s that continues even after one disappears.

3. Organize those hooks into a sequence that makes sense for the story.

The location takes place deep in the LOUISIANA BAYOUS. Outside the boat danger is all around, however, inside the boat there is calm and safety; it’s the polarity of the two which creates interest.

My hero is a fisherman who’s determined to catch and kill the fish that he blames for his brother’s death but ultimately catches more than he bargained for.

John, the fisherman, is emotionally struggling with the loss of his younger brother, Jim, to the point that nothing else matters, but when he is confronted by the imaginary Older Jim he is faced with carrying out vengeance or passing along the traditions of fishing to his son.

The Turning Point in the story is when John changes the bait to the Rotisserie Chicken he got from the Mukatolou Trading Post – the same chicken he had used 25 years earlier when his brother disappeared in the bayou when John caught the catfish.

My villain is a catfish that lurks beneath the surface and is never seen until the end when it is revealed he is the size of a station wagon and he engulfs the fisherman in two gulps.

The BIG SURPRISE is the ending with the irony that it is JOHN, the fisherman, who got away for 25 years from the catfish.

The Major Twist in the story is the ending when John, the fisherman, realizes he’s THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY!

This is a script all about fishing, including learning how to fish from dad, fishing with family, fishing jokes, catching worms, the thrill of catching a fish, the solitude if fishing, the obsession of fishing, and more which will appeal to the 50 MILLION FISHERMAN in the US alone.

4. Using those hooks as an outline, write a first draft of your synopsis.

Deep in the Louisiana bayous, a fisherman’s determined to catch and kill the fish that he blames for his brother’s death but ultimately catches more than he bargained for.

Outside the boat, danger is all around; a catfish lurks beneath the surface, never seen until the end. Inside the boat there is calm and safety.

John, the fisherman, struggles with the loss of his younger brother, Jim, to the point that nothing else matters, and he is confronted by the imaginary Older Jim, now, John’s faced with carrying out vengeance or passing along the traditions of fishing to his son.

John changes the bait to the Rotisserie Chicken he got from Mukatolou’s Trading Post – the same chicken he had used 25 years earlier when his brother, Jim, disappeared in the bayou and the Rotisserie Chicken works again!

Ironically, after 25 years of fishing, John finally realizes when he gets the catfish up to the boat and sees the catfish, whose the size of a station wagon that he’s THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY! just before the catfish he engulfs him in two gulps.

This is a script all about fishing, including learning how to fish from dad, fishing with family, fishing jokes, catching worms, the thrill of catching a fish, the solitude if fishing, the obsession of fishing, and more which will appeal to the 50 MILLION FISHERMAN in the US alone.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Brian Bull.

[Edward Richards]

Edward Richards – Synopsis Hooks

What I learned is that hooks are the bricks and mortar of a synopsis

Synopsis

If the honeymoon period is the best part of relationships, why not just end them when it finishes? All pleasure, no pain. What could possibly go wrong?

Wyatt’s dating woes spark his unique approach. These include an ex who corners him in a supermarket queue. And broadcasts the problems she had with him.

After wriggling out of several relationships, Wyatt, who loves everything French, dates Antoinette – fabulous and French. But when he contrives to break with her, Antoinette pulls out a gun and shoots him. Wth water!

Suddenly, his relationship goes from reverse to fast forward. Only for Antoinette to abruptly ghost him. Too late, he realises he’s fallen in love with her.

Months later, he sees Antoinette on stage. Her real name is Isabel. She’s not French. Their relationship was all an act. She was paid to give Wyatt a taste of his own medicine.

Secretly, however, Isabel fell for Wyatt too. But, because of his track record, she can’t tell him. Until he proves himself.

No easy task. But then the course of true love never did run smooth.