Hi, this is a new project for me: I am consulting on a screenplay of a rom-com between two disabled teenagers. Here's what we have so far: It’s the first day of senior year at Longmoor High School and Jennifer is SO not looking forward to it. After the car accident that left her a quadriplegic she has to repeat her senior year. She vents and complains to her patient and long-suffering caregiver Marlene about her anxiety about returning to school all through her morning and while Marlene drives her to school in her specialized van. At school she meets with the principal who sets her up with a student volunteer to assist her in going to classes, an earnest but socially awkward misfit named Kady who won’t stop telling Jen what an “inspiration” she is at every turn [and tries to be her advocate but does so in embarrassingly inappropriate ways. In addition, she can’t attend her classes on the second floor of the building so she has to take her class in the special ed room assisted by Roddy, a Star Trek nerd who’s had a crush on her since, like, forever. Jen feels a growing mortification that her social status has declined from “prom queen short list” to “special ed”. In the meantime Jenni spends all her free time Facetiming with her best friends Jessie and Sara and her boyfriend Andy who have all gone on to out-of-state colleges. But it seems to her that her friends are moving forward without her, and Andy wants to give their relationship some “space”. Jen goes to her first meeting with a disability support group at her local independent living center but she doesn’t feel any commonality with them – the director, Evelyn, is 300 pounds and walks with a cane and the rest of them just look like losers – that is, until she meets Kath, a former Ms. Wheelchair California who Jen views as her mentor. There is one cute guy there, Ethan, an idealistic first year college pre-law intern. Unfortunately, they hate each other from the beginning – he thinks she’s a silly, immature airhead who resents him because he doesn’t look disabled despite having brittle-bone disease (which she is, kind of), and she thinks he’s a pedantic jerk who really needs to lighten up (which he is, kind of). Can Jen and Ethan get past their differences and fall in love? (Of course they do.) == That's a basic outline for our plotline so far. the problem is I want to insert a "meet-cute" between Jen and Ethan before they meet again at the ILC. Also, do the characters seem likeable as presented? Does Jen sound too annoying? Any suggestions welcome.
As presented, if I was in the audience I'd be treading on eggshells. There is a lot to process, and I'd feel other concerns before starting to wonder if Jen falls in love. At first sight, this isn't a comedic premise By the time the story reached the latter part of this synopsis, I might also be forming a nagging doubt that it's polemic. I mean that the whole setup is really designed to make me think a certain way about disability. Perhaps to consider the appropriateness of my advocacy? Blech. Their characters are summarized near the end around the disability, which might open the doubt that they are just hooks to bring visible and invisible disability (respectively) into the story, and personify them But tracking back, I ask myself: do I feel in any way educated by the synopsis? Is the romance going to reveal anything about disability, or are the disabilities going to reveal anything about love? Airhead meets Jerk is a story often-told, and can be done without quadriplegia and brittle-bone disease. Modern commissioning though is starting to resemble the gladiator spectacles of Rome's decadent end period - perhaps now there must be something bizarre and extreme for the audience to respond I think characters are likeable if they make choices we identify with, or speak in a voice we find familiar. The synopsis does voice Jennifer - but as a generic teen: SO not looking forward to it. That's easily-fixed in the synopsis but the risk is that the synopsis has picked this up from hundreds of words of dialogue in the screenplay. Teenspeak is a perennial writing challenge - the usual fix is to edit it out destructively and only leave in the teen-isms that are distinctive to the characters, or useful to establish a time period and dialect. But what about choices? I think the synopsis makes Jenni seem very railroaded - she suffers a terrible accident, and then on top of this she has to attend school, where Marlene gives her care and Kady inappropriately advocates her and Roddy has a crush on her and Andy dumps her and Evelyn disgusts her and Kath mentors her and Ethan misunderstands her... and she's mostly passive. And putting the political-correct sensitivity hat on, perhaps that's problematic. Or super problematic :grin: In terms of writing the plot outline I'd suggest to revise and pick out the choices and voices. How people read this text will influence the finished product on-screen. But if there's to be a meet-cute, the rest falls away and the whole priority of the early scenes will be setting up the meet cute and making it plausible. What about... Ethan's strutting along on the sidewalk, and when Jenni notices he gestures for her to moon him - thus becoming the last thing she sees before she flies forward and decapitates the driver. Maybe the driver was looking at him too. The meet cute is definitive to the romance and the story. My example might provide a 'Boxing Helena' (1993) type subtext about love's power to disable us in a single glance I think they are becoming less useful as a device because recent generations have become so ritualized that they transact everything in apps. A meet cute has to work harder than in the 1950s - not only does it have to explain how A approaches B outside of the designated mating grounds, but how they capture consent
It sounds solid. I think if you want to put in a meeting with Ethan beforehand, have him bump into her (accidentally) as she walks into or out of the principle's office. He apologizes, but other people see it and snicker, and think that he's being mean to her on purpose because of her disability. It creates a red-herring about the character, who turns out to actually be a good guy later on. Just a thought.
I really liked that bit. Jen goes to her first meeting with a disability support group at her local independent living center but she doesn’t feel any commonality with them – the director, Evelyn, is 300 pounds and walks with a cane and the rest of them just look like losers – that is, until she meets Kath, a former Ms. Wheelchair California
I feel like an accidental bump into maybe a little too-cliche. I was personally thinking that we could use them meeting each other at place they wouldn't expect, like the movie theatre or at fan convention (something nerdy).
