Okay this is my first time every posting anything on here, so hopefully this is where this goes and you guys can help me. I'm working on a screenplay or tv series (depending how it times out), not that I really have any intention of doing anything with it, but, you know. It's about a stripper and a mechanic who moonlights as a boxer, both from broken homes and dysfuntional families, forming new lives and new relationships as adults. Obviously, they're gonna get together. What I can't figure out is how. I have a few vague ideas, maybe somebody can build off them or something, but I'm stumped. It's been like a week. I can't write another page till I figure this out. so I'm thinking... -there's the obvious, the stripper could take her car in to his garage. but that just seems really bland to me. maybe it's not and i should just go with it. -I definitely do not want him to ask her out at the stripclub or anything but there is a chance that he could see her there and then run into her again somewhere else...but where? -she could see him at a fight, i don't know why she'd go, maybe with another guy? i don't know... I need help, guys, this is killing me.
You won't die. It is your job, and yours alone, to flesh out the story. Trust your instincts. You'll work it out in time. Play with some of the ideas, and see where they take you when you try writing them out. The process is important. Don't cheat yourself out of it.
Your struggle getting your story to "work" is part of the process of writing, as Cogito said. If we figured it out for you we'd all lose, in one way or another. I say write it out. Don't worry if you get pages and pages of pure excrement as long as you figure something out. You can always, and should-- in my opinion, edit and rewrite later.
^^ agreeded... you'll kill yourself if you edit while you write. Try the seat of the pants approach and see where it takes you. Let your charecters tell you how it happends
As the guys say you've got to really work it out yourself. Try to expand your thinking. For example you mention the stripper taking the car to the garage where they obviously meet. Play with the scenario "mechanic fixes car" . . . They could live in the same apartment block, mechanic goes to work, sees her with the bonnet up in the underground car park, which happens to be next to his car, they chat he fixes, she bakes him a cake that night . . . they've met. Expanding on the "mechanic fixes car" scenario you cold have him riding on a bus, she gets on bus, only seat available next to mechanic, they chat, she says she doesn't usually get the bus but her cars broken down. They get off at the same stop and would you believe they live in the same street or apartment.He ends up fixing the car and it's a ride for a ride . . . They've met. In all honesty unless it's intrinsic to the storyline they could meet anywhere, it could be in church, at the pub, out shopping, jogging, the cinema, the gym. The list would be almost endless and whilst seeming mundane they could all be expanded to make them more interesting. Look around you, where do people meet? The answer shouldn't require us to remove your shoelaces
How about a white knight approach. He sees some guy harassing her, maybe they followed her home from the club. He kicks the snot out of them. Gets her digits. Maybe a kiss. Don't know if it makes sense for the mechanic\boxer to do something like that, but just a thought =)
Do you need to begin at the beginning? Maybe you start with their fourth date, and later find out how they met and backtrack to write that. (Though I'm editing to add that I immediately pictured them as living in the same building, and he helped her haul something heavy up the stairs when she moved in.)
