So Rick and I went back and forth about what else could be driving Jinx to leave this small town (and I know, I need to come up with a name for the town). We agreed that the accident along, while compelling, wouldn’t be enough of a hook. And so we went looking for other reasons to get him moving in another direction.
What we landed on may or may not be the direction a lot of writers would take, especially when you’re trying to do a movie in the tone of “Juno” or “Little Miss Sunshine” (i.e., a comedy drama, or dramedy). But at the end of the day, I think Rick and I are deft enough at writing that we can still tackle a serious subject but also bring comedic overtones to the whole piece.
We decided that Jinx is going to come out at the party as gay. This will, of course, cause us to change some of our previous outline (and we’ll post an update soon with the entire outline to date). There will also be a senior show involved which we think will allow us to wrap everything up nicely and provide for an emotional impact. But our thinking on this is that being in this small town, Jinx feels like he can’t be who he truly wants to be, and the only way to move beyond that is to move beyond this town.
In our next post, we’ll provide the latest update to the outline (in essence the entire outline to date, as well as new sequences). Let us know if you have any comments or thoughts on whether you agree with this change to Jinx’s character.
Lake Regret Movie 