New Synopsis

[Hyperfish]

Here's a synopsis for a new horror comic submission thing I'm gonna try. I've got a little of the scripit down, which I'll submit later, but I wanted your guys take on the synopsis and whether I had enough of a 'hook' for someone to want to take a further look. Horrors not really my genre, but in this industry beggers can't be chosers and I might learn something on the way :p

Anyway C&C most welcome


Series Name:"Second Son"-

In the small town of Wistenthrope, America, William Davenport works as editor-in-chief, reporter, and printer for the local paper 'Wistenthrope Times'. To date the most interesting story William has covered was the 'milk shortage of 87' and at the beginning of the series he is pining for a more exciting life....little does he know that his wish is about to come true in the most horrific way possible.

During the hottest day of the year a stranger comes to town, none knows who she is or where she came from and the only thing she tells the locals is that , '..theres a storms coming'. Desperate for a interesting story William tries to hound her for an interview but despite his best efforts, he never seems to keep up with her. Then the town is rocked by an outbreak of bizarre murders. All victims seem to be drained of blood and crucified. The whole town is terrified and a scramble to leave starts, but strangely a freakishly bad storm appears from nowhere which is making leaving impossible. The local sheriff Danny and William decided to try and figure out what is attacking the town and put an end to it. Question is what is this monster and how can they stop it before everyone is killed? Also, who is this mysterious stranger? And is she friend or foe?

(Just thought I'd add my notes on the above and where I want to take it...)


(Yeah it is gonna be supernatural, and someone mentioned to me that it's a bit cliqued. What I’m going for is a character driven thing, where the reader will care about the characters...but anyone of them might die. I also wanna give the monster and the good side an equal amount of ‘humanising’, so that’s it’s not as clear cut as a ‘good vs evil’ thing. This story has got a religious basis to it so the 'good vs evil' thing should be interesting if told from a non black and white perspective. I’m not expecting good crits because I’m not particularly experienced as a horror writer, but it might be a good experience…..)

[Hyperfish]

...Bit slow on the writers forums today heh?....Please someone, trash my crappy horror concept..VALIDATE ME!!!! :laugh:

[Trey of Diamonds]

After reading your Synopsis the first thing to pop into my mind was Storm of the Century.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0135659/

You will have to be careful to make your pitch not sound like a copy cat of this movie. You may know it isn't but your synopsis has to stand on its own and comunicate to a publisher or studio what you have planned.

Hope this helps.

[chrisjohnwagner]

Hyperfish ...Bit slow on the writers forums today heh?....Please someone, trash my crappy horror concept..VALIDATE ME!!!!


I think the story maybe ok if done right, but I am happy to oblige.


I like how Trey mentions "storm of the century". I think you could have pulled almost any horror film out the air and accused this guy of ripping it off. A mysterious stranger shows up, people die, oh I almost forgot a religous aspect. I don't know if you noticed but character driven is the attempt made by everyone who can't come up with an even slightly original idea. The only thing you got right is horror is not your thing, give it up.

I am just having a little fun with that previous stuff but you did ask. I actually think you could make a real good story here

[Scribe]

It does sound like a fairly warmed over plot, "Killer on the loose and we can't get help because of a storm." Where is that Murder She Wrote woman when you need her? Damned TV Land.

Working in horror is almost always derivative on the plot level, that doesn’t mean that the stories can’t be original and the writing can’t be moving. The Descent is the best horror movie I’ve seen in years, but its premise isn’t all that original. I think what you have to focus on in creating stories like this is making believable, sympathetic characters, a believable plot and a realistic set of circumstances.

The one thing that would go against you with publishers is that the idea has been done before. You are really going to have to find your hook on it and push that forward.

[Hyperfish]

...Yeah it's crap I know thanks for the validation of that :laugh: It started life as a surrealist sort of thing about a supernatural murderer looking back through his long life, and trying to validate murdering and stuff, but I saw this submission and thought I'd try and adapt it. Obviously with my limited knowledge of horror films I made it a bit cliqued ...oh well it was worth a punt :p

[Trey of Diamonds]

...Yeah it's crap

Not crap, just difficult. When you try to do something that has been done a lot it isn't automatically crap, it is just difficult to portray it in an original manner.

Are you up to the challenge?

[chrisjohnwagner]

Hey, I was only kidding about trashing your idea. I mean if people were going to give up on something because the premise had been done before you could do away with most of the post on this forum. The premised done before yeah lots of times done good not so many so just do it great.

[AthenaRose]

There really are no 'original' ideas out there. My second novel has (what I thought at the time were) some unique 'bodyless' characters in it - then I read CS Lewis' 'Out of the Silent Planet' and realised my characters looked like copies of Lewis' Eldila, even though I hadn't read his book before I wrote mine. The difference lies in the setting and the story, and that's maybe where you need to concentrate. What is it about your story that makes it different to any other that has gone before?

And remember, there's nothing wrong with using obvious cliches, either, as long as you do something new with them. A favourite trick of mine is to take a familiar fairy tale and turn it upside down - so, it's the princess who gets to rescue the prince, for example. Take something that your audience will find familiar to the point of boredom, and do something unusual with it. There's a religious angle - is the local clergy-person a woman, perhaps? OK, so it's not that startling, but it is a step away from the expected.

Anyway, keep trying - you never know what you can do until you try it!