The Premise
After a plastic surgeon loses his confidence and boards a cruise ship to get away from it all, it takes an unexpected and unlikely friend to help bring back the spark he needs.
The Logline
Gerald Harrington is a plastic surgeon whose composure is blown when he makes a mistake on one of his patients, causing him to flee from his city on a cruise ship to diminish his guilty conscience. When he finds a troubled and lost jelly fish at sea, he uses all that he knows along with the light bulb in his room to help it out.
I'm intrigued - so tell me, what does the Plastic Surgeon do for the jellyfish?
ReplyDeleteWell the jelly fish is unable to glow like all of the other jelly fish in the sea. So the plastic surgeon performs surgery on it, implanting the light bulb inside of the jelly fish to make it glow, as a good deed.
ReplyDeleteOkay - so questions for you: why is it important that your surgeon is a 'plastic surgeon'? In your story, really he just functions as a surgeon, which seems like a missed opportunity maybe? Plastic surgeons are beloved of rich people, and cruise ships are characterised by luxury and wealthy people, so I wonder if you could be 'using' your character more proactively? I also think there's maybe a logic problem with putting an electrical device into a sea-creature - unless your story universe is super-surreal and cartoony? At the moment, I'd say that you're not using the nuance of your character or the promise of that environment - the cruise ship... what do you think? Have a go at characterising your plastic surgeon - where does his conflict come from?
ReplyDelete@phil Well the idea was that his occupation is important in terms of making him the only person who can help, due to his knowledge and skill in surgery. If he wasn't a plastic surgeon then perhaps he wouldn't be able to be a hero in this situation or react the way that he does. Yes, my idea was meant to be more cartoony and playful so I thought the light bulb could reach further limits and be a bit more magical. His conflict comes from the media, as the mistake he makes becomes very public, putting his name over the news. The conflict also comes from himself, as now he has lost confidence and doubts his own capabilities. The idea of him helping out the jelly fish was really meant to help him, once he realizes who he is and has a bit of a wake up call. With the cruise ship, I used it as a way for the character to flee from his city and an opportunity to turn his back on everything. It would then turn out to be the thing that motivates him again not to give up. That was the basic plan for how things would be and why they would be like that. I think I understand what you mean about the similarities in the themes and characteristics between plastic surgeons and cruise ships, I was just trying to produce an idea that I could fully get across in a 2 minute story. I tried making each of the 3 words have an important role that serve each other well, so that is probably why each part isn't fully used or explored. Is there parts you think I should rethink or further explore before I start developing the story further?
DeleteOkay - so next question: how does the plastic surgeon encounter the sad jellyfish and where does the light-bulb come from? :)
ReplyDelete@phil Well the man is in his room and during a storm/heavy waves the jelly fish either gets thrown by the waves and sticks against his window, the man then opens the window once noticing it. Or the window of his room shatters as the jelly fish flies in during the storm. The light-bulb was going to come from the light-bulb in the same room that they're in, which he just unscrews and uses on the jellyfish. He would maybe switch on a flashlight and rest on the desk in order for him to see during the activity.
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