27. Reviewing our set up
Reviewing the Set-Up
22 June 2025
Alison Rocket Ross
Let’s Make Sure AARON (35) LANDSCAPER is on track.
Alright, we’ve let this sit long enough. Time to get back to our story.
In this session, I’ll look over our first ten pages or so and make sure our story is aligned with our characters.
Ok, Here we go.
First bit’s a little wordy, but there are some good character elements here.
Aaron clearly has a strong work ethic. He’s so focused on the work he doesn’t see Tank lingering by him.
The more complex, hidden character work is in that first paragraph. The Yellow House. We haven’t met the Yellow House Neighbors yet, but just by those few sentences we can decipher that they were once very affluent, kept everything nice, but have since let the house fall into disarray.
By doing this, we’re hinting at a secret inciting moment somewhere in the back story. Why did they stop caring for their home? What big, traumatic event happened that would cause a proud family to let their home go to waste? And what’s happening now that they’ve hired a crew to fix it up?
We’re setting the stage not just for Aaron, but also for the characters that come into play later.
Alright. A little more about Aaron:
He owns the landscaping company so he has money, yet still does the dirty work. This tells us that he loves his job. Also, the fact that they’re living in an apartment instead of a house would suggest that maybe he’s saving up for something? Squirreling money away? Is that perhaps financial insecurity trauma bubbling up from his past?
He’s an awkward guy, but confident. He handles conflict well for the most part as we saw with Tank. And it seems Brooke is a good match for him. They can communicate clearly and effectively without much drama… yet…
He needs external stimuli to act. It took Tank inquiring about Brooke to push Aaron to propose. Nobody saw the skull so he just hid it. He’s a bit of nervous guy who just wants things to stay the same. He’s not looking to mix up his life.
Ok, excellent. Where do we go from here?
Aaron needing external stimuli to act means we need something to happen. Someone needs to mix things up.
I’m thinking Brooke. I don’t think she’s as happy as Aaron thinks she is. She may try to bolt, causing Aaron to use the skull and the murder mystery as a way to lure her back.
He would rather change the environment than himself. It’s not a pride thing, it’s more about being emotionally stunted. He’s in a good spot in life and change is too scary, especially with financial issues in his past. Any big swings come with the risk of losing it all.
But Brooke leaving… that would be losing it all. So as Aaron is trying to put out fires and maintain his lifestyle, he’s been slowly losing the person he’s been doing all of this for.
So the main point of the story is Aaron trying and failing to keep Brooke around. That’s where everything unravels.
Alright, next time, we’ll adjust our outline and get a few more pages.