8. Paranoia, Panic, Accusations: Story Build

31 March 2025

Alison Rocket Ross

Paranoia, panic, and accusations lead to civil unrest in a formerly quiet neighborhood after a landscaper digs up a skull in a neighbor’s lawn.

Theme: Lack of trust and community can cause chaos. (We’ll work on this)

That works great with Aaron (35) Landscaper’s personal story.

So how do we make this idea into a proper story?

Opening Scene:

INT. AARON’S APARTMENT — DAY

Everything here is white and silver. Clean and bleached. A handheld vacuum SUCKS up the last grains of sands on the indoor welcome mat before it moves to a line of ants filtering in through the cracks. AARON (35) struggles with the vacuum as the ants appear to duplicate. In a huff, he grabs a roll of paper towels and squashes them a few at a time. Die, die, die. He fights the invaders with his bare hands, the tiny black guts of the enemy on the tips of his fingers.

Great. We’ll still expand on this scene and move it into a full first act. But before we do that, we need to figure out how this is going to end.

The Ending:

We’re talking full scale community meltdown through the eyes of Aaron. That’s a lot to think about, a lot of moving parts. And it also comes down to taste.

I’ve been poked at a bit by friends and readers because I never write a “happy” ending. I’m more interested in how things can go bad and stay bad. That doesn’t mean the characters don’t grow and learn, I write more for consequences. I’m not in the business of fairy tales.

So this story could go a couple different ways. Aaron could realize the damage his disconnection with his peers and community can cause, but find out too late. Or, his distrust could be reaffirmed by the chaos and we could leave him even more bitter than before.

He could also die, but I’d rather not do that (again).

I don’t have the answers yet. That’s what we’re doing now.

Exploration of Story

Since we have elements of a murder mystery, we will need to know who was buried in the backyard and the murderer. With a motive. In my quest to simplify this plot and not go totally “Twin Peaks” with it, let’s use a classic for now.

The body belongs to the homeowner’s daughter’s boyfriend. Let’s say twenty years ago, the daughter was dating this guy who was abusing her. Her mother and father found out and in some very unfortunate circumstances, they ended up killing the boyfriend. The entire family then set out to cover it up.

They buried his body — let’s give him a name… Bruce. (We can change that later). So Bruce met his fate in the house. The family then took up gardening and very carefully buried the body where they thought no one would ever look. Where they had complete control over who got to do landscaping work.

Sure, but… if they were so careful about it, how did Aaron end up digging in the exact spot? Why would they allow his landscaping crew to hack and dig in the site of their greatest secret?

Great question. Perhaps the parents, now well into their seventies, are struggling with memory. Or were recently put into an assisted living facility, leaving the innocent son to sell their house. The daughter is long gone. Grew up, started a family of her own somewhere far away.

Fuck. I just had a thought. The ground here in Austin is pretty tough to dig into. That’s why we don’t have basements down here… Let’s keep going. I’ll do some research and see what I can come up with.

Right. Where were we? So the son is preparing the house to be sold. Due to their age and their fear of someone finding the body, the homeowners let their lawn go to waste. They’d have neighborhood kids mow the lawn for a while, but as far as foliage… not much to look at. The son got a tip that houses with good landscaping sell better. So he hired Aaron’s crew.

Do we like this?

It’s simple. Makes sense. We have motive and execution. We won’t be able to get much out of the parents, but the daughter knows what happens. So if she is called back to town for say… a murder investigation, we can get the full truth out of her.

Ok, great. What do we have so far?

Act One

Opening Scene:

Aaron is frustrated by all the ants he has in his apartment (this is for character development and symbolism).

Inciting Incident:

On a landscaping job, Aaron tries to plant a tree but ends up digging up a human skull.

Key Incident:

Instead of reporting the findings to the police, Aaron plants the tree and tries to forget about the body.

That’ll get us about 15 pages.

You’ll notice that I have yet to weave in the murder story. Here’s the thing… we may not even use it in the script. This story is about Aaron, so as the story develops, we’ll see if we even need to throw the answers in there. This is not a murder mystery.

I develop as many things as I can before I properly write just to inform myself on these characters and keep every piece copacetic. The audience may not need to know who’s body it is, but I do. Especially when it’s back story.

We also don’t want the backstory to cloud too much of Aaron’s journey. This story needs to happen because of choices Aaron is making. So really… our next step is to build the other characters around him. Some that may sway him, encourage/discourage him.

So next time we’ll build a complementary character. A sidekick or a voice of reason. Maybe even a love interest. We’ll have to see what comes out.

The Ending

Back to the initial goal of finding a good ending. A destination to drive to. At this point, I haven’t the slightest clue where we’re going. I hesitate to even try. I feel like I don’t have enough information, but here are some initial ideas.

Aaron discovers the truth about the body, but keeps it to himself in fear for his life. Perhaps the daughter threatens him or something.

Perhaps the community knew about the murder and the motive and have that family’s back. They turn on Aaron as he tries to reopen the cold case. (I kind of like that… community justice).

Aaron is bought off by the daughter. She bribes him into letting it go. He accepts the money and agrees to keep quiet, but only if she tells him the whole truth. (Lots of potential here). This ending would also allow Aaron to go back to his “normal” life. He is changed, definitely, but he doesn’t have to give up who he is. (And we could have a badass monologue at the end. I always like those.)

Other Thoughts

Aaron can’t be framed for the murder since he was 15 and lived elsewhere at the time. But it could be a fun little dramatic element before they age the body.

I like the idea of not getting the cops involved at all. Cops won’t help this story at the rate we’re going. And they wouldn’t stop until they found the answers, which I’m not sure I want to give.

I’d like to see Aaron lose his job. Raise the stakes. Also make it easier for him to accept the bribe later on.

Alright… we’ve got a lot to process here.

Next time, we’re going back into character sheets. We need our complementary character, the neighbor’s daughter, and the neighbor’s son, and at least one member of Aaron’s landscaping crew.

This is getting fun.

-Rocket