6. the body in the backyard
28 March 2025
Alison Rocket Ross
What kind of nonsense is Aaron (35) going to get into?
We’ve got a solid character and a half-assed opening scene (we’re going with ANTS). Now it’s time to think about what this story is going to be about.
Finding the right story takes time. Instead of waiting quietly for my brain to do all the work, I’m going to walk you through some exercises that make it easier for the right plot to make itself known.
Note: If you’re lost, go back and read through the Real Time Character Build pieces to get familiar with Aaron. We’re building off of that.
First and foremost, you guessed it…
Twelve Potential Inciting Incidents
Finds a dead body while landscaping a neighborhood lawn.
One of his parents gets sick.
Trivia night gets cancelled indefinitely.
He sees a pretty girl at Trivia night.
One of his friends goes missing.
He finds out someone on his landscaping crew is stealing from the houses.
He joins a dating app.
He has to leave his apartment for a little while so it can be fumigated.
He’s diagnosed with a severe illness.
There’s a fugitive on the loose in the city!
A cold front knocks out the power in the city.
He walks into a bar and there’s a horse.
These don’t do us much good, as you can see. There are a couple ideas we could develop, but for right now we’re missing some key ingredients. We don’t want a plot driven story, we want to see a piece of Aaron’s life. Something personal. Relatable. Specific. I did the dozens exercise here to show you that it’s not as simple as coming up with random things to have happen. Let’s delve deeper.
Aaron’s Internal Fears and Wants
As much as I would like to make a list of twelve fears and wants, this too is in vain. This is where write what you know comes into play. We’re going to have to get a little personal here and figure out what we, as the writers, need to say.
My Personal Fears and Wants
I fear I’ll never have a family of my own.
I fear I’ll never be accepted for who I am.
I fear I’ll never truly know who I am.
I fear I’ll turn into everything I’ve been trying not to be.
I fear I’m trying too hard.
I fear I’m not doing enough.
I fear I’ve already missed my opportunities.
I fear the world will never make sense to me.
I fear my writing will never be good enough.
I fear I’ll never get to make my movie.
I fear that even if I do make my movie, no one will like it.
I fear I’m a joke. A hack. A wannabe.
Oof. That sucked. That really sucked. And it sucks even more that you are all here to read that. But I promised you my process, so I owed it to you to be honest. Ok, let’s get on with it before I die of embarrassment.
As you can see, Fears and Wants are the same thing. I fear never having a family of my own is also I want a family of my own. We can use them as we see fit to build our story.
Melding with Aaron
Of my list of fears, the ones I see fitting with Aaron are I fear never truly knowing who I am and I fear I’ll never be accepted for who I am. His loneliness also suggest he would like a family of his own someday, but that one’s a bit more latent.
Taking this and running with it, I think Aaron’s emotional arch is going to be him learning who he is and learning to accept himself for it. Perfect. Ok. How do we get him there?
External Story
Looking back on our list of inciting incidents, I’m naturally drawn to him finding a body while landscaping. It seems a bit big for right now, but I’d like to explore it anyway.
Note: This isn’t something where we pick one thing and stick with it no matter what. We’re going to try out a couple different scenarios and see which one has wheels.
So Aaron goes to work. It’s a normal day. He’s digging to plant some cool tree he’s super excited about and that’s when he sees it. A skull. Deep in the dirt. He’s got a few choices here. He could report it right away, get the police involved (boring) or he could ignore it and plant the tree. Pretend he didn’t see anything.
That, I like. It’s a bold decision that shows the lengths he’s willing to go to avoid trouble. He doesn’t want any upsets. He doesn’t want to sit at the police station answering questions all night, no. It’s trivia night. He lives for trivia night.
Perfect. Love it. So what happens next?
He goes to trivia night but can’t get the skull out of his head. He’s distracted. Misses some easy questions. All he can think about is the body in the back yard. So much so that now he is driven to act.
Does he knock on the door and ask the homeowners about it? Too risky. Does he go back in the dead of night and dig up the tree? Also feels too risky. So what can this guy do to relieve himself of this burning question?
This story line will lead Aaron to force himself out of his comfort zone. In order to feel right again, he’ll have to shake things up. Do things he’s never done before and ask for help. Through that process, he can learn who he is. It’s a dangerous situation with unknown consequences.
Let me think on that for a while.
Next time, I’ll either have answers or we’ll try something else. Or maybe both.
-Rocket