The GITS Club Logline Spotlight: “I.O.Lou” — Day 5
The last several days, we have considered a logline that writer Terrance Ellis posted over at The GITS Club. Here it is:
Desperate for cash to save his family home, a slacker sets out to collect on all his childhood IOUs from his now adult debtors.
My bottom line assessment is that while it does have a clever hook to it — guy tries to collect childhood IOUs — I’m not sold on it as a story concept for a spec script.
However I agreed to do some brainstorming re the idea and so I’m going to literally sit down right now — let my mind wander with core conceit in mind. Note: P=Protagonist.
First off, one of the issues raised by GITS readers is how would P’s childhood connections possibly have enough IOU money to be able to pay off P’s current debtors. Let’s say P owes $25K. How could P have forked over $25K worth of loans in the first place during his childhood in order to be able to be repaid that same amount nowadays?
Possible solution: P has decided that his loans should have been accruing interest all these years. So if P gave a Friend #1 $500, at x amount percent interest for x amount of years, that total is now actually $1,729. If P has enough friends, figuring in the interest could possibly add up to $25K.
Another issue is one I raised: Is this a road picture? Does P have to travel from one city to the next to find his childhood friends? That could become episodic.
So is it possible that all of P’s childhood friends still live where P grew up? That could take the story off the road and allow the various P + Friends subplots to be interwoven into a single narrative.
But that’s just problem solving. To do some real brainstorming, let’s see what we can do by stripping everything out but the idea of IOUs. What story ideas can come from that:
* Bob is at a precarious point in his life asked for a small loan — let’s say $100 — from Fred. That money was critical in allowing Bob to survive a key moment in his life. Then his luck changed and Bob started a business that turned him into a multimillionaire. Years pass, then one day who shows up at the office but Fred. Perhaps life hasn’t been so kind to Fred. He’s come back to settle up with Bob on the IOU. Bob reaches into his wallet and pulls out a hundred dollar bill. Hands it to Fred. Fred says, “What about interest?”
Now the problem could be that Bob feels like he’s repaid his debt by giving Fred the $100. But Fred figures that if he hadn’t given Bob the money, Bob would not have survived the critical moment and therefore would never have become the success he’s become. So in Fred’s mind, he figures he owns a part of Bob’s business empire. If Bob doesn’t agree, then you have the basis of a core conflict between the two.
* You could go at it as a comedy, where Fred vows to make Bob’s life miserable until Fred gets what he deserves, and portray one escalating dirty trick after another. Or it could be a thriller. Perhaps make the set-up more mythological. Years ago Bob was completely down on his luck. Begging for money on the streets. Late one rainy night, he’s begging when a Stranger approaches him from the shadows. He gives Bob a dollar in exchange for an IOU, then tells Bob his luck will change. The Stranger slinks off into the darkness.
Bob heads to a liquor store to try to score some booze or cigarettes with his dollar. While there, a pair of guys burst in wielding guns — a robbery. Through an odd set of circumstances, Bob survives the shoot-out, both the robbers and the store owner are dead. And there’s a bag full of cash on the floor. Bob takes it.
One lucky break after another occurs and Bob totally turns his life around, creating a sprawling business empire. Then the Stranger shows up. He wants to settle up on the IOU. Bob pulls out a dollar. The Stranger says, “Not the dollar. Your business.” Bob declines. Then the shit hits the fan in the vein of “The [Blank] From Hell”, i.e., The Loan From Hell.
* Or what about a horror story? A misfit child — let’s call him Rham — is bullied mercilessly by a group of children. One day the bullying goes too far and Rham is killed. The children bury Rham and get away with murder, especially odd in that authorities find the burial site — but no corpse.
Years later, the bullies have grown up and become respectable citizens. Each has an idyllic life — until each gets a cryptic message, a hand-delivered envelope. They open their envelopes only to find a piece of paper with this written on it: “IOU.”
Rham returns to mete out his revenge on each of the people who bullied him, repaying them one by one for their violence against him.
So a few ideas of that core conceit. How about you? What kind of story can you come up with based on the idea of “IOU”?
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