Major Project: Reflection on Feedback

After my tutorial today, there are a few areas that I need to improve regarding my story. There are several grey areas in my plot at the moment. These include the following:

• Giving a reason as to why Aidan gets involved in drifting in the first place
• The garage he works in assists in the preparation of drift cars
• Perhaps he is down on his luck and this is why he sets off on his journey?
• There has to be a more definitive reason for John's death. Either his dad did cause it or he didn't
• Have a more cast iron reason for why Aidan goes motor racing in the first place
• Keeps it a secret from his father until he has a serious crash and his father demands to know how and why it happened
• The idea of film footage of John's death is a good idea. Requires more development
• Condense the timeline and set the events over less than a year

Major Project: Character Profiles

Name: Aidan Garrett

Gender: Male

Age:  30

Physical Appearance: 5ft10, fairly broad build, brown hair, brown eyes. 

How does the character feel about his appearance: He is happy with his appearance, does not lack self confidence.

Describe the character’s childhood in terms of:

a)    Relationship to parents – Good relationship with both parents, when he was younger, but his mother cheated on his father when he was 15, so now he no longer sees his mother.

b)   Relationship to siblings – Excellent relationship with his brother John, however John was killed in a banger racing accident when he was 22 and Aidan was 20.

c)    Relationship to other key people from his youth – Covered in relationship with his family.

d)   Lifestyle while growing up – Aidan was a bit of a teen tearaway, was in a lot of trouble in his later years in school, perhaps due to his parents splitting up.

e)    Education – See above.

f)     Childhood activities – Attending motorsport events with his father to watch his brother racing.

g)    Location – In and around Essex, predominantly Arena Essex.

Describe the characters current relationships with:

a)    Parents – No longer sees his mother, has a good relationship with his father but this has it’s ups and downs as the story progresses.

b)   Siblings – Older brother, killed in a motor racing accident.

Describe the character’s romantic life and any relevant background: Ends up dating the daughter of the owner of the garage he works at.

Does the character have children? If not, how does he feel about children? N/A

What is the character’s occupation: Mechanic at a garage located near Arena Essex.

Describe the character’s philosophy of life: He was a teen tearaway when he was younger, now that he is older he has got himself more focused and has a steady job. Despite his brother’s death he still enjoys life as much as he can.

Sum up the main aspects of the character’s personality: Happy go lucky, friendly sort of bloke, he gets on with most people, he is a hard worker and enjoys his job.

What is this character proud of? He is proud of how well his dad coped after his brother’s death, and he is proud of how he has turned his own life around and is now living a steady life.

What is this character ashamed of? He is ashamed of his past and the things he got up to when he was younger, but now believes he has turned a corner.

What is his state of health? He is a healthy man and has no medical issues.

How intelligent is he or she? He is fairly intelligent in his specialist area, which is cars. He has a HNC in Vehicle Maintenance.

Name: Ted Garrett

Gender: Male

Age:  56

Physical Appearance: 6ft, slim build, brown hair, brown eyes. Going bald, moustache.

How does the character feel about his appearance: He is happy with his appearance, but he is a tad self conscious.

Describe the character’s childhood in terms of:

a)    Relationship to parents – Good relationship with parents, brought up in a stable family home.

b)   Relationship to siblings – N/A – only child.

c)    Relationship to other key people from his youth – Covered in relationship with his family.

d)   Lifestyle while growing up – Nice person, always wanted to do well in school, went to college.

e)    Education – See above.

f)     Childhood activities – Attending motorsport events with his friends, dreaming of the day he could participate.

g)    Location – In and around Essex, predominantly Arena Essex.

Describe the characters current relationships with:

a)    Parents –N/A – both dead.

b)   Siblings – N/A

Describe the character’s romantic life and any relevant background: Ted was married until his wife cheated on him, he is now divorced.

Does the character have children? If not, how does he feel about children? Ted had two sons, John and Aidan, however John is no longer around after being killed in a motor racing accident.

What is the character’s occupation: Recovery truck driver. This occupation comes in handy as the truck is used to transport Aidan’s drift car.

Describe the character’s philosophy of life: He has led a fairly simple life, he is happy to just do his job and support his son in any way he can.

Sum up the main aspects of the character’s personality: Happy go lucky, friendly sort of bloke, he gets on with most people, he has passed these qualities on to his son.

What is this character proud of? He is proud of how well his son Aidan has turned out, as he has got himself a steady job and is enjoying it.

What is this character ashamed of? He is ashamed of what he perceives to be his part in his eldest son’s death. However, all is not as it seems, as revealed later on.

What is his state of health? He is a healthy man and has no medical issues.

How intelligent is he or she? He is fairly intelligent in his specialist area, which is motor vehicles. He runs his own car recovery business.

Major Project: Plot revisions

Sweet Oblivion

Aidan is 30. He has a job as a mechanic at a garage in Essex and has done since he left school. However, one of the motorsport events held at Arena Essex grabs his attention a lot more than the others: drifting. The reason Aidan has such a big interest in drifting is that the garage he works in helps in the preparation of cars for the main grass roots drifting teams that are based at Arena Essex.  There is a problem with this though. 10 years ago, when he was just 20 and his brother John was 22, John was killed in a banger racing event when the Ford Granada he was driving suffered a head on collision with a wall at the Arena Essex raceway. Aidan witnessed this accident at the age of 20 and at the time he was so overcome with emotion and grief that he vowed to never take part in any form of motorsport again. Ted (Aidan’s father) has more than John’s death as a reason for not wanting Aidan to go motor racing though. When John was doing banger racing, Ted served as his mechanic, and he is wracked with guilt as he feels that perhaps his workmanship (or lack of) when repairing the brakes on John’s car could have caused his sons premature death. This is the real reason that he does not want his younger son to go motor racing, as he feels that another substandard mechanic could cost Aidan his life.

However, Aidan, like his late brother, has had an interest in motorsport from an early age, and so it was inevitable that one day he would follow in his brothers footsteps. After being away from the track for 10 years, he attends a drift day as a spectator with a couple of his friends and his dad. His dad is very apprehensive about attending as this will be the first motorsport event he has attended since the death of his eldest son a decade ago. The day is not hugely successful, as Aidan is very worried about what could happen to him if he were to become involved in motorsport himself. As well as this, there were people that knew John at the event who were openly making comments about him being a poor driver. This angers Aidan and Ted, as they do not like for one minute people talking about a member of their family like this. Aidan gets very wound up and has to be physically restrained by Ted to stop him leaping of one of the other blokes and giving him a good beating.

From here on in, the family experiences a rollercoaster of events. Aidan is invited to a further drift day by friends of his at the garage, but declines their invitation as he worries what his father will say if he finds out he has attended. On the contrary though, there is a girl that works at the garage with Aidan called Chloe that he likes that is a regular attendee at the drift days. She does her best to convince Aidan to come along, and there is a large part of him that is very tempted to attend, to prove to himself more than anything that he is not scared of his father and he is his own man. He is now faced with a dilemma. Does he attend the drift day in her company to impress her, or does he obey his father and stay away? After being invited to a couple more drift days, Aidan decides enough is enough and he has to make his own decisions without worrying about what anyone else thinks. So, he tells Chloe that he accepts her invitation. Whilst watching the drifting, Aidan realises that he wants to be on the track taking part, not on the sidelines spectating. He tells Chloe this in confidence, as he knows his father will disown him if he tells him his true intentions.

As time goes on, a strange turn of events unfolds, as the seller of the BMW 328i that Aidan wants to buy is the very same bloke that sold his 2.8i Granada to John to go banger racing in. He recognises Aidan, and they chew the fat and discuss how and why Aidan wants to get back into motorsport, but drifting instead of banger racing. Aidan explains that he went to watch the fifth round of King of the Ring at Arena Essex. Obviously now that he has made the decision to get back into motorsport, he has to keep it from his father as he fears his reaction should he find out. Once he has bought the BMW, he decides that before he attends a drifting event, he needs to learn the basics. He could practice on the roads, and decides to do this as it gives him more of a buzz. The preparation of the BMW is fairly straightforward. Strip out the interior to save weight, weld the rear diff so that both wheels turn together constantly, and fit a hydraulic handbrake that will lock up the rear wheels to facilitate a drift.

Once the car is drift ready, Aidan gets round to practicing on the road. Roundabouts are a good starting point for this, as they provide a constant corner in order to keep the car sideways as long as one has the nerve to. However, this proves to be Aidan’s undoing as he over does it on one particular roundabout and ends up spinning out and crashing backwards into a lamp post, writing his car off in the process.

However, despite writing off his first drift car and his dad’s fierce questioning about the cause of the accident. Aidan elects to carry on with drifting, and sets about finding another car, ideally another 3 series BMW. After another couple of months searching, he finds another car that he considers suitable for the role. This time it is a 325i, so slightly less powerful, but still a very capable drift car nonetheless. Despite this crash though, Chloe still has faith in Aidan and he maintains that he is capable of drifting, and simply requires more practice.

However, Ted is not prepared to accept Aidan’s version of events regarding his crash, and starts to wonder if he was really responsible for John’s death, so he goes to the Arena and asks if they have footage of the race when John was killed, as he was stood in the crowd, so he would not have had a clear view of the whole track like the cameras would have done. Upon watching the footage, he is totally shocked when he notices something peculiar. John was travelling a lot faster than the rest of the cars in the race when he had the crash, and it was obvious from the speed he was carrying down the straight that he would not have been able to slow down in time for the corner, so it was his recklessness and exuberant style of driving that caused his accident, and not Ted’s poor workmanship and lack of skills when preparing the car.

As time goes on, Aidan gets to a point where he wants to take drifting seriously and so he attends his first drift day event at Arena Essex. This is a particularly poignant moment for him as this is the very track where his brother was killed. Sitting on the start line in his BMW, he is overcome with emotion but still goes ahead with the event. Once he starts to get into it, he gets a huge thrill out of it, as he has finally found something that he is genuinely good at. When he finishes the first round, he goes to find Chloe, telling her he will practice as much as he can. There is definitely a rebellious side to Aidan being revealed here as well, as he is going against his father to do what he loves. Chloe is still not entirely convinced after his crash, but is still willing to support Aidan in any way she can.

The story moves forwards to a year later, where Aidan is taking part in an event that he and Chloe have helped to organise, a memorial event in memory of his late brother. By now Aidan and Chloe are an item, they started dating when they began to spend an awful lot of time together due to Aidan’s involvement in drifting and also the fact that Chloe was a lot more supportive of Aidan than his father.

The story comes full circle at the end, as Aidan puts his all into the event, and is successful in winning, thus proving to his dad and most of all to himself once and for all that motorsport is a safe and incredibly rewarding sport to take part in. It is when Aidan wins the trophy that he goes to his father and presents it to him, revealing that his father is the true rightful recipient of it as he only ever had his best interests at heart.

Elevator Pitch

Standing in the way of Aidan’s goal to become the ultimate drifter is his dad. He is opposed to motorsport after Aidan’s older brother John was killed in a banger racing accident. Aidan is faced with a dilemma: does he follow his dream and risk his life on the track, or does he follow his dad’s wishes and play it safe?

Addendum

Chloe’s father owns the garage that Aidan works in. Her family are very heavily involved in motorsport, particularly drifting, as the garage is within walking distance of Arena Essex. She keeps trying to convince him to become involved as a drifter in the arena, but at first he is not too sure, however she convinces him to get into it behind his dad’s back. As the story progresses, she takes a liking to him and she makes it clear that she wants to take things to the next level with him, but again he is not so sure.