This is an outline of one of my old short story concepts I wrote using this kind of outlining structure. I found it worked very well as it made me have to break thinks down to the important beats whiles leaving a lot of room to write whenever I get down to make it into a script.

Story Structure: Re-Write

Logline: Two high school friends, Terry and Jessica, get into an argument about the ending of a story the two are writing.

 

Medium: Short Story

Act 1

• Our main character, Terry, is writing their collaborative story instead of paying attention to the class lecture.
  • He is writing it so that his original character gets the spot in the end, killing the main antagonist.
• In the hallway of his high school, he gives the finished story to their best friend Jessica.
• Jessica comments on how she doesn’t like how Terry’s character seems to be getting more focus than her own original character.
• The school bell rings and Terry rushes off to his next class, leaving Jessica with the draft.
• (Inciting Incident) While in class, Jessica does her own revisions to Terry’s story, writing it so that the main antagonist is spared in the end, without his permission.

Act 2

• • At the school’s cafeteria, Terry looks at Jessica’s revisions.
  • He voices his dislike of the revisions and how Jessica didn’t ask for permission first.
  • Jessica passive aggressively dismisses Terry’s criticisms, claiming that it’s for the better.
  • Terry makes a comments on how bad guys can’t be spared, while Jessica claims that not every problem can be solved with violence
  • The two continue to make slight verbal jabs at each other’s writing preferences and abilities, which snowballs into a legitimate argument between the two.
  • The two friends, now thoroughly mad at each other, make a bet on who can write better.
  • The two friends leave in a huff, spending the rest of the school day ignoring each other.
  • That night, Terry watches one of his favorite shows, A live action fantasy show called Devon the Dragon Warrior.
  • The episode of said show ends with the main character Devon sparing the show’s main antagonist, leaving Terry utterly baffled.
  • Switching POV, Jessica is also watching her favorite TV show, a Magical Girl anime, to which she sees the main protagonist having to kill that anime main villain.
  • He thinks about Jessica's words earlier that day, looks at his story revision in disgust.
  • Jessica also rereads her own revisions, seeing from Terry’s point of view.

• (Climax) The two separately revise their own revisions.

Act 3

• The next day, Terry meets with Jessica at lunch.
• The two friends hand each other a copy of their new revision, reading them in silence.
• (Resolution) Terry then apologizes for blowing up at Jessica’s rewrites while Jessica apologizes for making the first rewrites without his rewrites.
• The two friends make up and continue to revise their story together.