Plot and Narrative

Localized Settings with Communal Areas – A couple of sets that we would like to film our trailer in would be either a pub or a club. A pub is a set and location that is most conventional but we would like to use a club to show the class and the age that the soap is targeted to. All of the characters will be seen within this set and the audience will be able to see their relationships.

Stereotypical, stock characters – The generic characters that we would like to be in out soap opera:

The loveable couple

The Jealous girl (jealous of the couple)

The homosexual boy (with a heart of gold)

The rich boy (none of the riches he has earnt but has got from his parents)

The pregnant teen (knows who the father is but is a surprise for him)
The guy who is constantly drunk and doesn’t even know what day it is.

All of the characters having their own troubles and stories to tell.

Multiple, overlapping, ongoing storylines – A few storylines that we want to use in our soap are:

Who’s the daddy?

Jealous fights!

Drunken nights!

Blossoming relationships.

Too many riches to handle.

Some of these storylines will be in just one episode and others will go into the next episode or more. There will be at least four storylines showing at the same time and there will be major and minor storylines but all will give our target audience something exciting to watch.

Cliff-hanger endings – In order to keep our audience interested in the soap a few episodes every week will have a cliff-hanger, this will be when an ongoing storyline is shown to be getting to the best bit, so when the episode comes to an end the audience will have to wait until the next episode in order to see the result. Not only do cliff-hangers keep the audience interested but it also keeps the soap opera itself fresh and more exciting.

Personal Stories – Some of the storylines that we have mentioned before are very personal to just one or two characters in the soap. For example ‘who’s the daddy?’ this is an extremely personal storyline for the generic conventional character of the pregnant teen. She knows who the father of her baby is but when it comes out that there is a baby on its way there is more than one possible daddy. These men are left to question this possibility whilst the teen goes into labour. Another storyline is ‘too many riches to handle’ our first class rich boy has all the money he could want, straight out of daddy’s bank account. When his dad gives him a rather large lump sum for a present it suddenly becomes too much and goes to his head, addictions to wanting more and lows when he blows it all at once. This becomes a very personal storyline that needs to be treated with care for the characters sake.

Issues-based stories – Crime and violence are issues that soap are becoming more and more interested in for storylines. Storylines that we will use within our soap opera will be built around these issues. ‘Jealous fights’ is both a personal storyline as well as being issue based. The character of the jealous girl becomes too jealous of the loved up couple that a fight is started; this shows a large amount of violence and thought on the jealous girl’s part. This is an issue that happens every day and in every area of the world, and it can be started about anything at all. When something so small becomes a huge problem and in the end takes over causing violence.

 

Short and frequent – Our soap will be shown three or four times a week so the audience doesn’t have to wait that long to see the next part of the storyline or to recap on things that have recently happened in the soap. Each episode will be half an hour long which means that one episode can only show a certain amount of a storyline, the audience then has to watch the next episode in order to see the other parts of it. This relates back to the cliff-hangers and means that the audience’s attention is kept. As the episodes aren’t that long the audience isn’t likely to get bored of watching the same things for a long period of time. This also means that as they are short episode audience members are more likely to want to catch up on them on the internet or repeats of it.

Plot recaps – With the use of the dialogue in each episode it will make it easier for audience members to catch up on things that they have missed. For example if audience members go on holiday and miss a few episodes when they get back there will be dialogue in the next few episodes that will include previous storylines and information from the recent episodes. This means that audiences won’t have to record anything or have to catch up on repeats or on the internet. We will ensure that our soap will be the same as this and that the use of an open narrative remains clear and doesn’t become confusing for the audience.

Lauren Dinnes