The Calamity High Outline!

So, I got back some nice feedback on the Calamity High idea. One of you said I have a few too many characters, which I will be honest is almost always a valid criticism when it comes to my work. (Read Phantom Janitor, seriously. I have no idea how many characters I introduce and then underuse.)

It’s been a month since I posted the story idea, and in that post, I shared that I had a decent start of an outline in an old notebook. I cannot remember when I wrote this, but it had to be in late high school? And I said that I would share what I had if there was enough interest!

So here is what I got so far! (Keep in mind, this idea is very rough, and HORROR in theme.)

• The story starts with Ryann Shaw being held in an interragation room, with a random police detective talking at her. She’s sitting there in silence, kind of amused by the officer’s actions.
• The door opens, and Ryann’s father (Detective Pierce Shaw,) comes in to kick the other officer out.
• Before Ryann can thank her dad, he tells her that he knows what she’s done.
• She plays dumb, unwilling to admit anything to him. But her facade drops, when her dad calls attention to the earrings she was wearing. Earrings that had previously belonged to her late mother. Pierce had sold most of his wife’s jewelry months ago.
• Ryann didn’t have to say anything. Her father spelled most of it out for her. Ryann had been paying attention to who had bought her mother’s affects and had gone to each house to get them back. She was looking at several charges, for the breaking and entering and petty theft.
• Ryann confronted her bad in a sudden outburst of his callousness to her mother’s death. How dare he sell her mother’s things! And just a year after her passing!
• They get into a fight, leading to Ryann being put into a holding cell.
• Her best friend, Hershel, is also in the holding cell, having aided her in her break-ins. He’s panicking and worried that they could be in serious trouble. Ryann assures him that nothing happened, and that they have nothing to worry about.
• She is aware that Pierce is watching their conversation and is not going to give him the satisfaction of being proven right.
• Unsure of how else to punish Ryann, Pierce goes to his office to start working on paperwork to transfer her to a local juvenile detention center.
• He is interrupted by his partner (both in uniform and unfortunately in romance) Rachel Hoskins. Rachel reminds him about a meeting he had with an ambassador for an interesting juvenile rehabilitation program he was interested in utilizing.
• They go to meet with the spokesperson and co-chair of the school the program takes place in. Her name is Veronica Night.
• Ms. Night, and the program, boast of wild and unbelievable success. She shares stories of program graduates who went from troubled teens to more independent and responsible individuals.
• Pierce, at first, rejects the concept. Telling Veronica that they have no-one to refer to the program. After all, he thinks the program is naive and a bit too good to be true.
• Rachel speaks up and offers both Ryann and Hershel as potential prospects for the project. When Pierce questions her, she confronts him and asks if he is really okay with sending Ryann off to juvie.
• Ms. Night offers to have a talk with Ryann to see if she will be open.
• When Ryann hears the idea, she immediately assumes her dad was responsible for it. But Pierce immediately and rather coldly shuts that down and lets her know that he hopes she doesn’t accept.
• Ryann eagerly accepts the offer.
• After a night in the prison, Ms. Night and Rachel help get Ryann and Hershel ready to be taken to the school’s off-campus head-office.
• Pierce is absent throughout the process, and Ryann feels better off for it.
• Ryann and Hershel meet the other teens in the program. The ones I am choosing to bring the most attention to are:
  • Kendall Maxwell, a young mechanic who loves to take pretty cars out for joyrides despite her license being suspended. She and Ryann seem to hit it off in their time together and I wanted them to be girlfriends.
  • Arden, the smug asshole who bought his way into the program. He is not the type to follow the rules, which will come back to hurt him later.
  • Liam is blind, and a bit reserved. When asked why he is in the program, he doesn’t answer. He’s friendly enough and seems to graviate towards Kendall and Hershel.
  • Stacia is a rich girl, kind of a Elle Woods meets Regina George type. She is also there for reckless driving, and she actually totaled her dad’s car on purpose. Though, she never mentions why.
  • Enzo Monhagen. <.< Don’t judge me. Younger Scribbles loved themself a good self-insert. I am making changes to this character.
• The others I mentioned in the other post will still be there, I just wanted to point these guys out.
• As they’re all getting to know each other, another teen is dragged in by his father, who is yelling full volume with slurs and everything demanding that they fix his son.
• The son, Aitken Hurst, is a sweet southern gay boy who just wants to be away from his father.
• Ms. Night leads Aitken’s father out and assures him that Aitken will come back a new man.
• While Ms. Night is away, Arden starts being super problematic. It’s a way to make people really not like him.
• This causes them to be sent back to their temporary quarters. Ryann spends her time working on a drawing on a new sketchpad Rachel had gotten her as an attempt at a peace offering.
• As she doodles on the paper, she hears some scratching and tapping at the window next to her.
• However, as she lifts her head to glance out the window, a dark shape slams against the window, causing Ryann to fall off the windowsill.
• The others run to her aid as she tries to turn their attention to the window, but there was nothing out there.
• As Ms. Night comes in, Ryann picks herself up and brushes herself off, blaming it on her wild imagination…

This is probably three chapters worth, and I have more outlined. I know that this has a few holes. And the likelihood that this will get written soon is a bit slim unless I can finish the whole outline.

What do we think? Any thoughts? Any advice? Should this idea be cast into the oblivion?

I think this outline sets up a bit of an unsettling ambiance before the more scary stuff happens? And it gives people a chance to get to know the main players (and hate Arden before his… <.< karma.)