Synopsis:
Ben and Demi match each other on Tinder and get talking. Neither are really looking for a date but they click online so decide to meet at a restaurant.
Ben arrives at the restaurant first. The reservation is under his name and he chose the restaurant based on its reviews on Zomato. He didn’t bother to actually look at the menu. He is seated and waits about 10 minutes for Demi to show up. Her lateness annoys him slightly.
When Ben and Demi first see each other, they are both taken aback. Ben clears his throat and tells Demi she looks lovely. Demi thanks him but offers no compliment in return. They sit and look at the menu. Demi is shocked that Ben would take a Tinder date somewhere so expensive. Ben is shocked the online reviews didn’t mention the price.
The two talk idly about jobs and family and home; things they have already covered online. Ben is talking about his last audition when Demi interrupts him to ask whether his headshots look anything like him at all, or if they are the same misleading ones from his Tinder profile. Ben replies that he has to use misleading photos otherwise people would never swipe right because he looks ‘too Asian’. He then asks about Demi’s photos.
Demi is offended but tries to explain that she doesn’t photograph well and hence only takes one decent photo a year. The five on her Tinder profile range from the ages of 18-23.
The rest of the night Ben makes stupid jokes like ‘I hope the gnocchi looks like it is described as on the menu’, winking at Demi each time. Demi laughs graciously and tries to flirt, terrified that her debit card will be rejected if she has to pay.
Ben offers to pay and Demi half-heartedly tries to argue. Ben walks Demi back to her car and leans in. She turns her head and he kisses her cheek. He says that they should go out again soon and Demi replies that she’s really busy but she’ll see. Ben returns to his own car. Both immediately get out their phones and block the other on Tinder.
Having thought about the characters I was writing before I began writing really helped to form the story. Being able to think about what a character would say in a certain situation, based on what I had already established about them, was very helpful.
I also found that breaking the exercise down helped me to have more focused ideas. Usually when I am writing, I have an idea and I launch straight into writing a story, with little planning and thought. Usually these stories are abandoned pretty quickly. Planning helped me to iron out my ideas and get them down more succinctly.
Once I had my characters, it was easy enough to place them into the scenario. Maybe if I had chose a harder scenario it might have been different, but it was simple to place my characters into the situation and know what would happen.
The small table, dimly lit restaurant scene is the cliche date setting. At first this made me want to stay away from it, as it seemed to easy to write something completely unoriginal. Then my phone buzzed and I thought that Tinder would be a great way to change up the scene. Tinder is a comedy gold-mine, so my mind went straight there. Having the comedy genre in mind helped me to form the scene without getting caught up in the cliche.
I think this type of exercise would be a good path into screenwriting. As I wrote my synopsis I was thinking of all the dialogue that would be happening. Having written a basic synopsis, inserting dialogue would be made so much easier as you know how the story progresses.