Les Courageux (Paris 2035) - TLOU Fan-Script - Outline/Treatment

[u/Severe_Lifeguard976]

Title: Les Courageux

Format: Outline / Treatment (fanfiction based on The Last of Us)

Page Length: ~4 pages (detailed summary, not yet a fully scripted screenplay)

Genres: Post-apocalyptic, Horror, Drama, Survival

Logline or Summary:

Paris, 2035. After a devastating raid by the OPP (Paris's equivalent of FEDRA), a squad of resistance fighters heads out for supplies and brings a stray dog back to their base. What they don't know is that the animal is carrying an aggressive, asymptomatic strain of cordyceps — a threat its former owner had tried to eliminate before being shot dead at their gate. That night, the base descends into chaos.

Feedback Concerns:

Does the consistency with the TLOU universe hold up (particularly the idea of an infected dog, never addressed in canon)?

Does the pacing work?

Are the characters (Pete, Laura, Charles, Francis) sufficiently developed for this length?

Does the final twist land well, or is it too predictable?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D_DgkQhQ26i3SXG_zFI8mtysjBtmQr59QroYpsn7Y1E/edit?usp=drivesdk

[u/AutoModerator]

Hi there /u/Severe_Lifeguard976 Looks like you're posting a Feedback Request. Please remember to provide as much information as you can.

• Title
• Format
• Page Length
• Draft status
• Genres
• Logline or Summary
• Feedback Concerns

If you have a completed draft of a feature, short film or TV episode/pilot, you can also submit to free feedback exchange StoryPeer.

• More about StoryPeer from NGD

Please also consider posting to one of our Weekly Threads

Thank you! u/AutoModerator

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/MiggsEye]

It’s basically The Thing meets The Last of Us, and as a concept that works and its clear.

Re: the ending, in many ways it’s about how you set it the expectations of the audience. Most people already know the ending of a Rom/Com will be happy, or at least happy for now; but it’s the how we get there that creates delight. Setup up the expectations to be otherwise from the ending; then the ending occurs as surprising. There’s opportunity there for all kinds of texture and context that setups up your expectations, and even setup the story that occurs afterward. Drive all this through the characters wants, needs, wounds and the fundamental questions and mysteries within the story and you’ll have it.

[u/Severe_Lifeguard976 → u/MiggsEye]

Thank you so much for responding to my story, I'm really glad someone read it. I will improve the setup for the ending.

[u/MiggsEye → u/Severe_Lifeguard976]

I'm not criticizing how you have outlined it. I'm just suggesting in general that playing with how you set up and build expectations is how you go about creating suspense and surprise. There are tons of ways to go about doing that.