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Day 12 Assignments
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4 Replies
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Rachel’s NOT finished Act 1
This is not a finished Act 1, or a finished anything, it’s just more pieces. Still muddling slowly forward.
What I learned:
Still making new discoveries about the characters as they interact, or even what it says about them when they avoid interacting and spend the scene alone.
INT. SARAH’S ROOM
The door bangs open and Sarah stomps in. She looks back angrily, then SLAMS the door shut behind her.
For a minute she stomps about the room in high temper. Gives the bedpost a good kick. Then grabs her toe and hops in pain.
She sighs and stops fuming. But as she cools off, she starts thinking. Which leads to a dangerous look in her eyes.
She sits quickly at her desk.
Soon there comes busy scratching of a pen on paper. She writes fast and hard, jabbing the pen like the paper caused all her problems.
Then she blows on the paper, folds it, and slaps it down – smack in the middle of her desk where it can’t be missed.
She stands up and surveys the room. Deliberately reaches out and tips her chair over sideways. Rumples the bed quilt, then sweeps knickknacks off the windowsill all over the floor.
EXT. HOUSE
Sarah’s window creaks upward.
Sarah glances out to make sure the yard is empty. Then she quietly maneuvers through the gap, and drops softly to the dead-baked earth between the rosebushes.
INT. BARN
With careful stealth, Sarah pulls a saddle off its rack.
Footsteps crunch past the doorway, and she ducks into shadow.
They fade, and she dares to breathe again.
EXT. CORRALS
Keeping low behind the high gate, Sarah saddles a horse.
She hears a faint creak by the house, and looks to see the house door opening. She freezes.
Jean steps onto the porch and starts shaking out a rug.
Out in the pasture, grazing horses mill about. One whinnies. Sarah’s horse looks that way and nickers. Sarah cringes and grabs its nose.
SARAH
Shhhh!
Jean glances that way, but her gaze passes the corral without stopping.
She goes back to her work, then returns into the house.
Sarah yanks the saddle cinch tight, then seizes her chance. She leads the horse out the corral gate and sneaks toward the pasture beyond.
EXT. PASTURE
Sarah keeps walking, leading the horse, willing it to stay quiet.
They cross the open space, fully in sight of the house, one step after another, with ant-like slowness.
Finally they drop down into the brush along the creek. Sarah sighs in relief, then scrambles atop the horse. They take off galloping along the creekbed and soon disappear around the bend.
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Bobby’s Act 1
These are just temporary placeholders for scenes in Act 1 – nothing in stone yet – bit by bit – this will come together – I promise!
What I learned:
Still trying to figure out who my essential characters are around Bobby and their respective roles – this is a learning process to be sure. I learned that there are no wrong answers, simply maybe the wrong words that will lead to the better ones ….INT. JUDY’S BEDROOM
Feminist posters of famous female icons adorn the rooms walls. Judy is quietly reading in her big reading chair next to her bed – when she hears dishes being broken downstairs in the kitchen.THWACK
CRASH
CRUNCH
BOOM
Judy tenses up immediately. Bobby comes running into her room.BOBBY
(fearfully)
“It’s happening again…..”
Judy motions Bobby forward.JUDY
(gives Bobby a small comforting smile)
“Close the door. Lock it – you can stay in here. Just be…very quiet. Okay?”Judy hands Bobby an old Marvel comic. Bobby’s hand automatically reaches for it – hiding out in his sister’s room is something he’s clearly used to.
Bobby lies down on his sister’s rug in front of her. He gently peruses the comic – trying to concentrate – amidst his mother screaming out multiple hail Mary’s as more plates come crashing down from the cupboards.
INT. BOBBY’S BEDROOM
Bobby lies on his bed. He bounces a ball against his sister’s wall. He can now because Judy is gone. Gone – he doesn’t know where.
Bobby misses Judy. He seems very forlorn – and far too melancholic for a 12-year-old. He should be outside playing.
He doesn’t feel like going outside today.
EXT. DRIVEWAY
Bobby watches as his father leaves – in their family’s station wagon – leaving him alone with his mother, just as Judy did.This time Bobby’s father is going on an extended business trip – they are opening new locations in the south and it may take longer than expected.
Bobby bounces his ball. It rolls away from him and out into the street.
Bobby doesn’t retrieve the ball.
INT. BOBBY’S HOUSE
Bobby’s mother Angela is destroying Judy’s room.She screams and shouts about Angela burning in hell for her sins.
She takes all of Judy’s belongings and dumps them in huge cardboard boxes.
EXT. BACKYARD
Bobby’s mother is burning all of Judy’s belongings – clothes, posters, books, etc.Bobby spies a stack of Marvel comics – Judy’s favorites. As his mother throws clothes in the fire, Bobby makes a headlong dive into a cardboard box for the comics. He grabs them – success!
ANGELA
(turns around, seeing him)
“What are you doing? Give those back!!!”Bobby is too quick. He runs back into the house with the comics – intending to hide them.
ANGELA
(still yelling)
“…..you defiant ingrate! I’ll get you!”EXT. WOMEN’S SHELTER – DOWNTOWN
Outside two women smoke cigarettes, a third woman rocks twin toddlers in a broken-down stroller.Judy clutches the scraps of her blouse to her chest. She still has her purse and backpack at least.
Tears have dried down her face – her mascara and eyeliner leaving spiderwebs down her face.
She sighs and trudges forward into the homeless shelter for women. -
OK OK, I resisted the urge to wordsmith already. I’ve learned in the past that the act of posting, or submitting to a contest or editor, for some reason, is a crucial part of the rewrite process. I know I’m going to rewrite this tomorrow right after I post it, but those ideas wouldn’t have come to me if I didn’t have this “milestone marker” for some reason. Am i supposed to put all 30 pages here? I don’t see an option to attach a PDF. I’ll attach a link I guess..
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eufj13rvia7rrah/Trek%20act%201%20-1.pdf?dl=0
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This reply was modified 2 years, 12 months ago by Joe Donato.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 12 months ago by Joe Donato.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 12 months ago by
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WIL COMPLETED ACT 1
I’ve learned three important things in this process:
1. These lessons plowed ahead at a 30-day clip and I’m still on lesson 12, but I’m allowing myself to familiarize myself with the steps here, like choreographing a fight scene, where you go through the motions slowly the first time, then faster the next, then faster. These are important lessons and while I realize no one’s really paying attention, I’m going to keep this up till I reach the end. This is for me.
2. When I find myself bogging down, I’ve learned that it’s so critical to say, “Don’t freak. This is a 20% draft.” And then it shoots forward again.
3. I’m going with a FIVE-act structure on this one. Makes the most sense for me.
[First Act completed at 20% quality. It’s wonky, and doesn’t pack the punch it needs to, but it shall, as I whittle it into something amazing with each successive draft. I’m not posting the whole thing here, because it’s… well, really long. 22 pages.]
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