-
Lesson 25
Reply to post your assignment.
-
5 Replies
-
Kevin’s Solved Structural Problems
At I learned doing this assignment was that my structure actually got stronger in writing the scenes as the added elements made the conflict greater and the stakes higher.
Act 1:
Opening/Old Ways: Batman and Joker are definitely living in old ways (fat tired, depressed
Inciting Incident: Joker gets fired and triggered by the mini-Batman’s dad.
Turning Point: Joker blows up a daycare and lays the blame at Batman’s feet.
Act 2:
New Plan: Batman decides to take on Joker by getting in shape and getting back in the game.
Plan in action: He turns over a new leaf and tries to get healthy and fit.
Midpoint Turning Point: Batman gets to the facility but barely misses the deadline. Joker blows up other daycares instead, tricking him and making things worse.
Act 3:
React/Rethink: Batman concedes his limitations and agrees to let Robin help. Robin seems invincible.
New Plan: Sends Robin to thwart one threat as Batman goes after Joker.
Turning Point: Robin successfully stops one bomb threat, but Joker blows up multiple police precincts including headquarters and the Opera where a huge Gala with Ali and his friends present, when Batman refuses to kill Joker.
Act 4:
Dilemma: Joker threatens to destroy Gotham if Batman doesn’t do his bidding. Batman must choose now whether to kill Joker or sacrifice the city now that Robin has been defeated.
Climax/Ultimate @xpression Of The Conflict: Joker and Batman face off on top of the cell tower. Either Batman kills him, or he destroys the world.
Resolution: Batman saves Joker but Joker unleashes the weapon that will cause Armageddon. Bruce Wayne show up and stops the dart from puncturing the balloon that will unleash certain death for all, as Joker plunges to his, on his own.
New Ways: Bruce has given the mantle of Batman over to Ali and Robin. He is now Bruce Wayne full time and will serve as Alfred to Ali’s Batman.
-
Rita’s Solved Structural Problems
What I learned doing this assignment:
- I had to change the opening to show the protagonist as less than thriving in her status quo once I rethought the dilemma in Act 4. Changed a few other scenes to reflect the dilemma. Makes much more sense and ups the emotional stakes.
- Small changes in emotion have big impacts on the rest of the story.
- It felt kind of impossible yesterday but after some sleep and meditative connection, the solutions were clear and simple. Something to remember and be confident about.
- And then I changed/shortened the logline.
LOGLINE: To impress a handsome contractor, a lonely psychology professor pretends to own a painting company which generates high demand for her services… for more than just home makeovers.
4 Act Structure
Act 1:
-Opening
Dawn closes the semester with her mostly listless psychology students but Zak is particularly friendly in a loyal puppy kind of way.
-Inciting Incident
Planning a small, home project for her summer off, Dawn impulsively plays into a misunderstanding with a handsome contractor, Tom, at the paint store. She pretends to own a painting company, even gives it a name — Blue Dawn Painting — and is quickly horrified by what she’s done.
-Turning Point
Dawn agrees to finance Zak in painting one, ONE house only so he can pay for fall tuition. They assemble a crew who are qualified… for something other than painting. However, more jobs keep coming and business is booming. Tom keeps her close by asking her to bid a job for him.
Act 2:
-New plan
Tom asks questions she can barely bluff her way through. Rather than spilling the truth, she buys a paint van and gets insurance.
-Plan in action
Dawn signs a contract with Abernathy Builders showing. They butt heads during the signing. Her ramshackle crew walks off the job.
-Midpoint Turning Point
Right after Tom asks her on a date, he finds out it was all a lie. While avoiding Tom, she and Zak have a moment, he tells her to wake up and realize this isn’t a charade. They’re going to finish the job, if she can just steer clear of the crew and Tom.
Act 3:
-Rethink everything
She plans to ignore Zak and come clean but can’t do it. Now, instead of flirting with Tom Dawn avoids him all over town so he can’t confront her and the crew is at odds.
-New plan
Dawn puts her true talents to work, relating to people. She gets closer with the homeowner and instructs the guys to clear out her spare bedroom making it a studio.
-Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift
Zak plummets from a high ladder while everyone argues. He’s rushed to the hospital.
Was it really an accident?Act 4:
Dilemma:
Does Dawn crawl back to her lonely, unrewarding but secure life?
Or continue in this blue collar world she rejected a long time ago?
-Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict
Dawn has to fess up that she’s made for this hands on world instead of academia. Something her dad always wanted for her. She goes for straight forward honesty with new love interest on the scene, Stevens. No pretense and in front of Tom.
-Resolution
Everyone lives in their element with improved lives and healed relationships.
New Ways:
Confident, enterprising, enlivened. Actual integrity, honesty, strength.
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by Rita Roberts.
-
Chris Dorsey’s Solved Structural Problems
What I learned doing this assignment is to ask the lesson’s questions while looking at my outline to make sure it is as strong as it can be.
Act 1:
Opening/Old Ways: I found my opening scenes to be engaging. My lead character is clearly living in a pre-transformation mode and their old ways are showing up in both their dialogue and their behaviors.
Inciting Incident: Wilbert, who is overly positive, is asked to “snitch” on the dorm bully. He reluctantly does so which starts his problems/adventure.
Turning Point: The bully talks his way back into the dorm and puts everyone on notice that he is going to find the snitch — Wilbert — and kill him.
Act 2:
New Plan: Wilbert thinks that he can change the dorm bully with some simple TLC and kindness. Wilbert’s naive take on it is there’s a little bit of good in everyone.
Plan in action: He is going to push himself on the Antagonist and kill the Antagonist with kindness and try to change his way of thinking. Befriend the bully.
Midpoint Turning Point: The Bully knows that Wilbert was the one who ratted him out. He’s been playing Wilbert the whole time. Wilbert now knows that not everyone has a little bit of good in them or are worth “saving.”
Act 3:
React/Rethink: Wilbert has to change to deal with the Antagonist; toughen up, be alright with having negative feeling for another person, and coming clean about his own issues. How do they react or rethink things? He thinks he himself may be part of the problem.
New Plan: Embrace therapy and challenge the “good voices” in his head.
Turning Point: The Antagonist sabotages Wilbert psychiatric medications and Wilbert has a nervous breakdown. He also hears “the bad” voices and acts upon these voices. Wilbert is placed in the medical unit in restraints. Now the gloves are off.
Act 4:
Dilemma: Where Wilbert has to make a choice: keep his mouth shut and be released in a month or stick up for the mental health inmates and do serious time.
Climax/Ultimate expression Of The Conflict: Once Wilbert sticks up for another inmate, the Antagonist and Wilbert fight to the death. How is this the ultimate expression of the conflict? Flawed but Good defeated very flawed and bad. Wilbert uses his strengths to stop an all-out prison riot.
Resolution: Wilbert is now a well-known, public advocate for inmates with mental health disorders.
<font face=”inherit”>New Ways: What are the New Ways and do they clearly show up in your lead character’s Act 4 behavior and dialogue? Confident, empathetic towards other — but in a realistic way — and someone who </font>is comfortable with uncomfortable thoughts.
-
Lonnie’s solved structural problems.
What I learned from this assignment: This forced me to re-evaluate all the structural forms for each Act, setting up the next act…. and finding a resolution even though this is an historical fiction.
Act 1:
Opening/Old Ways: Students at Kent State are angry with Vietnam War, some protest violently, some uninformed. Government very rigid on their approach to any protesting.
Inciting Incident: Nixon announces invasion of Cambodia.
Turning Point: Rioting downtown Kent, Ohio, some windows broken.. A suspicious man on a phone checks his revolver to be sure it’s loaded.
Act 2:
New Plan: A student photographer tries to warn the Mayor and police that the ROTC building my get burned down the next day. No one listens. The mayor calls in the National Guard which creates more friction with the students.
<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Midpoint Turning Point: A couple of students light the ROTC building on fire, no police show up, the suspicious man takes pictures of the protestors, mostly peaceful
Act 3:
React/Rethink: Chuck encourages more students to peacefully protest, to help get the Guard off campus.
New Plan: calls his friends.
Turning Point: The National Guard turns and opens fire on students hundreds of feet away. Four die. One is in wheelchair for life. Campus shut down.
Act 4:
Dilemma: Parents file lawsuit against the Ohio governor and the National Guard. Guardsmen are aquitted
Climax/Ultimate @xpression Of The Conflict: Federal government and state prolong hearings and appeals by nine years…..parents of slain students get only $15, 000.
Resolution: Healing, release the past. Chuck has a dream and the four slain students ask for healing and forgiveness, so the trauma for so many can be released. Government admits shootings were wrong.
New Ways: Less aggression on peaceful protestors… less violence from protestors.
Dan Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to the NY times one year later, helped to de-escalate the war
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by Lonnie Nichols.
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by
-
Tita’s Solved Structural Problems
What I learned from this assignment:
· That I saw so many problems, I am going to take time to think, distance then revise
-I realized that I probably need to change my protagonist. Make him one of two antagonists and raise the madman to protag. I chose a different character for a filmscript version, because the play breaks the 4<sup>th</sup> wall with the audience. But the idea I have for a stage play version of this story turns out that’s what interests my soul and/or gut or whatever (… assuming I’m not hiding from the need for a major revision of the first draft of this script.)
I got to that realization by going through SU/Hal questions with the script and taking notes on the script and copying more general notes here on the template/revision guidelines:
Act 1:
c Opening/Old Ways: Is this an engaging opening scene that lures us into the story? Is the lead character clearly living in a pre-transformation mode? Do the “Old Ways” show up in their behavior and dialogue? [REVISION NOTES: NEED TO REWRITE INTRO OF PROTAG IN FIRST SCENE TO BE MORE DYNAMIC/ACTION TO SAVE ROBINSON FROM MOB; ALSO INTRO ANTAG MORE MANIPULATIVELY]
Inciting Incident: How does this incident invite and propel us into the journey? [REVISION NOTE: GO FASTER TO CHARACTER’S EMOTIONAL FREAKING OUT, LESS TALK;
cTurning Point: How is this Turning Point a twist that locks us into the journey with “no going back?” [REVISION NOTE – AGAIN, I THINK I MISUNDERSTOOD BEGIN/MID/END AS SEPARATE SCENES. COMBINE THEM ALL, MOVE FASTER]
Act 2:
c New Plan: What new plan did the protagonist create to deal with the Act 1 Turning Point? [REVISION NOTE: CLARIFY NEW PLAN BETTER AND DO IT IN ACTION< NOT TALK]
c Plan in action: How does the protagonist take action on that plan? [REV – I THINK OKAY]
c Midpoint Turning Point: How does the Midpoint change the meaning, creating a reveal that changes everything while keeping us on the same journey? [REVISION NOTE – NEED TO CHANGE TO STRONGER IMPACT ON H – SHOW SHAME, FEAR, ONLY ANSWER IS TO UNITE? OR SOMETHING DIFFERENT…. COULD GO BACK TO MAKE DESTRUCTION OF HIS HOME THE MIDPOINT AND SPEED THRU THIS]
Act 3:
c React/Rethink: What is revealed to the protagonist from the Midpoint? How do they react or rethink things? [REV NOTE – NEED TO SHOW H MORE CLEARLY ONE WAY IN BEGINNING – POLITE, ACCOMMODATING: AND AFTER MIDPOINT- ANGRY, FEARFUL, FIRM, DESPERATE FOR UNITY TO KEEP CIVILIZED GOOD GOVT VS THE MOB RULE. MERGE MIDPOINT PAIN WITH NEW PLAN]
c New Plan: What new plan did the protagonist create to deal with this new level of conflict?
c Turning Point: The lowest of the low. How has this Turning Point brought the character to the lowest of lows, making it almost impossible for them to win in a normal way? This forces them to adopt the change in a much bigger way.[REV NOTE: SHOW PROTAG’S SHAME BETTER – SHAME TO ANGER]
Act 4:
c Dilemma: What emotional dilemma requires the protagonist to choose between two alternatives, losing something with either choice? [REV NOTE: NEED TO CLARIFY CHOICE AFTER MIDPOINT AND IN TURNING PT MORE CLEARLY SO H CHOICE BETWEEN OLD DOMINATING LEADER AND HIS FAILING ATTEMPT TO BECOME A NEW COLLABORATIVE LISTENER/PARTNER…]
c Climax/Ultimate Expression Of The Conflict: How is this the ultimate expression of the conflict? How does it require a “fight to the death,” either literally or symbolically? [REV NOTE: I NEED TO =
-ALIGN THE FIGHT BETTER WITH THEME AND BUILD THE GROWING CONFLICT THROUGHOUT MORE FOCUSED ON FINAL SCENE.
-MAYBE CREATE A DIFFERENT CRISIS IF THIS FEELS STRETCHED.
-SHOW BETTER THAT H’s NEW COLLABORATIVE, HUMAN WAY OF BEING A LEADER FAILS BECAUSE HE CANNOT CHANGE THE ARISTOCRATIC LEADERS HE RESPECTS. SO HE LOSES HIS ATTEMPT TO KEEP COLONIES CONNECTED WITH THE NATION HE CONSIDERS THE MOST FREE NATION IN A WORLD OF KINGS AND TYRANTS…
… BECAUSE HE DOESN’T REALIZE THERE IS A NEW ALTERNATIVE BIRTHING. BUT HE WINS HIS SELF-RESPECT. HATED BY LORDS OF PARLIAMENT AND BY NEW PATRIOT LEADERS OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES. BUT HE HAS KEPT HIS HUMANITY, HANGED NONE OF THE REBELS]
c Resolution: How does this resolution represent the “New Ways” and bring this story to a fitting conclusion?
c New Ways: What are the New Ways and do they clearly show up in your lead character’s Act 4 behavior and dialogue?
Log in to reply.