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Lesson 7
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I OWN YOU
1. Knowing your concept, fill in one or two sentences for each of the plot points.
ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR
MONSTER REVEAL: WE SEE FIRST SCENE THROUGH MONSTER POV
• Atmosphere of Evil established: Kenny Keller gets angry with a deli clerk. She leaves; he goes about his business when a man enters, good-looking, charming–but something’s off.
HORROR SITUATION: When the last customer leaves the store, man brandishes a knife and forces clerk into back room.
REACTION: FIGHT, but he loses
Connect with the characters: Kenny Keller is at work when she notices commotion outside her window. She goes outside and finds out that that deli owner “committed suicide.” Somebody is still watching. In the melee, somebody shoves a note into Kenny’s hand: “It wasn’t a suicide and it’s your fault.” She’s freaked out, but convinces herself the note wasn’t meant for her. But then she feels like she has to go to the police. She does, but the cop doesn’t feel there’s much to go on.
HORROR SITUATION: the cop is killed (gross horror). Message: Don’t try that again.
REACTION: More denial, but at the same time… she can’t really go back to the cops, can she?
Safety taken away – She’s learned she can’t talk to anybody about this or who knows what will happen? she asks what she needs to do?
• Monster: The nature of the beast. – the killer tells her she needs to kill someone herself.
MONSTER REVEAL: See monster watching his family from afar
HORROR SITUATION: Nightmares about her family
REACTION: She needs to solve this because she certainly can’t kill someone.
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
• Isolated / Trapped / Abducted –now she can’t talk to anyone but needs to figure this out herself.
• One of us killed – Freaked out and on edge, Kenny fires her assistant—
HORROR SITUATION: She finds the dead body at her house.
HIDE: Now she looks guilty and has to bury the body because nobody will believe it wasn’t her.
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
MONSTER REVEAL: Monster records the evidence.
• Full pursuit by the killer – what do they want?! They told her: kill someone. Kenny can’t do it and when she has a fight with her husband, she totally freaks out and sends him out of town for his own safety. But the killer knows where he is, so she fake kills someone
HORROR SITUATION: Her husband is found and killed.
MONSTER REVEAL: SHe finds the recording devices in her home.
REACTION: ESCAPE. She grabs her daughter and leaves town.
ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR
• Fight to the death – Kenny knows nobody in her life is safe. What can she do? She sneaks into the hospital and pulls the plug on a terminal patient.
HORROR SITUATION: Her daughter is kidnapped. Full on hysteria.
MONSTER REVEAL: She realizes how it is because of “I own you” tag
FIGHT: She figures out who it is and kills him. She is arrested.
• Death returns to take one or more – she is arrested.
• Resolution: Her daughter visits her as she awaits trial
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Tasha’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is that getting clear on your monsters rules helps you determine how certain scenes need to play out.
1. Create each part of this model:
A. Who is your monster and what is their terror?
My monster is the recently departed Sheena and her terror is that her wrath will not cease and she knows the identity of the Mirror Mirror serial killer.
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Powers?
Sheena can:
influence thoughts and dreams
manifest gory images especially of herself
create minimal poltergeist activity
Manifest cold spots
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Limitations:
She can’t use her poltergeist activity to really cause any harm because she’s a spirit
Her power to influence isn’t very strong and can be ignored
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Weaknesses?
She’s a spirit so she can only use scares to exact her revenge
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Plan/Purpose/Appetite?
She wants to kill the members of the group that left her to die at the hands of Mirror Mirror. Once she realizes she won’t be able to scare anyone to death after she successfully offs Targ, she finds Mirror Mirror and uses her influence to get him to kill the group (and the loved ones that unfortunately become collateral damage).
B. Sequence the reveals.
She can manifest gory images especially of herself
Targ, Ike and Kade see her in various forms of dismemberment and decay or she shows up in the style of apparition Targ is most afraid of – J-horror (she could be a creepy Ring girl)
Demand to know why this is happening and what to do about it.
Establishes the terror and curiosity of how to stop the haunting.
She can create minimal poltergeist activity
She knocks things off of shelves and knocks doors open and closed at Ike and Targs homes.
Demand to know how powerful she is.
Establishes the terror the paranormal activity generates in Targ and Ike.
She can Manifest cold spots
The homes of Targ and Ike are cold.
Kade has to put on a jacket in his home.
Demand to know how powerful she is.
Establishes the terror the paranormal activity generates in Targ and Ike.
Sheena’s wrath will not cease
Out of terror from seeing the phantom of Sheena, Ike tracks down and befriends Sheena sister, Dee Dee, at a bar. Dee Dee tells that she had to stop Sheena from relentlessly going after her abusive ex boyfriend because Sheena never stops and the poor guy had enough already. Dee Dee could say if Ike did something to Sheena during her lifetime, good luck now that she’s in the after life.
Demand to know what Ike is up against.
Establishes that terror that Sheena won’t stop.
She’s a spirit so she can only use scares to exact her revenge
She appears to Targ as a terrifying dead girl and flies at his, chasing his throughout his house.
Demand to know how powerful she is.
Establishes the terror the paranormal activity generates in Targ and Ike.
She can influence thoughts and dreams.
-She lands on Targ after chasing him through the house and tells him to kill himself or to leave the house or she’ll kill him.
Demand to know why she is using her power to influence these people in this specific way.
-Establishes the terror that Targ being groomed to kill himself accidently by running into traffic.
She can’t use her poltergeist activity to really cause any harm because she’s a spirit
Kade opens his switchblade and lays in on the table. He dares her to use it on him and it just falls to the floor as if a kitten whacked it with its paw.
Demand to see through her gimmick and shut her down.
Establishes figuring out the mystery.
Her power to influence isn’t very strong and can be ignored
Kade calls her out on her lack of ability to really do anything other than make them see stuff, think stuff and see objects get knocked to the ground. He tells the group to get over it and shun the bitch.
Demand to see through her gimmick and shut her down.
Establishes figuring out the mystery.
She knows the identity of the Mirror Mirror serial killer.
Sheena realizes she’s dead and follows the guy who did it to his home. She knows who he is and where he lives.
Stan Whitman (aka the Mirror Mirror serial killer) goes throughout his day, eating his breakfast, looking at his mail, microwaving his dinner, watching tv while he eats while Sheena watches.
Demand to know why Sheena is watching a person who is not a part of the group she’s haunting.
Establishes the discovery that Sheena knows who Mirror Mirror is.
She can influence thoughts and dreams.
-Stan Whitman begins having dreams of his recent kill morphing into various people. She lands on one form, the form of a girl, that peaks his interest and shows him where he can find her in the dream.
Demand to know why she is using her power to influence these people in this specific way.
Establishes the terror that Mirror Mirror is going to go after the loved ones of the group.
She wants to kill the members of the group that left her to die at the hands of Mirror Mirror
She realizes she won’t be able to scare anyone to death after she successfully offs Targ,
She finds Mirror Mirror and uses her influence to get him to kill the group (and the loved ones that unfortunately become collateral damage).
She starts influencing him in his dreams – maybe she shows him killing Nikki in his dreams and that sells him on the idea
Demand to see just how relentless she is
Establishes her pulling the pieces together as she uses her effective problem solving skills to achieve her goal.
She can influence thoughts and dreams.
-Tells Nikki to grow her hair out
Demand to know why she is using her power to influence these people in this specific way.
Establishes the terror that Sheena is influencing Nikki to groom herself for Mirror Mirror.
C. Create Demand for each clue/reveal.
Demand in advance or it creates the demand
Each demand escalates the terror, danger or violence
Create the need to solve each demand
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Through curiosity.
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Through conflict.
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Through terror.
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Through discovery.
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Through putting together the pieces.
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Through characters trying to figure out the mystery.
2. Lay that over your current outline and fill in each clue/reveal using the tag “Monster Reveal:. Completed this, but won’t post here due to the length.
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