-
Lesson 12
Reply to post your assignment.
-
1 Reply
-
Lesson 12 Ron Neustrom – Challenging Situations
What I’ve learned that is improving my writing is control and a deeper precision. How can I expand the emotions, actions, conflict within a scene? This can be very hard to control with great depth. For the most part if I want to increase the emotions or conflict within a scene, I increase the actions. That shows a lack of sophistication. This exercise gives me more tools in my belt of other ways of increasing conflict…another way to deepen character. I can setup obstacles to the character’s goals. I can scrape open their deep wounds. I can play with their needs. The tools from this exercise expand the way we can brainstorm and make the effort more effective. Sometimes when I’m brainstorming, I’m just fumbling in the dark. With these lessons I can generate and use those breakthroughs Hal has been talking about. Great writing comes through those breakthroughs…how do we get there? This way of improving scenes gets me closer than I have ever been before.
Current Scene 1 logline: 12- and 13-year-old Jewel and Vivian Cruz are being dropped off at a children’s home after their mother goes missing and they have no other family to take them in. Their social worker was able to pull a few strings and keep them together in a home she trusts.
Essence: These young girls’ lives have been forever altered because their single mother ran into the wrong guy. We know she was killed but the girls don’t. Right now, according to authorities, their mother is just missing. Vivian will try to move on and make the most of her life while Jewel becomes bitter. This is the beginning of a downward spiral for her that will forever change both of them.
*There are four characters in this scene. The two young girls being admitted into the group home, their social worker, and the director of the group home.
Possible Challenges: (Challenges in parentheses)
A. Goal – Smoothly transition custody.
Settle into the new residence. (Jewel refuses to enter the house. They don’t get like the new director. The girls breakdown being separated from their social worker.)B. Needs – Keep close to my sister. Find our new beds. (They find out they will be separated. They will be in separate rooms with bad roommates. One of them turns ill and needs to go to the emergency room.)
C. Values – Cooperation. Welcoming. Fear. (The director punishes Jewel for her bad attitude. The director runs the home like a drill sergeant. The other children at the home mock them on the way in.)
D. Wound – Missing mother. Extreme insecurity over her disappearance. (The new director tells them to suck it up, she is hers now. The social worker threatens them to get over their mother. Another mother comes to pick up other children.)
E. Physical – Minimizes anger and mental anguish. (The social worker physically forces them into the home. One of the other children in the home assaults them. The director says, “You are mine now.” Locks them in their rooms.)
*Old version – I think I should have made the transition to their new world more challenging.
**Newer version – I am going to build the world of the group home less welcoming. I need to foreshadow impending trouble and have more visuals to reflect and play upon the girl’s apprehension to entering their new home/prison. The juggling act I am trying to accomplish…for one character…the experience is going to be a lot worse…how do I show that here?2nd Scene Logline – 12 years after their mother was killed Vivian has begun a program working with the San Diego Sheriff department helping people in crisis. One of her first clients is her sister. Her sister came out of prison in crisis. This scene is when Vivian gets a thick file on her sister’s past, and her secretary peaks inside of it without permission. Together they uncover some of the things her sister did while they were separated and some unique things she did while in prison.
Essence – The main part of the story is the relationship between these two sisters after their mother died. The story begins 12 years later, and one sister has moved on with her life and accomplished great things working with people in crisis. While the other sister has focused on tracking down and getting revenge from the person who killed their mother. An important theme in the story is people grieve differently. This is a moment where Vivian realizes her sister is not just angry and broken, but extremely skilled as well.
Possible Challenges (Challenges in parenthesis)
A. Goals – Expose her sister’s unique past. (Have part of her sister’s file include documented things she wouldn’t want to get out. The Sheriff come over and brings more trouble her sister has gotten into. There could be blank or redacted parts of the file. Uncomfortable details revealed.)
B. Needs – Understand her sister as a new client. Keep it professional. (Get angry at her secretary for opening her sister’s file. Information on the file includes problems she might not be able to solve. She details where her sister did inappropriate things that would jeopardize Vivian’s business or put them in danger.)
C. Values – Privacy. Work ethic. Judgements. (Vivian could find out about further abuse her sister received while in the system. Vivian could find out about a suicide attempt by her sister. Vivian could find out about her sister’s relationship with others in the department that she didn’t want anyone to find out about. Maybe a terminated pregnancy.)
D. Wound – Mother’s death and her checkered past. (She might find out that her sister spent some time in a mental hospital after a breakdown. Vivian might begin to realize she feels abandoned or Vivian might think her sister feels abandoned. Vivian might find out about her sister’s trouble with the law. Seeing the file might bring back trauma from her past.)
E. Physical – Important files have been dropped off at Vivian’s office. (They might accidently destroy part of the files. Vivian might destroy part of the files she doesn’t think others should see. The files might get stolen.)
*Old Version – I didn’t really reveal as much as I could have. The old version was designed to reveal her intelligence. It was a little too one dimensional.
**Newer version – I think I should add more of the deep wound and psychological turmoil her sister is suffering from. Begin to set-up the bomb that is going to go off in her sister’s behavior.
-
This reply was modified 7 months, 3 weeks ago by Ronald Neustrom.
-
This reply was modified 7 months, 3 weeks ago by
Log in to reply.