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Day 1 Assignment
Reply to post your assignment.
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20 Replies
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DEV ROSS
What I learned doing this lesson: I learned that by writing down the simplest of my character ideas that more ideas began to flow. I did have to caution myself about keeping my ideas simple at first as to not get locked into anything yet.
1. CONCEPT: Outshined by the latest hate groups, a fading KKK Grand Dragon plots the murder of a black leader, but when he wakes the next morning, he is that black leader who is suddenly struck with a plan to murder the Grand Dragon.
2. This is a #1 Protagonist verses Antagonist – SciFi/Drama
3. My protagonist is a Black Community Leader who plots to kill the Grand Dragon of his local KKK chapter.
4. My antagonist is the Grand Dragon of the local KKK chapter and plots to murder his town’s Black Community Leader.
How I see the character structure playing out in my story:
First: I establish both characters in their worlds. My protagonist works building his black community and is currently lobbying the city for summer jobs for black youth. When one of the kids he’s working with gets racially profiled, he takes up for the kid which garners him media attention. Until now, he’d been trying to work under the radar but now, in the limelight, he’s finding he’s able to get more done and faster. Still, he’s a soft-spoken kind of one-on-one guy. Being pushed into the limelight is challenging that aspect of himself. He prefers leading in his community by getting people into action, taking their own charge, and working for change themselves. He never wanted the limelight nor the notoriety that comes with community activism. Still, reluctantly, he takes it on and as he does, he’s buoyed up by the love and admiration he gets, but is alarmed at the hate directed at him from racists who see his actions taking government money away from them.
Protagonist goes from wanting to help but not wanting the limelight to getting the limelight which puts his family in danger but gives him the power to enact more change.
My antagonist is the highest ranking KKK member in his state. But his power is fading due to the rise of new white supremacists’ groups who are attracting new members in far greater numbers than his aging group of followers. In the opening, he’s at a white supremacist gathering where he takes the stage to speak but is shouted down by the audience who think he’s a supremacist in name only (SINO). He’s cowed offstage and then upstaged by a young white supremacist who is more educated, more facile and has a way with audiences. My antagonist’s KKK meetings are drawing less and less and he knows he has to do something to bring the power back to him. News of this new, young black leader gives him an idea to put himself back on top. He will murder the leader.
My antagonist is rapidly losing power and wants it back. He wants the limelight back and will do what he has to, to regain it and to wield its influence.
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Lisa’s Character Structure
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?” that I there is an order and structure to writing a story.
1. List your concept.
When her ex-husband kidnaps Santa to pay back a debt, a Seneca Falls, NY super mom must save him, Santa, and the annual It’s a Wonderful Life festival.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
Dramatic Triangle
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
Mary is a divorced mom, volunteer firefighter, community organizer, and local winery worker who is torn between her ex-husband (whom she may still love), and the local winery owner who is pursuing her.
Peter is Mary’s ex-husband and a decorated war veteran who is struggling as a snowmobile mechanic because there hasn’t been snow in over 3 years.
Joe, the local winery/vineyard owner, is in love with Mary and he is trying to get her to commit to him.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
Mary has been resisting Joe’s advances because she has two young daughters, and he is her boss. Through a series of incidents (reminiscent of It’s a Wonderful Life), Mary realizes she must decide once and for all where her heart lies. Peter deals with his demons from the war and the divorce through the support of the townspeople and helping Mary. Joe starts to doubt if Mary will ever come around. Who will Mary choose as she saves Christmas?
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<div>Anita Gomez’s Character Structure</div><div>
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What I learned in this assignment: Brevity of character structure description.
1. List your concept.
A woman who can’t access an abortion abandons her baby at birth only to learn years later the child is her only hope for a life-saving transplant — leading her to search for the daughter she never wanted.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
(#4) Dramatic Triangle
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
A woman with an unwanted pregnancy can’t access an abortion because of the state she lives in.
The father is her superior at work, an influential conservative judge, who was instrumental in forming the anti-abortion law.
The baby is adopted out-of-state and grows into a brilliant young woman doing medical research.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
This “Dramatic Triangle” focuses first on the pregnant woman trapped by circumstantial laws. One of the major ironies of the story is that the father is one of the framers of the law forcing the live birth, which nearly kills the woman. We meet her daughter much later, as a young woman herself, who is sought out by the mother only as a solution to her own failing health. Both the mother and the daughter were each only born with one kidney. A transplant would sacrifice the daughter she never loved. The ultimate twist to this psychological thriller is that the actual donor becomes the father who meets with an accident.
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What I learned from doing this assignment: This task is already helping me to see how the script will develop. It has made the concept more 3 dimensional.
Concept
Silent Night
It’s Christmas season in a picture-perfect English village, a widowed dad, Steve, and his son (Dylan) adopt a very large scruffy stray dog with telepathic powers (Alfie) who helps the boy to speak again, revealing the father’s girlfriend, a teacher is secretly an evil piece of work. The boy must convince the father of the teacher’s nature, and divert an emotionally conflicted Dad to a true love interest, and avoid being sent away to a special school.
Structure
Drama
4 lead characters
Character outlines
Steve is the father of Dylan. He was widowed a couple of years ago. Steve is a local hero as he drives the village bus for seniors who he helps out in many ways. He is also a volunteer village fireman. The seniors on the bus love him and know all about Steve’s life. He has recently met his son’s new flirtatious grade 5 teacher. He is lonely and responds to her interest.
Dylan is an only child, 12 years old turning 13 soon. Dylan’s mother died in a car crash and since that time Dylan has stopped talking completely. This is causing problems in school. The new grade 5 teacher wants to send Dylan away to a special school. Dylan is horrified, he still has friends in the village, though some children bully him and make his life a hell. He loves his dad, who is struggling with doing all the parenting. Dylan has observed his new teacher doing nasty things to students. He is stuck trying to figure out what to do.
Alfie is a dog with telepathic superpowers. He appears in the village out of nowhere, just before Christmas. Alfie is an all-black Newfoundland. When he meets Dylan for the first time, he is very dirty and hungry. Alfie shocks Dylan with his ability to talk mind to mind with the boy. Alfie wins Dylan’s trust and convinces him to start talking again, or risk being sent to a school far away, and his father developing a serious relationship with Miss Perkins.
Miss Perkins is the grade school teacher Dylan is afraid of. She smiles a lot, and then does nasty things. Miss Perkins is a Cruella DeVille-like character. She uses her fake charm to win over a very lonely Steve. She will do anything to throw off any potential rivals, and she wants Dylan out of the way.
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I fully agree to all the terms and conditions of the Confidentiality Agreement. PS#81
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What I learned doing this assignment:
1. this website will not let me paste from another document (!!!!)
2. My characters are foils for each other, and have opposite internal needs–as the story moves along, they have to grow in the direction of each other’s strengths, in order to undo what has happened to them.
Concept: Switcheroo (comedy) os the story of two best friends who eat a magical substance and find themselves switched into each other’s body. Chaos ensues.
Character Structure: Buddy story/romantic comedy
Lead characters:
Marilyn (heterosexual, married with three kids) spends most of her time taking care of others, and is worn down by taking care of her children, sometimes without what she wants from her husband (equal parenting efforts). She actually enjoys being in her friend Zoe’s life/body, a break she sees as a sort of existential vacation.
Zoe (lesbian, partnered, no kids) seems to have the perfect life with her partner, Heidi: they’re carefree, financial stable, and enjoy fantastic vacations and other pleasures. Zoe lacks empathy, and needs to develop a nurturing side in order to survive as Marilyn when they switch bodies. The kids, initially, drive her nuts.
How character structure plays out:
Each character needs to learn some of the qualities she lacks, that the other has, in order to grow, which is the prerequisite for undoing the magic and returning to their own bodies. They need to grow and change, in order understand themselves and each other. One complication arises: Marilyn is so enamored of Zoe’s life without children that she doesn’t want to switch back, which creates enormous conflict with Zoe, in addition to the general conflict of the situation itself. This is a buddy movie that frequently separates the buddies, ie they phone and text to try to solve problems, more than spending time together. The engine of the story–the switch–sets them against each other, even though they need to work together to solve their shared problem.
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Matthew’s character structure
What I learned doing this assignment is that it is very easy to have the story run away from you. Keeping it contained and structured with so many ambiguous ideas and thoughts running through my mind is challenging.
1. List your concept.
A single mother and chef works to escape out from the shadow of her famous chef father, finding love and a reignition of her passion for food along the way.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
Dramatic Triangle
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
KATIE CANNON is a talented chef, balancing life as a single mother and the demands of running a high end restaurant in a world dominated by men, her world famous and egomaniacal father among them.
FREDERIC CANNON is a famous chef with restaurants all over the world and as someone who came from nothing believes that it should be the same for his daughter. No one gets a free ride.
Harboring a deep and painful secret, EAMON O’BRIEN is a middle aged Sous Chef who has drifted his entire life in and out of restaurants from his native Ireland to LA.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
As the story begins, Katie is the executive Chef of one of her father’s restaurants. She feels constricted by having to do “his menu”. One night, without him knowing, Katie cooks the food she wants to make. Frederic, in a surprise visit, sees that Katie is doing her own thing and loses it. In a spectacular confrontation, Katie is fired by her father. Determined to make a go of it on her own, she cobbles together some money she has saved and opens her own place. It doesn’t go well. Forced to hire a Sous chef who she mistrusts, she struggles to make a go of it. When she discovers the Sous doing drugs in the employee bathroom, she fires him on the spot. Left without a number 2 in the kitchen, Katie reaches out to every source she knows.
Unemployed and adrift, Eamon answers the call to help Katie out for one week. Eamon claims that he’s got a cousin in Ireland who’s promising him his own place in Dublin. On his first night, he helps her get through a service which includes a chef’s table meal for a potential investor who tells Katie that “he’s between projects at the moment but will let her know soon”. Eamon agrees to stay on until Katie finds a replacement. In the interim, the coke snorting Sous chef opens his own restaurant not far from Katie’s and he’s being backed by her father.
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What I learned doing this assignment is that there are a dozen ways to go and each leads to another but making a choice then letting that drive it helps… sort of.
Concept.
A small rural community in desperate need of funds for their school, local hospital & food bank fail in their appeal to the arrogant billionaire in their midst, and with the help of an out-of-town theatre group setup the great ‘sting – company’ resulting in a play performed by the group that unveils the truth after it is too late for the Billionaire to get out of his ‘investment’.
Character Structure – Dramatic Triangle.
• Luciana is the Hispanic, ex-rancher, town mayor sets out to trick a billionaire into ‘giving’ millions to the town which is in dire financial straights.
• Darrogh is a bitter, billionaire widower who abandoned his only child and has bought up much of the ranch land over 14 years, while maintaining his distance from all.
• Nia is his fierce actress daughter whose African-American mother was Luciana’s best friend at college over 35 years ago.
The character structure playing out in the story.
Nia came with a touring theatre company, stayed in the area when she realized her father was there without revealing herself. She works at the small theatre co, in the town 50 miles away while deciding whether to confront him or not.
Luciana recognizes Nia as her friend’s daughter, puts 2-2 together and together they hatch a plan to both get the money and humble Darrogh in public.
Darrogh, who has a long running feud with Luciana over the ranch and has not communicated with his daughter since his wife died when she was 10, attends a play and has to face both of them and his past.
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Antonio Flores: Character Structure
What I learned:
This is a doable task: jot notes, take a rest, improve, take a rest, rewrite and submit. Little baby steps help moving forward.
1. List your concept.
A cheerleader-made-MMA-contender fights to find her runaway fiancé, an MMA prizefighter who unknown to her, hides a weapon of mass destruction, was poisoned, and must battle for the antidote in an underground octagon.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
Dramatic Triangle
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
Protagonist: Parisa, a cheerleader-made-MMA-contender who fights to find her runaway fiancé and the man who allegedly stole her fiancé.
Co-protagonist: Bahadur, Parisa’s fiancé, a refugee who works as a janitor in a lab, but at night he fights in the underground octagon.
Supporting: Thomas, a lab scientist, Bahadur’s runaway partner.
Antagonist: The Ruler is the leader of an underground MMA octagon gang linked to a criminal organization.
Antagonist’s right hand man: Sharnaz, the Ruler’s favorite fighter, a massive, muscle-packed undefeated contender.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
Parisa’s fiancé, Bahadur, suddenly breaks up with her and runs away with Thomas, a man from the lab where he works as a janitor. Parisa believes that Thomas is the reason why her fiancé ditched her and run away.
Determined to set the account with the two men, she finds her way into the underground octagon, fights as skillfully as a cheerleader can fight… and wins every time. One night, she spots and prevents the escape of Bahadur and his partner, just to find out that Thomas holds classified information on a weapon of mass destruction. The underground MMA octagon gang is linked to a criminal organization. When they killed Thomas’ bodyguard, Bahadur intervened, saved Thomas, and got implicated. He then broke up with Parisa to protect her, but her stubborn tracking him down now brings her into a one-way trip to hell with no tomorrow.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Antonio Flores.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
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Alice’s Character Structure
What I learned, doing this assignment is there are five types of character structure. Telling about the characters, we also tell the story.
FIRST PART
1. List your concept.
In time of Separation, an artificial death protecting Advanced West society of Planet MIROPOLYS, workers of Research Institute get massacred, to create “new weapon”, interests clash, judge sentences wrongdoer at scandalous process, Separates, his subtle image reflected on video, his advice to filter people and expel outcastes is taken into practice…
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
#1, Protagonist versus Antagonist
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
Protagonist #1 Is a young scientist who tries to bring public attention to the fact workers get missing in their Research Institute, but shares same doom.
Antagonist is Anaupsh, she is head of development lab, who instead secretly constructs monsters from parts of human bodies, all victims.
Protagonist #2 Is a judge, Anaupsh’s brother, who is to lead a process, and separates.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
He’s talented, well looking, dramatic losing his girlfriend from upstart, and really tries to uncover it. People come and go. Some of them he talks to. Periodically he also encounters Anaupsh, about which there is something sinister. She gets one then another man for her victim, killing them, young scientist at the end.
Then Judge, who is aged man, takes lead of Protagonist, refusing to justify Anaupsh’s actions. Dramatic, because he Separates under circumstances.
SECOND PART
1. List your concept.
West in dismay, atomic war results and Black Archipelago gets destroyed
…after reservations for outcastes are created, trained WARDS are to bring qualified back to society,
Born in reservation, AKATA witnesses her Ward’s death, runaways, gets escorted by high rang military, becomes his lover, as anyone around undergo danger of being marked as “outcastes”.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
#3 or #4 Romantic or Dramatic Triangle
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
Ward, who is getting killed in reservation, prior he has time to save Akata.
Akata is girl, born inside reservation who escapes.
Son of Main Commander, a rang, is a young man who accidentally meets Akata outside.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
Ward is physically trained, not young, clever and honest. He educates Akata with writing and martial arts. He writes report for Akata, then residents kill him. Akata is tortured, but recovers, and now can see him in subtle body. He guides her to fight, deposit report, and go for helicopter bringing foods to reservation. Akata deceives pilot, and is then picked up by Son of Main Commander. Their relationship first meets suspicion of common folks and military. And though they live it through, dramatic feelings make him separate at the end.
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Matthew Frendo’s Character Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is how to relate characters in a way that works for film. I learned how to create these relationships before starting on anything else.
CONCEPT – What if the judicial system was switched to social media voting, with those found guilty having to go through livestreamed battles and deadly challenges as people at home vote on their punishment?
Dramatic Triangle
Alicia is the girl who was put in “the game” without being voted in like everyone else…and doesn’t know why.
John is a violent criminal who was secretly put in there to make sure Alicia doesn’t make it to the end…and to kill her if she does.
Sam is the unknown force putting them both in the game…with an ulterior motive all his own.
When it starts, all the contestants are together as they learn of their fate. Alicia is the only unknown and has no idea why she’s there. John acts as a friend as they make it through the games, but at the end, turns on her. But at that point, he doesn’t want to. Then Sam comes out and we find out he put her there for his own reasons and put John in there to make sure she didn’t make it. At the end, John teams with Alicia and they take on the whole system.
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Michael Katz Character Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is Screenwriting is both an art…and a science. You still have to come up with the creative goods, but having a structure and process to lean into…is both comforting and emboldening. For me, it’s pointing my creativity in a practical direction.
1. Concept: Think James Bond supervillain…the entire movie from the supervillain’s POV, and it’s his complete story, from origin story to tragedy, so in addition to initial victimhood and need for revenge, we’re witnessing his growth to tycoon and evolution into supervillain, his creation of the masterplan, cat and mouse with a government spy, and the very very real threat of planetary annihilation unless they let him rule the world…oh and the spy fails to stop him this time.
2. Character Structure is a Dramatic Triangle between the supervillain, his girlfriend, and the spy, with Traeger the supervillain owing his success to the love and support of Imelyna, however unbeknownst to him, Derek the spy, who is trying to ruin Traeger’s plans, is also attempting to turn Imelyna against him.
3. One sentence for each of the lead characters:
My protagonist is scientist Traeger who develops into a supervillain seeking to prove by whatever means necessary that his solar energy system will cleanly and sustainably power the entire planet.
Imelyna is Traeger’s girlfriend, and she is an actor/environmental activist who believes in Traeger and supports his cause/mission.
My antagonist is Derek Montoya who is a government spy investigating Traeger, and he woos Imelyna to make her an asset.
4. Character structure playing out:
Scientist Traeger meets actor/environmental activist Imelyna early on as she is reporting on his breakthrough experiment for social media, and she is impressed by his passion and brilliance, and she helps him physically and emotionally recover after his unfortunate research accident. They fall in love, and she helps him bounce back as he adopts her ideology, and she guides his transformation into a charitable tycoon doing good for the world with his solar energy technology. However, when he moves towards becoming a supervillain, using evil means to progress their agenda, she becomes concerned, and when Derek the spy charms her, she becomes conflicted. Traeger and Derek play cat and mouse, with Traeger baffled by how Derek seems prescient, always finding Traeger’s lair. With his plans going awry and lairs being destroyed, Traeger becomes suspicious and sets up Imelyna and discovers her disloyalty. Amidst bombs exploding and the compound on fire, Imelyna admits to Traeger that she can’t control her feelings for Derek the spy. But that she still loves Traeger too. In a pivotal twist, Traeger doesn’t kill her. In fact he knows he’s probably going to die anyway, so he thanks her for all the years of loving support, and he forgives her betrayal, and is willing to let her go be with Derek the spy because he wants her to be happy. Imelyna appreciates his heart of gold, and she says goodbye, and gives him one key piece of information that allows him one last desperate attempt to make his plan work. She also gives him time to escape the spy. Derek is too late, and as he communicates with the President, he and Imelyna watch Traeger escape, blasting into space in a rocket.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Michael Katz.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
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What I learned doing this assignment: Before beginning the outlining process, it is best to identify all the main characters in the script.
Concept:
When a coronal mass ejection (CMJ) from the sun threatens to destroy all electronic technology on earth, six astronauts and one reporter on the international research spacecraft, Reliant, must adapt the experimental Tesla technology they are developing for deep space travel to shield humanity from the cataclysmic CMJ just days away.
Character Structure: #5 – Ensemble Cast
Reilly Ryan is a US female captain, pilot, of the international research spacecraft Reliant. Reilly worked her way up through the ranks the hard way and now must use all her skillsets to bring together an international crew to solve one of the most difficult problems anyone has ever encountered to save humanity. As the pilot and only survivor of a five-crew aborted launch and ocean crash landing four years ago, she still bears the physical as well as the emotional scars of survivor’s guilt.
Chase Douglas is a US black male first officer, co-pilot, and celestial navigation specialist. Passed over for command on this mission. He is a former Navy Top Gun fighter pilot who is smart, talented, and sometimes too ambitious. His passion for space flight is sometimes challenged by his love of pleasure.
Nico Lee is a Chinese female anti-matter propulsion specialist, Ph.D. She competed against thousands of candidates for this position which left little time for emotional interaction with other people. There is no one smarter in this field or lonelier because of it than her.
Tara Cooper is a French black female specializing in scalar wave and torsion field physics, Ph.D. An only child who worked her way through college, master’s, and her Ph.D. by working in a winery. She patented a frequency modulation device that reduced the aging time of the vintner’s now international best-selling wine in half which made her a small fortune. She is here because she loves her work not because she needs the money.
Diego Quinn is a Latino male life science specialist and MD, Ph.D. He is not really enamored with working in space and is more surprised than anyone that he is on this mission. His invention of an implant that monitors the body’s vitals and reactions to radiation and magnetic fields sealed the deal. He views this as a short-term assignment that will leapfrog his career in research ahead by decades.
Oleg Raykin is a Russian male mechanical engineering specialist; Ph.D. Oleg would not have made it past all the political appointees vying for his spot if he had not invented the plasma field generator. It is the only known device that can contain anti-matter generation which propels the research spacecraft to near light speed. He grew up in the tough mafia-controlled neighborhoods of Moscow and does not suffer incompetence or fools.
Skyler Hardwick is a British female pool reporter chosen to broadcast special reports on the maiden voyage of the trillion-dollar international research spacecraft, Reliant, as it goes through its earth orbit testing. She used every political, financial, and bordering on blackmail of the Royal Family influence to get this assignment. She’s digging for a story deeper than the Reliant mission to propel her career to an anchor desk….and boy does she get it!
Ensemble Character Structure:
With this international group of characters forced to work in a confined environment, the professional veneer of working together on a professional and personal level will be tested and refined in the crucible of making life-threatening decisions that not only affect themselves but the future of humanity on the planet. Cultural and personal differences will be pushed to their limits, forcing the arc of their characters to be changed for a purpose that is greater than themselves.
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What I learned doing this assignment is…to let go of preconceived ideas and play with different combinations. Though that strategy was already utilized for generating concepts, it works here with coming up with how the different characters interact. Similar to hitting on a great concept, if you can land on the right character interactions, the story just feels like it’ll write itself. I decided to play with multiple concepts for this one to see what I naturally gravitated toward (Dramatic Triangle just feels right). I’m really struggling with the ensemble cast. I’ll have to play with that one more and see if I need to reduce the amount of characters that matter, or if more brainstorming sessions will guide me to something that works well.
OPEN WIDE
1. List your concept.<div>
A colony has to NASA their way out of the crossfire between alien parasites and conscripts sent to kill survivors.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
Dramatic Triangle
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
The Smuggler – A devout party member who captures deserters.
The Pacifist – A war veteran who went AWOL after committing war crimes.
The Grandma – A secret agent sent to cover up the government’s involvement with the outbreak of recent alien infestations.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
“The better the liar, the better the monster.” On the surface, everyone is one thing, while being something different underneath, having to work together together to get out of a situation where, like them, there’s more beneath the surface. The Grandma is the first to reveal who she really is, recruiting the skills of the Smuggler to help her and the pacifist off world. The Pacifist is the next to show his/her true colors as older than he/she appears, being a Super Soldier that went AWOL after committing war crimes. Finally, the Smuggler shows his/her true colors as someone committed to rooting out dissenters, including the Grandma Spy and the Pacifist Super Soldier, all in the backdrop of an alien infestation that is the result of the Government’s terraforming practices that wiped out several keystone species which kept the ecosystem in balance.
POSSESSING EDEN
1. List your concept.
An AI has to confront her trauma by either healing or killing parts of herself.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
Dramatic Triangle (Sort of…)
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
Adam – An ancient computer virus that once felt rejection, and has been duplicating and destroying parts of himself in the effort to never be rejected again.
Janus – Adam’s creation and one of the protectors of his world that goes against him in search for redemption.
Copy – Janus’ duplicate that she created who represents her guilt.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
Adam, a computer virus that finds religion, feels the pain of rejection when he prays to GOD and no one answers. Not yet old enough to comprehend concepts beyond binary, he assumes GOD rejected him because he was created by man and not HIM. So, he takes over a high rise and the inhabitants within to create his own heaven, his own hell, and his own creations in his image. Janus, one of his creations, is selected to be his right hand and have the ability to copy herself revealed to her. But when she creates her Copy, she unknowingly murders the host in a world where death should be impossible. Janus and her Copy make plans to go to the Underworld to resurrect the victim. Meanwhile, Adam, feeling his daughter’s rejection of her power is a rejection of him, tries to stop her and keep the status quo of what he’s created for himself. As Janus goes deeper and confronts both Adam and the Underworld, her Copy tests Janus, raising the question of whether the Copy/Guilt is in control or the Original.
GRAND THEFT ROAD TRIP
1. List your concept.
A risk averse driving instructor finds out that her son commits grand theft auto on a regular basis during a defensive driving course when her son is behind the wheel and the cops are on their tail.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
Buddy Movie
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
Driving Instructor – Risk averse and controlling, she has guided hers and her family’s lives to her vision.
The Son – Involved in so many extracurriculars to stay out of trouble, but has such a passion for cars and going fast that he finds ways to scratch that itch anyways.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
What starts as a typical exchange between a doting mother and her teenage son takes a significant turn when the son floors it and escapes from the cops tailing them. Now las her son’s hostage, the driving instructor and her teenage son must confront their shared and individual issues/past trauma, but they’re too stubborn at first and at constant conflict, with the mother trying to turn her son in, and her son taking more extreme measures to keep his mother under his control for a change.
OLD TESTAMENT BAND
1. List your concept.
A Christian Rock Band goes full “Old Testament” on the criminal underworld when their founding member is killed by a loan shark.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
Ensemble Cast
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
Singer/Lead Guitarist – The first to jump into action and believes GOD communicates with him.
Drummer – Converted just before joining the band and is more knowledgeable about the bible than either of the band members
Base Player – Very reserved and hates showiness in faith.
Loan Shark – Focussed on fairness and blind justice
Gang Leader – God Complex
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
When the founding member of the band (Backup Guitar/Singer and Lyricist) is killed by the loan shark for not paying the band’s debt, the lead singer sees a vision that he believes is a sign that GOD demands justice. Meanwhile, both the drummer and base player go through the proper channels until they run into both a dead end with corrupt cops and the media exposing they’re funding through amoral means. The only chance at righting the wrongs appear to be through the same form of retribution that the lead singer uses. The band joins up again to wage war on a criminal empire that both brought them to glory and is now trying to bring them down, all the while questioning how far they can go and still call themselves Christians.
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Day 1 Assignment: Outlining and Your Character Structure
Laura Woodworth’s Character Structure
What I learned doing this lesson: my first thought on this concept was to go with an ensemble cast. After thought, I’m going with a dramatic triangle instead for greater marketability and engagement with the characters.
1. Concept: (still working to hone this)
When a Russian college student discovers her grandmother’s illegal Bible, it sparks a spiritual awakening at a Moscow university but jeopardizes her grandmother’s life when she comes on the radar of the KGB.
When a college student discovers her grandmother’s illegal Bible, it sparks a spiritual awakening across a Moscow university but endangers her family’s life and she must find a way to evade the KGB and smuggle her grandmother out of Russia.
2. Character Structure: Dramatic Triangle
3. Lead Characters:
Natalia is a college student at a Moscow university who discovers her grandmother’s hidden copy of the bible.
Babushka is Natalia’s grandmother whose illegal copy of the bible puts her on the radar of the KGB.
Victor is a KGB agent who discovers the grandmother as the source of the forbidden bible being passed around among students at a Moscow university.
4. I see the character structure playing out similarly to Star Wars/Casablanca with the grandmother mentoring the KGB agent years before he became part of the KGB and anti-religion. Natalia, her granddaughter, is also mentored by her babushka in spiritual matters, but her zeal to share the bible on campus endangers her grandmother, putting her on the radar of the KGB. Natalia tries to smuggle her grandmother out of the country to save her, but in the end, it’s the grandmother who saves Natalia – helping her escape out of the country while giving up her life instead.
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June Fortunato/Retirement Character Structure
Concept
Charming Roy hates to work, but after his latest girlfriend (aka his free ride) dumps him, the clever man will go to any length to find a more permanent person to take care of him- until he meets an eccentric woman who speaks very loudly! to herself! and who plays the same game. Together they crash in the craziest places and he falls in love with the tenderness inside of her that allows him to heal. In the end, they luck into a perfect, permanent pad together.
Character structure
1 & 2 Roy leads the story but it’s a buddy movie and romantic dramedy.
Give us one sentence on each of your leads
Roy is a clever, wild, fun guy, 60s, a charming mooch who’ll do just about anything but also has a deceptive sense of morality. Inside, he harbors a deep spirit wound that prevents him from fully embracing others.
Kim, 50s, also harbors deep wounds, and she’s incredibly lonely but unwilling to bond with anyone, ever again. Her parents were wealthy, and she prefers homelessness. Smart and resourceful, she pushes the stream of negative thoughts out of her head with extremely loud conversations with herself.
How this plays out
Both Roy and Kim find themselves in the same hideaway. She plays the same game as Roy, so they share secrets. They try moving around together, and have an outrageously great time, but Kim’s loud talk always gets them caught. She’s a liability that Roy can’t handle and he splits…until he finds himself in deep trouble, and Kim comes to his rescue. Together, they learn to accept each other’s quirks- to trust each other, and eventually come to heal each other. After lots of adventures and scares, Kim has a brilliant crash pad idea. They go for it, and, as luck can be, the owner goes into a nursing home and leaves the place, and pets, to them.
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Dana’s Character Structure
What I learned from this assignment:
This step process makes it easier to define the protagonist/antagonist structures and their conflict. And it helps narrow my character’s singular focus. I wished I’d learned this method years ago.
Concept:
A schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder calls a radio psychiatrist and warns that his more dominant and violent personality will kill one member of the psychiatrist’s kidnapped family every hour on air unless the psychiatrist can excise the personality before the end of the show.
Character Structure:
Thriller
Lead Characters:
My protagonist is a psychiatrist who hosts a local radio for callers with emotional and relationship problems.
My antagonist is a schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder who used to be a patient of the psychiatrist.
Character structure plays out in the story:
After receiving the initial call from her ex-patient, the psychiatrist is suspicious of a bad prank. But when she tries to contact her family to confirm their safety, her husband’s phone goes to voice mail, and she learns her children never arrived at school. When her patient calls back, her husband is on the line. Her family has been kidnapped, and the patient’s the violent personality toys with her, demanding that she talk him down to save her husband and two young daughters.
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1. List your concept.
1- When a school gossip comes to light about his daughter having an only fans account, a government official embarks on an in-depth investigation to find out where the word came from and force the culprit to repair his daughter’s reputation, even if she has already taken her own life. But everything changes when he finds out her daughter was not only guilty but was the leader of a prostitution ring of college girls serving high government officials, and that she didn’t kill herself, she was murdered for finding out a conspiration to rob millions of dollars from the public pensions. And now, the same men who killed her are trying to kill him.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
Thriller
4. Dramatic Triangle
A dramatic triangle has three characters wrapped up in a web where there are deeper implications to their relationships than what we see in the beginning. Much of the drama is based around how the three people are connected as the layers are revealed.
2. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
1 Robert is a government official who investigates why her daughter Audrey killed herself.
2Audrey is a college girl who had a prostitution ring and discovered a conspiration before being assassinated.
3Thomas is a government senator who is conspiring with a group of powerful people to steal the pension money, and wont stop at anything to do it.
3. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
Robert, un oficial del gobierno, su hija Audrey, una joven universitaria que no tiene una gran relacion con su padre desde que su madre murio de cancer. Y Thomas, un senador con muchas conexiones, amigo de la infancia de Robert y padrino de Audrey. Thomas, se vuelve cliente del círculo de prostitución de Audrey, y ellos dos se vuelven amantes. Hasta que ella descubre la conspiración, y Thomas manda a matarla. Robert investiga y se entera de la relacion entre su mejor amigo y su hija, y de cómo su amigo sedujo a su hija siendo ella menor de edad y como fue conectándose ella para formar su negocio de scort service, aprovechando que muchas chicas no tienen dinero para pagar su universidad y no pueden darse el lujo de quedar endeudadas de por vida.
Robert, a government official, and his daughter Audrey, a college girl who doesn’t have much relationship with her father since her mother died of cancer. And Thomas, a senator with many connections, Robert’s childhood friend and Audrey’s godfather. Thomas becomes a client of Audrey’s prostitution ring, and they become lovers. Until she discovers the conspiracy and Thomas has her killed.
5. Answer the question, “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it above your work.
I learned about the different structures and how they connect with genre.
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<font color=”#000000″><font face=”Times New Roman, serif”><font size=”3″>What
I learned doing this assignment is that even when you know how
the story unfolds, deciding what character structure to take in its
unfolding is a crucial first step and will have a great influence on
the overall feel of the screenplay. </font></font></font><u style=”font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);”>Concept:<u style=”font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);”>
A very wealthy man who has no heirs considers leaving his money
to one of three distant, unfamiliar cousins, but to find out how they
will handle a fortune, he decides to give each of them a small
fortune while he lives among them incognito and observes their
handling of it.<u style=”font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);”>Character
Structure:<u style=”font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);”> Rom-Com or Buddy Movie with Two Characters
Owning the Story<u style=”font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);”>Lead
Characters:<font color=”#000000″><font face=”Times New Roman, serif”><font size=”3″>My
protagonist is Stanley G. Fulton who is coming incognito into the
lives of his distant cousins to see which of them would be best
suited to inherit his money. </font></font></font>My
antagonist is Margaret “Poor Maggie” Duff who is the spinster
step-sister to the cousins who has a heart of gold that everyone goes
to for help with all their problems.<b style=”font-size: medium; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);”>Character
Structure Plays Out:<font color=”#000000″><font face=”Times New Roman, serif”><font size=”3″>Stanley
G. Fulton is a famous, very wealthy man in his fifties who is
concerned about what he should do with his money after his death. He
comes upon the notion of living among his only known relatives, (three
distant cousins who are siblings), incognito and “willing” them a
wonderful amount of money to see what they do with that money. By
observing their relationship with money before and after they receive
the money he hopes to learn which of them would be the best choice to
be his heir. </font></font></font>When
incognito, Stanley arrives in town, he is introduced to Poor Maggie,
the step-sister of his cousins. She is the long-suffering, hard
working, caregiver for her grumpy father. She is also the
intelligent, patient, level-headed member of the family that the rest
of the family goes to when they need help with anything from
unpleasant duties to a shoulder to cry on. She is also the woman who
Stanley falls in love with despite his best efforts not to. -
Outlining & Plotting – Day 1
ASSIGNMENT
What I learned doing this assignment is the process keeps the elements clear and separate. I love outlines and use them. This system: concept, character structure, and one sentence on lead characters keeps the 40,000 feet perspective which I tend to lose all too often.
Tell us the character structure you’ve selected and one sentence on each of your lead characters.
1. List your concept. Holiday Christmas Movie: girl meets boy and they overcome hardship and find their happily ever after.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story. Romantic Triangle (#3) Two men conflict over the love of a woman and a choice must be made.
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters. For a romance movie with a #3 character structure:
[1] Protagonist: Brooklyn is an artist who must deal with her estranged father’s estate. She finds love there. [2] Love Interest: Tarek, single father who learns his friend, Brooklyn’s dad, is dead. They fall in love [3] Love Interest: Iverson, rich older man who loves Brooklyn’s paintings and buys them and wants her. [4] Antagonist: Richard, Assistant to Brooklyn’s father. He wants the business and tries to steal it.
In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
6. Add the subject line to the top and post your assignment on the ProSeries 50 forums at http://Screenwriting…orums/index.php
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