Day 11 Assignments

[Christopher Carlson]

Christopher Carlson’s Living Metaphors

What I learned doing this assignment is to sustain my awareness of the need to challenge the Old Ways, although I still struggle to discern the difference between ‘should work but doesn’t’ and ‘living metaphor.’

1. Go through your story outline or script and brainstorm the following:

– 5 Should Work, But Doesn’t challenges

1) When the filmmakers insist they need to inject “adventure and romance” into Helen’s story, Helen complies with their request – it’s Teacher who challenges the filmmakers whereas Helen is still mired in the Old Ways of subservience to others’ wishes

2) When the filmmakers create a scene of ‘Helen’ kissing a bare-chested Ulysses, she is supportive – indicative of the Old Ways, that she’s okay with a mythic presentation of romance, but accepting that the real thing would never happen for her – but her face betrays the sense of yearning; there’s something in it she would love to partake in but is excluded by societal rules

3) Helen challenges John Macy, presenting all the arguments why he should return to his marriage with Teacher – the Old Ways – but John has already let go of the Old Ways, his marriage; Helen, on the other hand, is not yet ready to accept this change – she’s expecting to impact John’s decision, and is surprised and disappointed when her challenge doesn’t appear to have any effect

4) In Helen’s first extended conversation with Peter, she undermines her beauty, “I’m doing my best to pretend that I’m beautiful,” which she expects will steer Peter away from her; she challenges the notion that she’s ‘beautiful’ but her modest denial doesn’t have the intended effect on Peter; instead, he’s even more intrigued, and insists that she possesses inner and outer beauty

5) When Helen reveals that she hates the sound of her voice, she’s repeating the old indictment of her voice – the Old Ways — which she learned from things Teacher had said to her through the years; Peter notes specifically that he disagrees with Teacher’s assessment

– 5 Living Metaphor challenges

1) When we first meet Helen she is swimming underwater, where the world is silent for all human beings. This underwater realm is a metaphor for Helen’s silent world. The challenge will arise when she surfaces and we see that her ankle is tied to the shore, and she slowly makes her way to Teacher; ‘under the water’ is a living metaphor of Helen prospering in the world

2) When Helen arrives at the Los Angeles railroad station, she’s surrounded by press and photographers – the Old Ways, representing the heroic portrait society has painted of her. This living metaphor of the popular press represents her fame and notoriety in the culture.

3) On a Hollywood set, Helen and Teacher watch a hellacious monster battling a beautiful young woman for a baby cast aside in ‘the Cave of Father Time.’ The baby symbolizes Helen’s soul. This living metaphor sequence represents the Old Ways of thinking, i.e., that Helen’s fate is linked to what others do, and is not dependent on her own decisions or actions.

4) At home, Helen can feel the vibration of a songbird on the porch rail calling to his partner trilling from the nearby apple tree. Aided by Teacher’s report of their encounter, Helen can experience the mating songbirds as a living metaphor representing the wonder and simplicity of God’s creatures in search of a mate. As Helen says, she can “feel their love.” In her mind, if these two birds can find their love, why not me, too? Of course this is unstated.

5) In New York, Helen speaks from a dais to an auditorium of union workers. The dais acts as a living metaphor representing her popularity and ability to reach out to and influence the wider culture. This heroic pose harkens back to the Old Ways. When Peter tries to add his voice at the dais, Teacher challenges his right to do so – that ‘right to speak’ represents Helen’s world – the Old Ways – not his, and he doesn’t have the right to participate in it.

Each of these events – from ‘should work but doesn’t’ to the ‘living metaphors’ will move Helen closer to her real encounter with another human being who offers her intimacy, and love, something she so desperately craves.

[Heather Hood]

ASSIGNMENT

Brainstorm at least five of each of today’s challenges that you can put in your screenplay.

What I learned doing this assignment is: Some of these things I had already put in the screenplay without really understanding what they were or how they worked. The thing was timing and order. Now I am aware of how they work, I can see they were there but in the wrong order. I went back and re- arranged things so the screenplay flows much better and you can see the character progression now. The growth is much more organic and is less forced.

I am still not convinced about the ending, so I have to think about it for a while.

5 should work but doesn’t challenges:

Old way – treat others as you would have people treat you:

· Andrew tries to rescue his nephew from indentured servitude, only to be thrown into prison and condemned for murder. He is given a choice: hanging or exile. He chooses exile.

· In Montreal, after helping a young mother find shelter and giving her the last of his money and food, he finds ‘No Irish Need Apply’ so instead he must head west for work.

· At the Rocky Mountains he rescues a Chinese worker pierced by heavy equipment, only to be thrown off the train by the racist conductor who considers the Chinese ‘worthless’.

· Andrew shares the gold map with his companions. When Billy turns against him, he knows exactly where the claim is.

· Spares Dan’s life for his daughter’s sake, which causes Billy to become the betraying character. He kills Andrew in the end.

5 living metaphor challenges:

Old way – win the fight any way you can -> New Way – fight with honor.

· Jian Min takes Dan down effortlessly on the train, opening Andrews eyes to a way of fighting he didn’t know existed. Jian Min tells him there is no honor in his way of fighting and takes Andrew on as a student.

· When the whale attacks the ship, Xhuuya embraces his Haida heritage and sings the whale into peace.

Old Way – Life is something to be endured -> New Way – Life is a precious gift

· A bear attacks the women and children gathering berries and Jian Min comes to their rescue but is killed saving them. Jian Min in his last moments asks if the villagers are safe and Andrew tells him no one was hurt. Jian Min says his life has had meaning then and he can journey onward to enlightenment.

· Andrew has been accepted as part of the Tsimshian tribe where he is a slave. His friends come to rescue him with a war party. The children run onto the river ice to escape their warriors, and the ice breaks up. Andrew goes to rescue them but is too heavy for the ice. He saves the children. It looks like Jordan will be able to save him, but just when it seems like she can get him out, Billy shoots him and Andrew sinks beneath the river ice and washes away. (I’m not sure about this ending yet)

· When the party gets to Skagway, the Haida are holding a Potlatch – giving away wealth to accumulate favor. Andrew is taught the concept ‘the wealthiest man is the one who gives the most away’. In order to redeem Jian Min’s daughter Meilin from slavery, they give away the schooner to the Haida.

[Julia Keefer]

What I learned is that living metaphors have the potential to create filmed analogies and increase symbolism, something I need because I am not naturally visual. When stories get really complex, colorful, and over-the-top, tragedy, drama, and thrillers can turn into comedy, something that seemed to happen as I wrote just now.

Mirror: 1) Old ways have Jake looking at himself in the mirror and his students behind him to correct them. 2) Mirror can be tilted so they look at themselves and not him or he is behind them or like Litonya, they want nothing to do with mirrors. 3) Mirror can be smashed in a moment of rage when he has PD. 4) Mirror is used as a weapon to try to kill BB near the end. 5) Mirror is given to his kids so he no longer has mirrors.

Bed: 1) Old ways: Jake usually jumps out of bed to work or play. 2) His first major challenge is when his mom is dying of COVID in bed in part because she is wearing a mask and is at the busy medical center. He thinks enough about her to bring her home, open the windows, take off the masks, and give her oxygen and food at home but this requires a change in his behavior and attention. 3) When he makes love to Litonya, he becomes less mechanical and sexist, taking care of her needs and then getting swept into a spiritual communion that procreates the first baby that is his legally as well as biologically. This is a blessed bed. 4) When faced with the challenge of his father’s death to ALS in 2030, Jake massages his swollen feet as he gives his last lecture about colonial history revisited for diversity and inclusion. In medias res, he throws an embolus, saying he is going to a better place, better than slowly choking to death, with the attention and drama he likes. Jake always wanted people to listen to him but has compassion for his father’s last lecture and lets him rant and rave. 5) When his mother is dying of Alzheimer’s he faces the agonizing dilemma that no EMT likes of obeying her Living Will for DNR and DNI and letting her die naturally. BB the traitor helps clean up both beds because it is too much for Jake. BB grew up in a funeral parlor so he is good at this.

Chair: 1) Jake has ADHD and hates to sit so he does squat ups with kettlebells. 2) Jake’s dad Jean has a kind of bionic chair once he gets ALS so his voice can boom through the room without demanding too much from him physically. 3) When Keith says vulgar things about women at the bar, Jake swats him, and his face falls into his French fries and ketchup. Jake regrets this action but it helps make his point. Next time he vows to fight through legal channels. 4) Jake finds Lana sitting on the toilet as a chair rigor mortis with a blue butt bruised by lividity after coding from the Delta variant because she refused the vaccine. 5) Litonya squats on the deck in a chair position as her waters break h but when Jake shows Jesse to his great grandma Julie, she keels over at 92 in church dying peacefully. Jake sits at his computer and works harder organizing his career, appreciative of the many uses of chairs.

Garden 1) Jake’s new fitness studio, a church turned into an art studio and now his gym overlooks a garden that he usually ignores. 2) When Mom gets COVID, he picks fresh basil, mint, and rosemary from her garden to stimulate her sense of smell and taste. Eventually it works after he treats her with fresh air, oxygen, exercise, good food etc. 3) He picks wildflowers to give to his partner Litonya when he finds out she is pregnant, waiting for her to decide whether she wants marriage or not, finding ways to serve her and allow her to keep working at the Earth Observatory as a geologist. 4) After BB tweaks the antique car to blow up and it happens too close to the solar house, killing Jake’s friends Joe and CS as well as the targets Keith and Norm, Jake takes the kids to the village garden to ground them in life since they all had to pass the fiery inferno on Huguenot St. 5) To curb some of his mom’s wandering, he sets up an indoor garden on the porch seasoning the activities with enough exercise to tire her out.

Rocks 1) Jake has a tiny piece of the igneous rock of the Palisades that he uses to cut things when he hikes. Otherwise, he hates this rock, preferring the Gunk climbing rock of the first novel, or the Manhattan Prong of the second. 2) Jake lands the ecoboat fall 2021 on the Palisades dock so that Litonya can finish her childbirth on dry land. When she kisses the rocks, he has more respect for them. 3) When Jesse marries Aanadi and Kisele marries Coral on the Palisades instead of on the boats after the big floods, everyone celebrates and Jake is humbled by the rocks’ longevity and the legacy he is leaving his kids. He won’t last forever contrary to his assumptions. 4) Jake finally realizes that BB has been using rocks to knock out victims from the nineties until his last attempt to hurt one of his kids in 2050 who is doing research on geriatric diseases. Jake feels like hitting him with a rock but his PD and morality cause him to call 911 to get him arrested. 5) At 80, Jake wants to accompany Litonya for an easy walk in the Palisades. At first they stay on the wide flat trail. Because of his PD, he is tired and sits on a wedge of igneous rock while Litonya decides to free climb a short pitch. This time her reach exceeds her grasp, in part because of her 85 years and in part because of an unexpected quake, only around 3, but enough to shake the rocks and cause her to slip, fall, and scream, hitting her head on a rock and getting knocked out. Jake tries to help her but the quake continues and with his PD, he cannot perform CPR. He gets so stressed by the falling rocks that he also slips and falls. Fortunately they are both knocked out near the little park beside the dock so their kids can claim the bodies an hour later. Better than a hospice or euthanasia at the end of life. MM says Litonya had cancer cells and was about to get sick at 85 so this death was preferable. Then the rock cycle recycles as humans should.

[Julia Bucci]

Julia’s Living Metaphors

What I learned: The “should work, but doesn’t” challenge is brilliant!

I found an Oppression — maybe on the way to a better Oppression.

Updated logline for LIFE WRITING: When a broke, desperate author’s parking-lot fight with an old lady goes viral, she is given court-ordered community service: teaching memoir writing to senior citizens at an off-season summer camp. (contained feature dramedy)

1. Go through your story outline or script and brainstorm the following:

– 5 Should Work, But Doesn’t challenges

Old Way: Maud pretends (to her daughter) that she has all the $ in the world to pay her tuition, even though she’s completely broke

Challenge: Maud maxes out credit cards and waits for inspiration that doesn’t come, deadlines pass

How it might play out: Maud tries to write at night at the camp, gets stuck

Old Way: Maud lies to publisher, promises a draft soon

Challenge: Maud’s got nothing

How it might play out: Maud, in desperation, writes out some of Ruth’s story, sends it to publisher. She later takes it back, but Ruth/others find out about her theft. Ruth says go ahead and use it!

Old Way: Maud tries to slip out after the first day

Challenge: Students block her path

How it might play out: Students just happen to show up at her cabin when she brings bag out to the car; she ends up saying she’s going to get supplies (?) for teaching, they come with her

Old Way: Ruth tries to leave when she and Maud fight

Challenge: Ruth is figuring out, during the fight, that Maud is her birth daughter

How it might play out: Ruth notices something very familiar during the fight about Maud. She backs down and apologizes, disarming Ruth

Old Way: Maud tries to get out of the community service by calling in a favor

Challenge: She’s out of favors

How it might play out: Maud leaves a lot of voice mail messages/texts – no one answers

– 5 Living Metaphor challenges

Old Way: Shopping cart as a weapon (Maud bangs it into Ruth’s car) – pain and revenge to shopping cart as a symbol of connection

Challenge: Maud learns the truth about why Ruth left her as a baby in a shopping cart

How it might play out: Ruth reads the whole story out loud at the Brattleboro Book Festival

Old Way: campfire as a place of exposing hard truths to camp fire as place of reconciliation, bonding

Challenge: truth gets to be too much for Maud, Ruth, Mike

How it might play out: old memories at the campfire for Ruth and Mike; Maud and Ruth have an unintelligible argument one night at the campfire; Mike and Ruth start getting close, so Ruth leaves

Old Way: the viral video of Maud banging her shopping cart into Ruth’s car

Challenge: Maud needs to repair her reputation

How it might play out: Maud’s publicist sends out photos of her teaching the class nicely– but only 20 people view it, while the other video has 3 million views

Old Way: painting young of Mike by Ruth

Challenge: it’s 50 years later

How it might play out: Ruth starts painting a new image of Mike

Old Way: Shakespeare sonnet that young Mike used to read to young Ruth

Challenge: Mike tries to read it to Ruth again – she rejects it/him

How it might play out; Mike reads a different Shakespeare sonnet out loud: “That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold” (metaphor of old age as autumn/love while you can

How it might play out: This is Mike’s expression of forgiveness and also proposal to Ruth