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Day 11 Assignments
Please post your Day 11 assignments here!
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DAY 11 – ASSIGNMENT
Subject Line: Alan’s Dramatic Reveals
What I learned is: This assignment really helped me. First, it made me realize that I’d buried a lot of my reveals in telling, instead of showing. Then it inspired me to create a completely new TWIST with a REVEAL that should have a big impact on the viewer. THANKS!
Create trust / distrust relationships between your characters and add them to your Thriller Map.
1. Make a list of important reveals you want the audience to experience:
Reveals:
1. Holly gets roofied.
2. Erin gets roofied.
3. Orlando threatens to kill Jay
4. The cops think Jay abducted Holly.
5. Erin wore a wire to entrap Jay.
6. Jay is Holly’s half-brother. Jay’s doppelganger is the trafficker.
7. Jay identifies a trafficker from the mugshots.
8. Madison gets molested by her stepfather.
9. Madison uses almost all of her money for the bus ticket to Denver – broke.
10. There’s a sex trafficking gang abducting girls in Denver.
11. The gang auctions women on the dark web.
12. At the bus station, Jay offers Madison a place to stay overnight. But it’s not Jay, it’s his doppelgänger, Finn.
13. Jay finally goes home to discover his wife has left him.
14. Quinn doesn’t work for the Denver police department, which costs Jay his job. Quinn is a Special Agent for the FBI leading a joint task force.
15. The police arrest the World’s Best Weed trafficker. He tells them nothing and gets released on a huge bail.
16. The trafficker is found dead in a park gully the next morning.
17. Holly and Erin are being auctioned on the dark web.
18. The police intercept a message about abducted Denver girls being delivered to a truck stop in Iowa.
19. The traffickers sell Madison and several other young girls to the trucker brothel and smuggle them to an Iowa truck stop.
20. Erin and Jay go with the police to Iowa to see if they can ID the traffickers.
21. Jay overhears truckers bragging about new young prostitutes. He follows them to the truck brothel and pays a big thug to have sex with one of the new blondes, hoping it’s Holly.
22. But it’s not Holly. It’s Madison. Madison met Holly at the hideout in Denver. She tells Jay that the ‘eBay girls’ get shipped to China.
23. FBI agents, thinking Jay is the trafficker, follow him to the truck, make a bust, arrest him and parade him in front of TV cameras.
24. The big brothel thug sees Erin and Jay, and chases after them. Jay fights him. The thug pulls a gun. The Denver detective arrives just in time to shoot/kill the thug.
25. Denver police raid the hideout, but it burns to the ground.
26. Erin gets offered and accepts a modeling job in Mexico.
27. Erin and Jay plan to go to Mexico and then disappear together, traveling for several months.
28. Erin’s modeling job is a fake job by the traffickers.
29. Erin again agrees to be wired and tracked by the police as bait to catch the traffickers.
30. Erin flies to LA for the modeling job, being tracked by the police.
31. The traffickers outsmart the police by putting Erin in the back of a ‘shielded’ limo. The police tracking devices don’t work.
32. The traffickers drive the limo into an underground limo garage, so the police have no way to visually track her.
33. But Erin hides her phone in her bikini. The police track it when she’s transferred from the limo to a boat.
34. Jay and the police arrive at the boat as it pulls away from the dock. There’s a gunfight. The police kill two traffickers, saving Erin and three other women, but not Holly.
35. Holly is smuggled to China.
36. Holly is auctioned on the dark web to the highest bidder.
37. With covert alphabet help, Jay wins the bid for Holly. Holly’s wealthy father pays the auction site to buy her back.
38. The traffickers double cross Jay. They bait and switch Holly for another abducted similar girl.
39. The traffickers sell and smuggle Holly to a Beijing brothel.
40. Jay and a security expert from Holly’s dad’s company disguise themselves and do their own bait and switch at the brothel to save Holly.
2. Sequence them to fit into your Thriller Map:
Same order as above.
3. With each reveal, make sure the following are in place:
A. What is the reveal?
B. How did it get covered up?
C. What M.I.S. can be used to create demand to know the truth?
D. When you reveal the truth, it must have dramatic impact.
DONE.
4. Build any improvements into your Thriller Map: DONE.
5. Tell us about the reveals you built into your Thriller Map.
A. Jay picks up Madison at the bus station. He has a slight Irish accent. “Let me call the MRS. and see if we have room for you.” REVEAL: It’s not Jay, it’s Finn, the trafficker using Jay’s name.
B. REVEAL: It was Orlando’s idea for Finn to use Jay’s name. He tells Finn to keep using Jay’s name.
C. It takes almost all of Madison’s money to buy the bus ticket. REVEAL: She’s all alone and broke.
D. Jay needs Quinn to vouch for him at work. But Quinn doesn’t work for the Denver Police Dept. REVEAL: Quinn works for the FBI.
E. Lacy insists she isn’t cheating on Jay with any other man. REVEAL: Lacy is in bed with her lesbian lover.
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Jon’s Dramatic Reveals
1. Make a list of the important reveals that you want the audience to experience.
Who the aliens are
Where the aliens came fromWhy the aliens are here
2. Sequence them to fit into your Thriller Map.
3. With each reveal, make sure the following are in place:
A. What is the reveal? aliens are human from the future
B. How did it get covered up? humanity is meeting them for the first time
C. What M.I.S. can be used to create demand to know the truth? They want a rookie journalist to do their first interview but why? She might be a rookie but she will solve the mystery
D. When you reveal the truth, it must have dramatic impact.
When the aliens abduct Eve they reveal why. They need her DNA to reverse humanities future extinction* The question is how do we reveal this information in the most dramatic way? Aboard the alien saucer in the ship’s planetarium?
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ASSIGNMENT 11 – Creating Demand for Reveals
Subject Line: Kim J’s Dramatic Reveals
What I learned from this assignment is: I need to be selective in which cover-ups I create the demand/reveals for to achieve maximum impact. This has been the most difficult assignment so far for me. Rewriting the Thriller Map is also more difficult with so many more moving parts.
Make a list of the important reveals that you want the audience to experience.
1. Sage suffers from serious mental illness.
*We create the demand to know what’s going on behind Sage’s eccentric, artistic persona and odd behavior. The audience should be curious about her and want to follow her journey.
*We reveal some of the info in her conversation with Carol, then we confirm it more dramatically when we hear the voices inside Sage’s head talking about her in the third person.
2. Who is J.J.’s mysterious wife?
*We create the demand to know who she is and what she’s up to through obscuring her face, revealing her posh environment, and through the conversation with her husband and Sage’s publisher, J.J., about Sage’s LPS Conservatorship and potential 7-figure book/movie deal.
*We reveal it at the Midpoint when Sage sees the mysterious woman kissing Sven in the Center. When she turns around, we recognize her as Lindsey ~ not the scroungy Lindsey from the Boardwalk, but as J.J.’s mysterious and sophisticated wife and the psychiatrist running the Fed West/Free Will Center.
3. What happened to Sage’s mother, Carol?
*In the span of a few hours, Carol is missing from her home and there is a renter there who indicates Carol may be dead.
*We reveal the detail of Carol’s dog figurine on the mantle. We later see the big dramatic reveal when Carol’s friend, Fran, enters the house and discovers Carol tied up in the basement. Fran releases her and they start out to look for Sage.
4. Who is Lindsey from the Boardwalk and why is she helping Sage?
*We create the demand by showing Lindsey watching the ride Sage is on, observing the shadowy men following Sage, warning Sage she is being followed by the men, and leading her in escape them.
*We reveal she is there to “help” Sage when she helps Sage elude the shadowy men. “I’m Lindsey. You need my help.” We suspect it goes even deeper and look for more revelations later in the story.
5. Is Sage really living in her graphic novel?
*We create the demand by showing all the players: Lindsey from the Boardwalk, Publisher J.J., Editor Diana, the motto on the wall, Villain Sven trying to force Sage to change the outcome of the critical battle in her novel, The “FEDERATION WEST – Interception, not resurrection” banner on the wall of the Center.
*The beginning of the dramatic reveal is when Sage sees the Federation West sign and motto replaced by “Free Will Center – A safe space for creatives to explore and apply the contents of their TRUE MINDS to their art and craft.”
Sage is beginning to understand the truth.
6. Who is Diana and what does she want?
*We create the demand by showing she’s J.J.’s editor (as another character whose face we don’t yet see), then she shows up in the Center as an actor in Lindsey’s ploy.
*We reveal who she is dramatically when we see her sneak medication to Sage and see the lanyard around her neck indicating she is a psychiatric social worker at the Center. She’s been playing a role in Lindsey’s ruse to convince Sage she’s living in her graphic novel, but she’s had an ethical awakening.
6. Why is rapper Trey there? What’s going on with him?
*We create a demand for the reveal when Sage hears Trey singing in the Center (she recognizes his anti-drug rap song and sings, mouthing the chorus), then later when she catches a glimpse of him in terrible shape, begging for help, threatening suicide.
*We reveal that Trey is gravely mentally ill, and that he is also Lindsey’s patient. Sage sees Sven put something (Trey’s body) in the incinerator and then she observes Sven and Lindsey in a passionate moment immediately after. When Sage breaks into Sven’s office, she finds the “incident report” listing Trey as a “walk-away” from his “voluntary hospitalization” at the “Free Will Center.” Sage believes they’ve killed Trey.
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K MENON; ASSIGNMENT 11; REVEALS<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>____________________
NARRATIVE OUTLINE AND MAP ELEMENTS
Prologue: Mystery (why these murders?);
Intrigue (international electronic money transfers to offshore tax havens).
A family in a rural Illinois home are massacred at night by a gang of foreign killers led by Wahid Sharif (a Malaysian Malay) and his lieutenant Wong Kum Lai (a Malaysian Chinese). Before they are killed, the father is forced to make several money transfers to offshore tax havens as repayment for money he has embezzled. A minute after the killers leave, a man (DAVID MILLER (“Red Herring Hero”)) shows up and discovers the bodies.
Scene 1: Intrigue (What are Asha and Maria discussing?);
TRUST: Both women appear to trust each other
REVEAL: How did David acquire advisory clients from Malaysia whose money he manages and how each of Maria and Asha played a part in his business growth.
ASHA (David’s Malaysian-Indian wife) and MARIA (David’ Secretary, also from Malaysia) enjoy a zoom lunch. ASHA expresses concerns about DAVID behaviour of late. MARIA reassures her that his business is doing well. Maria says she made the first introductions for him in Malaysia. Asha says she introduced him to her boss at that time (2008) but she thinks nothing came of it because David never mentioned hime again
Scene 2: The next morning.
INTRIGUE: the robocall
REVEAL: How Wahid knows David (i.e. introduced by his Assistant whose name he can’t quite recall back in 2008).
WAHID and WONG tape a robocall-like recording to scare DAVID. Wahid expresses shock they discovered DAVID is also embezzling their money (like the head of the family they massacred in the Prologue). Wahid thought he and David were very close, tho he was Muslim and David is Jewish, but now Wahid is beginning to believe the tropes.
Scene 3: The next morning, Asha & David’s house/apartment.
Mystery: Why is David not back home?
Asha wakes up and discovers her husband is not back from his trip and there is no message.
Scene 4: Simultaneously in a NY park)
Suspense (will DAVID survive the mugging?)
Twist 1 (David is a street fighter and beats the muggers)
David wakes up on park bench and fends of two random muggers.
Scene 5: Later that morning, Asha’s home.
Asha makes sure her daughter is set up to attend remote classes.
Scene 6: A little later that morning, the empty streets of midtown Manhattan.
Mystery (who’s surveilling David);
Suspense (How’s he going to get into his office);
Twist 2: David outwits the FEDS
David’s midtown office is under surveillance, possibly by FEDS. David stages a diversion, get hold of the agent’s camera and get inside his office. The camera has pictures of the massacre (in the Prologue).
Scene 7: Asha’s house, a little later the same morning.
Intrigue (the robocall voicemail);
Suspense (How will Asha deal with possibility David is a con man?)
ASHA gets a robocall on her home landline which threatens DAVID if he does not agree to repay certain stolen funds.
Scene 8: David’s Office and surrounding streets, same morning.
Suspense (Will David escape?)
Twist 3 (David again outwits the Feds)
DAVID leaves the office and escapes from more FEDS in a car by running into a multiple line subway interchange.
Scene 9: Same morning; Wahid’s hotel room.
Mystery (who is providing air cover for W&W?)
Reveal: Who provides political cover for Wahid and Wong and what is the secret arrangement?
WAHID & WONG are enjoying a room service breakfast in Wahid’s hotel room when “the Big Boss” calls them with instructions. The “Big Boss” of Malaysia is visiting Washington to secretly play golf with POTUS to seek help in regaining power in Malaysia after he lost the 2018 election in return for a sizeable contribution to POTUS’s campaign through a campaign finance nonprofit.
ACT TWO
Scene 10: Zoom call between Asha and Maria.
MYSTERY: Why did David fly to O’Hare Airport 2 days ago and how is his business really doing?)
TRUST/BETRAYAL: Asha’s trust in Maria deepends.
ASHA calls Maria at home to ask if she knows where David is. MARIA explains David bought a ticket to O’Hare for 2 nights ago and a return for last night. MARIA also tells Asha that David is really busy and his business is flourishing and that he has an appointment today, with a WAHID who she believes is Malaysian from his name.
Scene 11: Wahid’s Hotel, a little later.
Intrigue: finding DAVID or locating his assets;
W&W discuss how to track down David (office, first then other property assets in the region. Reinforcements show up at WAHID’s room.
Scene 12: Zoom call between Asha and Maria continuing.
INTRIGUE: A little later, Maria and Asha still on a call.
MYSTERY: Why does DAVID have an appointment with WAHID?
MARIA tells Asha that David had a return flight last night so she’s sure he will be there by and by. Asha admits she knows Wahid… and that she introduced David to WAHID but DAVID has never mentioned him subsequently. She asks Maria to call her if she hears from David or from WAHID.
BETRAYAL: Maria is actually beholden to DAVID so she lets ASHA down.
REVEAL: DAVID’s hold over MARIA explained; David’s relationship with Wahid at least partially explained.
After Maria hangs up, DAVID shows up at her door. Turns out he paid for Maria’s trans surgery. He’s there to pick up (a large bag of hundreds (some of which he gives Maria) as a bonus. David begs Maria not to worry ASHA by giving her too much info. MARIA admits she told ASHA about his appointment with W&W. David tells Maria not to speak to Wahid or give him any info if he should reach her.
Scene 13: David’s office, a little later.
MYSTERY (Why Are the FEDS after DAVID?)
Two Federal agents enter David’s office. They search everything including the computer which they try to fire up in vain, then unplug and bag it for removal.
Scene 12: Mystery (whose apartment is this and who is the woman)
TWIST 4: David’s side piece, with consequences.
David enters a large, high-end apartment. The view of Central Park West is spectacular. A pregnant [Asian/Hispanic/anglo?} woman comes out of a kitchen and embraces David.
INTRIGUE: David’s emergency plan.
David opens a secret safe/hiding place and collects passports, guns and money. The woman brings more suitcases stuffed with hundreds. He plays a game with her to pick a destination from five choices… She surprises him.
Scene 13: David’s office.
SUSPENSE (FEDS confront W&W’s group—how will it end?)
The 2 feds searching David’s office are suddenly beset by Wahid & Wong and their two goons with drawn guns pointing at each other and shouting loudly.
TWIST 5: The Feds and W&W group agree to cooperate
W&W have a cover story—that his group are Malaysian Special Branch (an elite intelligence unit like Scotland Yard’s Special Branch) on special assignment in the US, authorized at the highest levels of the US government. They claim their Big Boss is in DC playing golf with POTUS. The FEDS check back and agree to a limited cooperation. They will check with David’s secretary who is likely working at home—they found her address in the office. The FEDS will follow up with MARIA and brief W&W after.
Scene 14: Asha’s home.
ASHA looks in on her daughter working hard on math. She tells her daughter she’s going to do a couple of quick errands but will be back in twenty minutes.
Scene 15: Maria’s Home.
Suspense Will the FEDS arrest Maria?
2 feds knock on Maria’s door. She answers the door and the Feds introduce themselves and ask her if she knows where David is? She says no, but lets them into the house to talk. They try to bully her threatening her with deportation or criminal action but she claims to be innocent of what David may be up to.
INTRIGUE (Who is watching the FED visit Maria)
As the Feds leave Maria’s home, we see they are being watched by two of Wahid’s men. Later the feds share the results of their conversation with WAHID but they don’t share the address, not realizing Wahid already has it.
Scene 16: Asha’s Home
Suspense/Intrigue (What is WAHID’s 2 prong-plan to get DAVID and how does he execute it?)
First: Wong and 2 of his minions kidnap ASHA’s daughter while ASHA is running her errands.
Second, that night, WAHID’s goons kidnap Maria despite her resolute struggle. She is taken to a safe house for interrogation.
Scene 17: Asha’s House.
Mystery (What happened to ASHA’s daughter?)
Asha finds her daughter gone. She calls the police. They take notes but they appear to believe the girl is with David. Asha then calls Maria, but no one picks up. She tries DAVID’s number but no one picks-up, but she leaves a terse msg.
Scene 18: Wahid’s safe house where he is interrogating Maria
INTRIGUE/SUSPENSE (Wahid ups the Ante)
Wahid calls David through WhatsApp as David is driving in a car with his girlfriend and he tells DAvid he has David’s daughter and he needs to make restitution of the money he has stolen from the Big Boss or arrange to transfer all the assets David has purchased for himself with their money. If not both Maria and his daughter are in danger.
Scene 19: David and his girlfriend in a motel room.
TWIST 6 David does a runner leaving ASHA to pick up the pieces and his daughter and MARIA to suffer their fates.
TWIST: Why David explains that he believes their daughter is not in danger.
David calls Asha and tells her Wahid has taken their daughter. DAVID confesses his girlfriend is pregnant, that’s why he has to flee with her. ASHA asks what about their daughter. David tells her that he took a DNA test and discovered the girl is not his daughter. He thinks the girl can only be one person’s daughter.
Reveal: (ASHA confesses to David)
ASHA tells DAVID that she used to be WAHID’s former lover when she first met DAVID and introduced him to Wahid in Malaysia. When David returned to Malaysia a few weeks later she got involved with him but she broke it off with Wahid who was pressuring her to convert to Islam and marry him. David suggests ASHA speak to Wahid and explain that it’s his daughter. ASHA asks him to set up a meeting with WAHID.
TWIST 8 (DAVID tries to ease his conscience)
DAVID TELS ASHA where he’s hidden guns and money in the house. He reminds her he taught her how to drive and how to shoot when she first came to the US. David also tells Asha his lawyer will call WAHID and arrange a meeting for ASHA.
TWIST 9 (ASHA find more helpful stuff)
ASHA finds along with guns and ammo, the SWISS numbered accounts where presumably DAVID’S loot is stashed. She also finds an envelope with the DNA test that shows DAVID is not her daughter’s father.
Scene 20: INTRIGUE (Arrangements made by each of the parties)
WONG sets out meeting arrangements to ambush ASHA at their agreed-meeting place and discusses it with his gang.
Asha is in a shooting range—she is the person there besides the owner, who she thanks for letting her practice. She is determined to be prepared for her meeting with Wahid.
Scene 21 CLIMAX: The agreed upon meeting place
SUSPENSE Will Asha be able to persuade Wahid to release their daughter?
REVEAL: Asha realizes what a dangerous game DAVID was playing when WAHID reveals that DAVID has been stealing from the money stolen by the Big Boss in a $12B financial scandal in Malaysia.
Night meeting between ASHA and WAHID at the [open air site / park /golf course described above. WAHID explains that DAVID embezzled their ill-gotten gains and he blames ASHA for introducing DAVID to him. He demands that ASHA persuade DAVID to return as much of the money and assets as he has diverted or otherwise help him to catch David or she will ever see her daughter again.
ASHA says all she can offer are the numbered Swiss accounts where David has been stashing the diverted funds.
That’s not enough for WAHID who says David has bought a lot of properties and other assets with money and he needs David to transfer all of that back to him. ASHA has no way to do that. So she tells WAHID that he may really be the girl’s father—she shares the DNA test DAVID has left behind.
Wahid agree to give Asha 24 hours to transfer the money to accounts he controls (he gives her the information) or her daughter will permanently disappear.
Just as they appear to have reached agreement the FEDS stumble on the group and a wild shoot out emerges. Asha manages to hide and stay safe while Wahid’s accomplices are all killed. The Feds
ASHA comes out of hiding and confronts Wahid— they have an argument and ASHA kills him. Then she realizes to her horror that she does not know where her daughter is.
She searches the Wong’s body and bodies and discovers where the kid is
being held. She finds her daughter. All is Well. -
Sandra’s Dramatic Reveals
What I leaned is that setting up the intrigue and making it subtle makes the reveals much more satisfying when they are revealed.
I placed the most important reveals near the ending to keep the audience guessing and not knowing if the events are real or engineered.
OPENING Creepy sounds coming from a museum object.
Intrigue: Why is Max so interested in the manuscript?
Reveal: It is based on a poem for a piece of music he loved as a child.
INCITING INCIDENT
Max purchases a rare manuscript that has a history of being cursed.
Life Threatening 1
Is the manuscript really cursed?
Villain’s Plan 1
His daughter discovers he has purchased the piece and starts thinking of how to manipulate him in order to get money from him
TRUST: Lilith is his only child and has never hurt him before. Yes, she asks for money, but he believes only because she needs it.
DISTRUST: She uses her position as his daughter to get information about his fears.
Mystery 1 Why is music playing without anyone near the piano?
Villain’s Plan 2
She pretends to offer help by enlisting a Shaman to quell the curse.
TWIST 1 (new consequences emerge)
Direction: A Shaman comes to the house to try to quell the evil spirit.
Twist: The attempt doesn’t work and the Shaman does damage to the home in the process.
Life Threatening 3
Her friend suggests more life-threatening tactics to scare him further – now his physical life is in danger.
Mystery 2 How did the words “Satan Rules” get on the manuscript?
Max/Victor
TRUST Max trusts Victor because he seems polite and non-threatening and is dating his daughter.
DISTRUST Victor’s allegiance is to Lilith and is passive so will do anything she asks of him.
TWIST 2 (it just got more dangerous)
Direction: Max thinks he sees someone with a gun in his house.
Twist: He shoots into the darkness and narrowly misses Celine.
Life Threatening 4
Now Max thinks he is being taunted by Satan.
TURNING POINT
Max’s wife dies of apparently natural causes.
Life Threatening 5
Max is now more vulnerable. His daughter offers to move in with him to keep him company.
Mystery 3: Why is Maxim waking up to see the shadow of a figure claiming to be a dead poet?
Life Threatening 7
Now she has more control over the house and his mental state.
Villain’s Plan 3
She starts planting various devices around the house to scare Max.
Life Threatening 8
Max thinks he is going crazy but doesn’t know who to turn to.
Mystery 4: How did the fire start when the Shaman was trying to quell the spirit?
TWIST 3 (lost their resources)
Direction: Max wants to pull his money out of Bitcoin.
Twist: Bitcoin crashes
Life Threatening 9
Max attempts suicide.
TWIST 4 (A lie is uncovered)
Direction: Lilith feels responsible for her father’s demise and feels guilty.
Twist: Lilith confesses to her involvement with the cons and setups.
Intrigue: What is causing the mysterious events to occur?
Reveal Lilith has been working with Victor all along to set up the events.
Intrigue How did the fire start at the head of the staircase.
Reveal Lilith says she didn’t do anything to start the fire. Max concludes that something paranormal did occur.
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