Day 3: What I learned rewriting my scene/character…?

[Joan Butler]

Breakthrough: After my rewrite, I read the dialogue. Unconsciously, I allowed only the racist police chief and the killer to use humiliation as a power tactic. The First Nations leader uses only facts and tells the killer to “simmer down” when he says he smells “pig shit”.

Breakthrough: In a mother/teen power struggle, the teen only has power if she acts in secret. Otherwise, the mother has the power. For example: The teen gives herself a nonbinary haircut when her mother is not at home.

[Mi Lock]

While I was reading a specific scene in my script, I already set up a great power struggle between mother and daughter.

I had an hesitation as to keep an audience (their family) and ended up having them leave. The humiliation the mother does to her daughter is not weakened at all.

[Ann Marie]

I re-wrote a scene with the power struggle more focused on the theme of the overall story, which was a breakthrough as a result of the ‘power struggle’ lesson- before this lesson, i had the power struggle merely between boss and employee who didn’t like each other, but now it feeds into the theme and definitely brought more focus to the scene.