Day 6 Assignments

[Lois Wickstrom]

Lois’ Show Summary

What I learned doing this — I sure had to leave a lot out, and this is nowhere near what I want it to be.

Matthew Polecat is on the way to his birthday party after school when he gets sprayed by a skunk. This isn’t unusual, because Matthew lives on a skunk farm. But the skunk who sprayed him is the one he calls Aunt Abigail. And this time, something unusual happens. Black fur grows first on his hands, then up his arms, then all over, and he begins to shrink. He becomes a skunk. “Follow me!” calls Aunt Abigail as she leads him toward the cave on the hillside where the skunks like to play.

But a great horned owl swoops for him. He hides under a potting bench, then scoots for the hen house, and barely makes it to safety inside. His sister Polly loves skunks. She begins petting him. Normally, he’d hate that, but he is in skunk-mind. He loves it! While he’s being petted, he notices another skunk, Uncle Milton, raiding the nests. Uncle Milton brings him a rotten egg. Polly tries to shoo Uncle Milton away, but that rotten egg is irresistible. He rips himself away from Polly, scarfs down the egg, and is soon a boy again. Polly is jealous.

That night at dinner, Aunt Abigail joins them. She eats a rotten egg and assumes human form. “Today you have become a skunk,” she congratulates him.

There’s a knock on the door. It’s an owlish looking man who wants to buy the skunk farm. He’s opening a new pharmaceutical company in town. Dad refuses. The man then says, “This isn’t a safe place to raise skunks. You’ve got an owl flying around.” “I’ll shoot it,” says Dad. “You can’t. It’s an endangered species,” says the man. Then he adds, “If you won’t sell me the farm, I’d be happy to buy the meteorite rock that fell on your land.” Again, Dad refuses. “That rock is my family heritage. It never leaves our land.”

The next time Matthew becomes a skunk, he and Aunt Abigail explore the new lab for the pharmaceutical company which is built on the back side of the cave, just beyond the skunk farm property. There they find proof that the owlish man and the owl are one and the same. The Great Horned Owl is the most lethal threat to skunks. The man and his assistant almost capture Matthew and Abigail, but they return and tell their story.

Dad, fearing for Matthew’s life, orders him to stay on the property, and sets him in charge of the skunk supply store. There a customer who is buying skunk spray to go hunting accidentally sprays Matthew. He does not see Matthew change into a skunk. But when he wants to pay, Matthew is nowhere around. He rings the bell and Polly rings him up.

Owl-man’s assistant comes in wanting to buy a pet skunk.

Polly is angry with Matthew and sells him, to the woman who works for his arch enemy. His new owner enters him in the annual Skunk Beauty Pageant. Aunt Abigail tries to rescue him, but she gets caught, and entered, too. Matthew and Abigail are creating chaos at the beauty pageant while Polly sells jewelry made with the meteorite rock. The owlish man buys all of it, and uses it to make a spray that freezes people for half an hour. While Matthew is receiving first prize, the owlish man is spraying the audience (which is everybody in town.) Matthew e leads his owner on a chase out the door. He takes over the steering wheel and drives her to the skunk farm. There the owlish man’s crew is loading the meteorite onto a company truck. Meff leaps out of the car and starts chewing on the tires to make them flat. Other skunks join him. The owl returns and attacks. This is a fight to the death. The owl severely wounds Matthew. As Matthew bleeds, he sprays the owl in the eyes, blinding him. Polly carries the wounded Matthew to the caves and feeds him a rotten egg. He returns as a boy, to find that animal control has come to rescue the owl and his owner is looking desperately for her brave little skunk.

[Lisa Molenda]

Lisa’s Show Summary

What I learned doing this assignment is that I already have the material for my summary, so it was easier than I thought it would be to write the summary.

Jane is a vegan activist and animal lover who feeds the wildlife who come to her door every day. She is a biomedical research PHD student who is also taking care of her sick mother at home. She is being stalked by Marc, a Vampire, who is intrigued by her good heart. Jane goes to an animal protest and is hit by a slaughterhouse transport truck. Marc gives her some of his blood, so she doesn’t die.

Jane is angered by the situation, but time is running out as her cravings get stronger, and she has to get back home to care for her sick mother, and she has a lecture to teach at school. She has to make a choice, to feed on human or animal blood, or die.

She makes it home to care for her mom, and is tempted by her mom’s warm body. She goes outside to feed the animals and is tempted by them, too, and they are now afraid of her. Ammo, an anti-vegan frenemy who works at her school, shows up to her house to check on her. She ends up feeding on him and the life force starts to leave his body. She now has to decide how she will keep her ethics as a vegan while also being a vampire.

[Griffith Lambert]

Module 2 Lesson 6

Griff’s Show Summary for THE LAST STRAW

What I learned doing this assignment: I have been waffling about the main character(s) but now I see this as a coming-of-age story about the brother’s journey, not primarily about the mother’s.

Format: Engage us in the main mystery.

How do two completely opposite teen brothers navigate adolescence with no father at home and a single mother who is distracted by forging a career?

Brothers Randy and Todd are separated by only two years, but they are light-years apart in personality. Randy is small, athletic and angry while younger brother Todd, artistic and big for his age, is constantly being misidentified as the older of the two, leading to Randy’s incessant bullying of his “little” brother.

Single mom Stephanie is tired of shilling vanity products to young mothers, thinly disguised as a parental advice column. Even as she bids for more serious assignments at her magazine, Randy and Todd are constantly at each other’s throats and failing at school, putting Stephanie on notice that their messy home life needs some attention.

When the neighbor’s troubled daughter and Randy’s crush, Marcey, drops a tantalizing scandal in her lap, Stephanie must find a way to pursue the story while keeping county social services from putting the unmanageable boys in foster care.

Pressures boil over and lead to a huge argument that spills into the street and brings out the neighbors and the cops.

The next morning finds things settled down, except that both Stephanie and Marcey have gone missing.

Separated then absorbed into the foster care system, Randy and Todd team up and hatch their own plan to hit the road to find out what happened to Stephanie and Marcey.

[Brenda Clarke]

LESSON 6 Writing Opening Summary

I started out writing for a Pilot as Inciting Incident and felt it wasn’t grabbing me so then switched to B: Highlights of The Entire Season. Even though this is a first rough draft I feel it has more potential to HOOK the reader. (fingers crossed)

ANTIPODES 1 hr episode Historical/Drama

England 1830’s. Harriet Wright a middle-class horse trainer wakes one morning to find her maid hasn’t turned up from her day off. She leaves no stone unturned to find her, which leads her to the criminal underworld. To gain the trust of the underworld boss she must partake in crime. Will they give her answers of the whereabouts of her maid Rosie? Can she trust them or is she being used? To protect her from the authorities she decides to dress as a man when working with the criminal underworld boss. Can she keep her dark secret that Rosie her maid is her lover from her doting mother? Harriet is a woman of action and will go to the ends of the earth to be with her one true love.

Elliot Otto Edwards an aristocratic gentleman narrowly escapes being arrested when he and his lover Richard spend the night in a Molly House. His lover, a common sailor is arrested for “crimes of an unnatural act”. Elliot becomes a recluse and hits the bottle not knowing what to do about his circumstances. Eventually he comes out to his sister and finds the courage to rescue his lover. Will he forfeit his heritage and wealth to be with the love of his life or sacrifice his happiness to fulfil his father’s wishes, to continue the family blood-line.

Both Harriet and Elliot have a chance meeting when in London and discover they have common ground. The two decide to work together to find their lovers and venture into a marriage of convenience, which surprises both their families. Rosie has been arrested along with her sister Tily for being in possession of stolen clothing and are about to be shipped off to Australia for 7 years hard labour. Richard on the other hand is held up in a ship hulk prior to his court appearance. He manages to avoid the noose and is sentenced to 10 years hard labour in Australia.

The voyage for all three convicts is perilous with sickness, unwanted pregnancy and sailing through severe storms and death. Their lovers Harriet and Elliot find out only too late that the ship has sailed for the Antipodes. What will they do? Will they make the dramatic decision to set sail after Rosie and Richard or live a fake unfulfilled life together just to make their families happy?