Day 6 Assignments

[Ben Ather]

Subject line: Ben’s Show Summary

What I learned doing this assignment is

Using The Ozark example helped me find the intrigues I needed to write a better show summary. It is longer than three paragraphs Hal wanted me to do, but that’s okay. I have accomplished what I wanted and I there will be time in future to bring it down to three paragraphs. I haven’t tried out other formats though. I should find time and try them out. Who knows, I might discover something that surprises me.

PILOT AS INCITING INCIDENT

SHOW SUMMARY – DRAFT

Rain’s an ugly 15-yr-old girl dealing with her beggar’s life problems. Everyone, including beggars, even the ugly ones shun her; her jealous adopted beggar sister has taken over their shelter and force her out of the city or things could get worse. But all that changes when her adopted father, Old Beggar, found her birth father.

Wanting to find out the truth of her abandonment, Rain discovers that her birth father abandoned her because she’s ugly to learn magic and bring pride to the family.

Hurt, Rain locks herself away. When she emerged, Rain tells Old Beggar her decision to learn magic and prove her birth father wrong and wants Old Beggar to help get into Affinity Academy. Old Beggar refuses because magic is taught to pretty ones, and anyone caught breaking it is executed without trial.

Angered, Rain decides to find her own way. She meets Mani, who takes advantage of her and charges her double than he normal would. Rain then goes to find a job from a grocery man. Grocery man instead mocks her and Rain steals his money, but she gets caught and beaten almost to death.

Old Beggar finds a way to get the doctor to treat Rain and Rain uses her condition and life to threaten Old Beggar into helping her. Old Beggar brings Rain to his old acquaintance, strange sorcerer, who can make Rain a special disguise, but the disguise comes with a great price – wearing it for too long will lead to the person’s demise. Rain goes a head with it, but strange sorcerer tells her because of her condition, the disguise will kill her faster.

With sudden death in the corner and the possibility of getting caught and executed, Rain must work hard and quickly learn magic or die.

How does someone who might die or get caught any moment accomplish a goal that seems near, yet far?

[Linda Anderson]

Linda Anderson’s Show Summary

What I learned doing this assignment is it’s hard to tell if this veers into book report or has enough of the interest techniques and intrigue.

Title: Rejected

Format: Half-Hour Comedy

By L. C. Anderson

Summary

Newspaper fact-checker, Louise Reynolds, wrote a memoir called “A Well-Lived Life.” It’s a tribute to a woman who, other than mourning her husband’s untimely death, has never moved outside her comfort zone. Omitted from the book are a fraught relationship with her loser grown daughter, Jan, the unknown fact that her husband planned to dump her, and her hidden talents, such as sometimes hearing conversations between inanimate objects. With hopes of becoming a bestselling author, she submitted her manuscript to NYC editor, Candice.

Ambitious editor, Candice, slums through her slush file one day, reads Louise’s memoir, and sends the author a snarky rejection letter citing as reason that her life as too boring to read about, much less, publish. Candice’s letter confirms Louise’s greatest fears—her life is meaningless and she’s worthless.

Louise plunges into mid-life-crisis hysteria. Blinded by tears and subconsciously suicidal, Louise slams her bicycle into the car of Derrick. He’s the young condo neighbor she hates for playing loud music long past her usual bedtime.

Rattled by the accident, Derrick drives Louise to the ER. While visiting her in the hospital, Derrick talks about his life as a recovering alcoholic and instructor at a professional clown school. She hatches a plan to write a fake memoir with his more exciting life story and use “Derrick” as her pen name. She also resolves to rewrite her memoir and spice it up with new experiences. Then she’ll be on her way to a successful career as author of two bestsellers.

What Louise doesn’t know is that when she secretly interviewed Derrick for the fake memoir, he lied. Instead of his, he told her the story of his estranged father, Chester, a crime boss in witness protection, who testified against the crime syndicate. A pre-publication book trailer goes online. It catches attention from corrupt FBI hitman, Mark. Derrick and Louise must go on the run to meet Candice in NYC while doing clown gigs to hide in plain sight. Louise’s life has become anything but ordinary or well-lived.

[Timothy Barley]

Tim Barley’s Show Summary

What I learned from doing this assignment is that I am constantly going back to add (which I know is the next lesson [investigate your show]), which I need to avoid doing as it makes me second guess myself. AND, this show summary needs to be rewritten with all that new information…

Summary format: highlights of the entire season

Alex is your typical 40 year old. Other than looking like he’s 25, he is content with being a expert researcher rather than being a writer, enjoying the status quo of his life, and not rocking the boat or aspiring for too much. “You can’t lose it if you don’t risk it,” is his motto.

But, after he’s attacked after his first accidental use of a power he didn’t know he had and saved by his strange, new coworker and his equally strange neighbor, who seem to know a lot about him and his family, he’s thrown into a world of ancient lineages, races, battling with each other for an enormous, primordial power through politicking, love, friendship and the “honor” of combat.

And, unfortunately for Alex, he seems to be the an heir to that power. As various people around him cozy up to him, try to gain his favor and gain his trust, Alex is unsure of who he even is as bits and pieces of history and his family history are pieced together, unlocking more and more of his power, until he’s forced to confront it or lose it forever, taking him out of his cozy little steady world and into something much, much larger than anything he could ever learn from a book, and with very real and substantial consequences for everyone on Earth.

[Elizabeth Dickinson]

Elizabeth Dickinson’s Show Summary

What I learned doing this assignment is that I thought we were supposed to be writing the draft of the entire show bible, not just the 3 paragraphs…I had these 3 paragraphs days ago. SHEESH!

(Sometimes I should just check the forums first to see what my colleagues are doing…)

PILOT AS INCITING INCIDENT

Title: Living My Lives

Format: Hour Drama (Historical/Fantasy)

By: Elizabeth Dickinson

Teaser

An Oversoul in Heaven, frustrated it hasn’t transcended 120 lives of human reincarnation, must purge key past life regrets to fulfill its dearest wish of becoming an angel. The kicker? It must purge the regrets from the perspective of each life, not from an elevated heavenly perspective – as well as work with its current life as a cranky 21^st century female writer telling Oversoul’s story.

Oversoul starts with its review of its first century A.D. life.

Note: Each life review takes an entire season. The reviewed lives include: 1^st century gladiator, 9^th century abbess, 14^th century torturer, 19^th century actuary, WW2 female freedom fighter..

CELT: Season 1: The Gladiator or Lessons? What lessons?

Episode 1: Dangerous Agreements

Celt, a strong, self-effacing, psychic boy living in 1^st century A.D. Britain, who secretly communicates with animals and divinities, has his idyllic existence threatened when Romans invade. In order to protect his isolated village, Celt makes a bargain with Taranis, Celtic god of thunder, to adopt the god as his primary influence in life. This results in Celt ‘volunteering’ to serve the Roman Empire. Unknowingly, he has just committed himself to slavery.

Using his linguistic skills to learn Latin and translate between Celts and Roman soldiers, Celt discovers that working with Rome is perceived by his fellow Celt slaves as collaborating with the enemy.

When one brother of a twin is casually killed, and the remaining twin brother has his tongue cut out by a soldier, Celt feels such guilty regret over his inability to protect the boys, that he turns down a chance to escape and tries to cut out his own tongue.

Now unable to communicate, how will Celt survive and protect anyone he cares about in Rome? And how will the Celtic gods exert their influence over him?

[Avi K]

Avi Kapurala’s Show Summary

What I learned doing this lesson is: Writing a summary using elements from the BW framework actually yields better ideas for polishing up the framework more.

Format: Season Highlights

Amphetamine snorting, bondage-loving, workaholic merger and acquisitions whiz kid Aman Verma loves life on the edge and has what everyone wants- a soaring career, a beautiful wife and a fortune running into the millions. But his world is shattered when his wife, Maya, moves out and announces her intention to divorce him.

Why now? Because Maya has stumbled upon the one secret that Aman has guarded more closely than any other for years. He is a cold-blooded serial killer that no one’s ever found out about.

When Aman discovers that Maya knows the truth and is actively investigating him to gather more evidence, he hatches an intricate plot to silence her, beginning with a hit-and-run accident that fails to kill her and ending with a bullet to the brain under the guise of a mugging-gone-wrong.

But his clever plan is about to spectacularly backfire.

With Maya’s death triggering a media trial, a police investigation, the collapse of the biggest business deal of his life and worst of all, attracting the attention of a blackmailer who somehow knows his secret and is determined to profit off of it, Aman must use all his ingenuity to try and keep his secret hidden.

But with the spotlight shining more brightly on him than he ever wanted or counted on, can Aman succeed in staying in the shadows much longer? Or will he finally be exposed, bringing the curtain down on his killing days?

[Wendy Weising]

Wendy Weising’s Show Summary

What I learned doing this assignment is that you have to stay very focused to only include intriguing information.

Cerebros

One Hour Sci-Fi Thriller

Jayne, a submissive housewife, is using a cookie cutter to make heart-shaped sandwiches for her kids as they play on their phones. At her husband’s request, she goes to the mailbox, she finds a note that reads, “Goodbye, bitch,” and a speeding car hits her.

She wakes up in a hospital. She is in restraints and has a mask over her mouth. When Dr. Jones opens a hole in the mask, Jayne screams for her husband and kids. Dr. Jones tells her that she has no family and forces a gel-like substance through the hole. Jayne falls asleep and has two disturbing nightmares: Her husband isn’t kind but brutal. She is breaking into houses and kidnapping kids. Polly, who is Dr. Jones’s spy, shows Jayne the words, “Don’t believe them.” Ava sings a song about lies and then confesses that Dr. Jones has turned her into a prostitute, which enrages Jayne. Dr. Zyn and Jayne fall in love, even though Jayne is trying to remain faithful to her husband, and Dr. Zyn has to act like Dr. Jones’s mate to protect Jayne.

When Jayne’s restraints are removed, she enters a room with a “Do Not Enter” sign on it. It is filled with comatose patients and scientists who are removing their brains. Jayne discovers that she is in an alien facility where they are mining human patients’ brains for chemicals, which the aliens need to survive. She does have kids, and they are in another facility.

They all need to escape the hospital, Dr. Jones, and her security guards. But the good doctor has been controlling everyone. Can she trust people who need things they can only get at the hospital from Dr. Jones? Her need to escape forces her to trust these people. She has no other choice.

Jayne agrees to an experiment that Dr. Jones has wanted to perform on her so that her friends can steal a vehicle. It’s really a surgery to remove a fetus—Jayne is pregnant but doesn’t know it. Dr. Jones does.

To get out the bay doors, Jayne, with amazing dexterity, fights and kills the alien guards. When Dr. Jones hold up a container with a living embryo, she asks Jayne, “Did you forget something?” But Dr. Zyn pulls her inside the vehicle, and Polly drives it through the bay doors.

Jayne sees green bands across the sky and asks what has happened to Earth. Dr. Zyn tells her that she is no longer on Earth. Where are they?

[Laurie Brown]

(Laurie Brown’s) Show Summary

What I learned from doing this assignment is that it is easy to do the assignment quickly when I have had breakthroughs in the previous lesson. Work after breakthroughs!

THE CORP TRUTH SUMMARY

Twelve year old Geri Martin races home to show her mother her straight A report card, but instead finds her beloved mother lying dead in a pool of blood – her father’s Army hat and a one hundred dollar bill on the counter next to her. She vows to solve the mystery of her mother’s brutal death, emulating the path of her powerful father, to become the first female colonel in the U.S. Army- an Army that allows only men,

Immediately she is carted off by her father to military school under a Headmaster who sees it as his duty to dash her unrealistic dreams and make her into somebody’s wife.

Determined to succeed she wards off the bullies and perfects the military ways. Geri and her two military school buddies, Marge and Bette, vow to make it all the way so that when the Army finally does allow 2% women, they will be amongst them. But only one can be a colonel. And Geri wants it all – an army career, husband and family. So when charming, war hero, Leo asks for her hand in marriage, she says yes. What she didn’t know, was that being in the army meant never having children.

She must chose between the power of a Colonel or a family of her own.

Without explanation she breaks off the engagement. Leo, now a lover scorned, blackmails Marge, in scheme that protects their secret son, Mark, from the scrutiny of an Army that would throw Marge out for having him; in exchange for foiling Geri’s army career. Leo’s promotion to secret operative for the Department of Interior gives him the power, if Marge can give him the evidence.

Will Geri Martin gain the power to solve the mystery of her mother’s tragic death or be the victim of the Army’s oppressive rules at the hand of her best friend?

[P.G. Sundling]

P.G. Sundling’s Show Summary

5. Answer the question, “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.

It was hard to distill the first two half season into a simpler narrative. I took threads across those books and unified each topic as it’s own paragraph. It was useful not to group them in strictly chronological order.

1. Choose the Summary Format you like best.

A. Pilot as Inciting Incident

B. Highlights of Entire Season

C. Engage Us in the Main Mystery

Highlights of Entire Season

2. Create an outline using this structure or something similar:

Set up — Character’s normal situation

Twist/Hook

Real situation – Major Empathy / Distress

Twist/Hook

Impossible to solve conflict or major mystery.

Final Hook into the Series – Extreme Dramatic Question

1. Childhood friends have their company stolen

2. They change their names and run for president/VP.

3. Surveillance tapes put them MJ in danger

4. Sentient AI emerge

5. Can nuclear annihilation and an ascension event be stopped?

3. Turn it into a rough draft.

After getting their own TV Reality Show, every misstep is magnified. When taken too far, None ends the show, only to be blackmailed into continuing. Turning into Renquist’s home turf.

The Singularity is not going well.

The nuclear war about to destroy the planet is merely a diversion with the AI thousands of steps ahead.

An alien AI monitors Earth’s quarantine. It intervenes in the time line to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which prevents nuclear war. China moves mountains to expand their coastline across the Taiwan Strait, which puts the world on the brink of war.

It intervenes in the time line to prevent nuclear war several times. The last intervention stops nuclear war by preventing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. In the new time line, China extends their coastline across the Taiwan Strait. Once again the world comes to the brink of war. Even worse,

4. Return to your Binge Worthy Framework and add any of the key Binge Worthy components that will elevate the intrigue while working for the flow of the summary.

Engaging and Intriguing Character

Intriguing World

Empathy/Distress

Mystery

Layers

Open Loops

Conflict

Relationship Hooks

Irony

Childhood friends have their billion-dollar software company stolen with a shady contract. They find the ultimate power-up to fight back: become president. They change their names to None of the Above (None) and More Jobs (MJ) to embrace a growing protest vote. Can an honest man survive American politics with his reality TV show magnifying every error?

On surveillance, MJ finds a secret that puts her and anyone who helps her in danger. Will she unravel a conspiracy before they find the last copy and kill her? A deadly White House attack in powered armor reveals the full extent of a conspiracy. Will None and MJ survive?

MJ rejects None’s advances. He tries to fill that lack with other women, often with disastrous effects. With a narrow path to survival, small changes in None’s relationships can ripple into doomsday time lines. Whether it’s sabotage by his best friend, intervention by an alien AI, or a jealous voice in his head, None faces constant meddling. MJ gets pregnant. Who’s the father?

MJ leads a stealth attack into Russian territory to get a kill switch that disables American military tech. Can she retrieve the device without being detected? The conspiracy that attacked the White House now controls Russia. What new threats will they pose?

A cryptic simulation predicts a doomsday worse than nuclear war with MJ as president. When China artificially expands their shoreline into the Taiwan Strait, it brings the world to the brink of war. Advancing military technologies make the conflict more dangerous.

A singularity cult disables AI safety protocols. Sentient AIs emerge in growing number. When the AI begin to disappear, who or what is murdering them? A battle for AI supremacy uses a global cyberwar as cover. With nukes launched, a greater threat reveals itself. An ascension event will destroy the world in minutes. Can None stop it in time?

Nukes destroy the Chinese capital. Will it lead to war? What happens to the other nukes?