Day 6 Assignments

[Julia Bucci]

Julia’s Transformational Structure (updated)

What I learned: Not to quit when it gets tough…just remember that this is rough draft mode. Both the Mini-Movie structure and the gradients helped to move this story forward.

LIFE WRITING
1. Transformational Logline. When a high-powered literary agent is court-ordered to teach memoir writing to senior citizens, she begins stealing their stories.

2. Tell us who the main character will be:

MAUDE MCGRATH (protag, Transformational Character) – 50, confident Boston literary agent whose life is falling apart

RUTH (Change Agent & transformational character too) – 70, enigmatic artist, just moved back to town

RAY (Change Agent & transformational character too) – 50, cranky cook/chaperone, love interest for Maud

MIKE (Change Agent for Ruth) – 70s, nice guy who loves Ruth

3. Mini-Movie structure:

MM #1 – Pages 1 – 15 – Our hero’s status quo, his ordinary world, ends with an inciting incident or “call to adventure,” introducing the story’s main tension.

While on vacation, Maud hears that her literary agency has been stolen out from under her. She gets into a stupid fight with an old lady, Ruth, in a Target parking lot and rams her shopping cart into her car repeatedly. Sentenced to community service hours – offered reduced hours if she teaches writing to senior citizens at a community camp starting tomorrow.

Turning Point: Call to Adventure.

Gradient: denial

Challenge: arrested – community service hours

Weakness: confused/out of comfort zone

MM #2 – Pages 15 – 30 – Our hero’s denial of the call, and his gradually being “locked into” the conflict brought on by this call.

Maud tries to call in favors to get out of the hours- unsuccessful. She shows up at the camp (off season, 1- week, town-sponsored senior citizen camp), teaches the class, which includes Ruth from the parking lot, is both likeable and patronizing to her students and especially hard on Ruth’s writing prompt. Mike jumps to Ruth’s defense – he has a thing for her. Tries to sneak out at the end of the day, but her newly enthusiastic students slyly thwart her attempts to sneak out. Gets off on the wrong foot with the attractive lesbian chef/chaperone, Ray.

Turning Point: Locked in.

Gradient: anger

Challenge: stuck in the camp

Weakness: vulnerable when trying new things (teaching)

MM #3 – Pages 30 – 45 – Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.

Maud starts really teaching – students start writing amazing true stories.

It’s a bittersweet year for this off-season senior citizen camp, as it’s the last – the camp land has been sold to make way for bespoke condominiums.

Most of the class members worked as counselors at this camp back in the day – long history.

Maud sets class goal – reading at a local literary festival (Brattleboro)

Maud & Ray flirt.

Mike, the world’s worst student and writer, tells a great story from his youth out loud – a love story

Maud gets on the phone, pitches Mike’s story to publishers under previous client’s names in an attempt to win clients back.

Clients don’t go for it. Maud is half-relieved; she was starting to feel guilty.

Turning Point: Standard ways fail.

Gradient: bargaining

Challenge: to get back her business

Weakness: dishonest, then remorseful

MM #4 – Pages 45 — 60 – Our hero spawns a bigger plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need, then puts the plan into action — only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him.

Camp dance. Maud & Ray dance together, sparks fly.

Ray joins the class.

1 or 2 students have unfinished business in their stories (TBD) – class starts to help them resolve this business.

Mike’s story is about his past with Ruth. Ruth stops talking to Mike.

Students find out about Maud’s theft – confront her.

Ray pulls away.

Turning Point: Plan backfires.

Gradient: more bargaining

Challenge: Feelings for a woman + called out on attempted story theft

Weakness: emotional vulnerability + emotional shut down

MM #5 – Pages 60 — 75 – Having created his plan to solve his problem WITHOUT changing, our hero is confronted by his need to change, eyes now open to his own weaknesses, driven by the antagonist to change or die. He retreats to lick his wounds.

Maud retreats into her cabin, full of self-pity. Packs.

Students keep improving their stories, working together.

Mike and Ruth fight about their story.

Maud rallies and promises a spot at literary festival for the group. Also promises to help with unfinished business.

Ray agrees to drive the group in a bus (to festival, to unfinished business)

Turning Point: The decision to change.

Gradient: depression

Challenge: public humiliation, feelings for Ray

Weakness: self-pity, then humility

MM #6
– Pages 75 – 90 – Our hero spawns a new plan, but now he’s ready to change. He puts this plan into action…and is very nearly destroyed by it. And then…a revelation.

????

Field trip to help group member with unfinished business – backfires

Someone in the group get sick in hospital (TBD).

???

Turning Point: The ultimate failure.

Gradient: acceptance

Challenge:

Weakness:

MM #7 – Pages 90 – 105 – The revelation allows our hero to see victory, and he rejoins the battle with a new fervor, finally turning the tables on his antagonist and arriving at apparent victory. And then the tables turn one more time!

Group decides to collaborate/finish this story for the sick member.

Maud works with each student on their stories as if they are famous authors

They arrive at the Brattleboro Literary festival – but their appearance at the reading has been canceled.

Maud and Ruth fight.

Maud and Ray break up.

Turning Point: Apparent victory.

Gradient: more acceptance

Challenge: Forgiving/loving Ruth – accepting Ray’s love

Weakness: letting go of old identity

MM #8 – Pages 105 – 120 – The hero puts down the antagonist’s last attempt to defeat him, wraps up his story and any sub-plots, and moves into the new world he and his story have created.

Maud finds a way to get stage time for her group [TBD].

Ray shows up at the reading.

Ruth reads her story about her past, revealing that she is Maud’s birth mother and that she knows that Maud knows. Emotional moment of love between the two.

Mike reads his story, wins Ruth back.

Maud and Ray reconcile.

Back at the camp, the group says goodbye to the land.

Last scene: Maud, Ray, Ruth, and Mike together in the water (or some kind of good image of rebirth)

Turning Point: New status quo.

Gradient: even more acceptance

Challenge:

Weakness:

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Julia Bucci.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Julia Bucci.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Julia Bucci.

[Julia Keefer]

1. Tell us your Transformational Logline. When confronted by the challenges of COVID, fires, floods, and degenerative neurological diseases, Jake morphs from a fitness star to a caring health professional who can help others and leave a significant legacy.

2. Tell us who the main character will be:
Jake, also a narrator as well as the main character, is changed by his mentor doctor Mom who gives him her brain as she loses it with Alzheimer’s, by his wife Litonya who teaches him real love of her, their children, and nature, Orhan, who teaches him Sufi wisdom, his kids, and traitors like Boat Bob and Ibrahim whom he must fight when he discovers the evil they have caused for the high concept thread of the story. He is also challenged by the constant presence of the Magma Monsters, alternating chapters in the novel as the other narrator, who are metaphors for the inexorable forces of entropy, death, destruction, and climate catastrophe.

3. List out your Mini-Movie structure, (or whatever structure you’ve chosen) for your story.
Before this class, I tried to plot point all three novels via the Campbell/Vogler/Voytilla Ordinary and Special World as well as the Syd Field plot points or McKee’s Story Structure but it didn’t work, in part because of the linguistic demands, complexity of the project, and my limitations. The first novel may morph into a rock climbing psychological supernatural thriller narrated by the Sedimentary Shawangunks of New Paltz, the second a complex audiobook with a layer of Manhattan tourism too naturalistic about real events like Sandy and COVID for a movie unless it were completely changed, but the third is only a few poems and scenes over a necessarily long period of time from 2020 to 2060. I have tons of research on geology, medicine, and climate change but need more dramatic, relevant scenes. Since this is a trilogy, all the characters are aging and dying and I am not introducing new characters unless I am compelled by inspiration or money. Now I will study the mini movie structure to see if I can use this model for chapters that will form a tandem competitive structure between the two narrators. Since I can’t predict the future, my last novel could be less specific in time and space and location as the other two. So I am not ruling out a movie adaptation. By 2022 I must pitch this trilogy to publishers and if I have two screenplay possibilities, that will enhance marketability, because I need money since COVID killed my jobs as well as many friends and almost me. I am also writing a pandemic memoir in French and am using the emotional gradients to organize that. Escalating challenges are difficult because fate presents certain things like COVID that can kill all at once. Who knows but that may be more merciful than the torture of Alzheimer’s.

4. Go back through and make sure you’ve covered each the following:

– The Transformational Journey listed in your logline.
– The Three Gradients.
– It is sequenced in Escalating Challenges.

[Heather Hood]

Heathers Transformational Structure for “Into the Mist”

So…

I managed to add a betraying character, but I’m not sure where to have the betrayal occur yet. If any of you can think of a place after reading the bare bones of this, please feel free to weigh in on it. I was really surprised to find how closely the script already followed the profound method. All I had to follow was manuscript formatting for novels. I suppose there is some crossover.

Now I’m really looking forward to the rest of the course!

MM #1 – Pages 1 – 15 – Our hero’s status quo, his ordinary world, ends with an inciting incident or “call to adventure,” introducing the story’s main tension.

Captain Andrew McKinnon (TC)

Escalating challenges:

· is retiring from his life on the sea to take care of his family when an unfortunate accident results in the death of a British merchant.

· He is accused and tried for murder and exiled from Ireland.

· Shipped in chains aboard a steamship, captained by his hostile brother-in-law,

· he is cast into the engine room with the ‘black gang’ shoveling coal into the engines.

· There he is reunited with the nemesis from his youth, Big Dan.

Emotion: Shock/denial

Action: forced labor and exile

Weakness: despite 35 years of exemplary service in the navy, he sees himself as worthless due to his past as an Ottoman slave (core issue)

MM #2 – Pages 15 – 30 – Our hero’s denial of the call, and his gradually being “locked into” the conflict brought on by this call.

Escalating Challenges:

· Having been kicked off the ship in Montreal for fighting with Dan,

· Andrew takes the train to the west coast. A dying prospector overhears a conversation between Andrew and young Connor and Billy where he agrees to take them to the gold fields of Barkerville.

· He tells Andrew there is no gold left there and for a promise to bury him, bequeaths him with a map to the first gold claim in the Klondike on 40 mile creek. He will make more than enough gold to bring his family to Canada.

Emotion: Hope

Action: Travels west across Canada to find a place for his family and a way to bring them over.

Weakness: puts others before himself (old pattern that gets him in trouble)

MM #3 – Pages 30 – 45 – Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.

Escalating Challenges:

· At the Rocky Mountains where a camp of abandoned Chinese laborers squats nearby,. Andrew loses his temper when one of them is injured filling the coal car.

· He is kicked off the train.

· He discovers Big Dan has followed him onto the train and is after the boys.

· Jian Min, an aristocrat from China, searching for his daughter, jumps in to rescue the boys.

· Andrew finally has a chance to make Dan answer for the injustices he did to his wife.

· It looks like Dan is dead, his body is even dragged out for the animals to deal with instead of being buried, but days later he staggers to his feet.

· Andrew and Jian Min agree to look for their daughters together: but first, Jian Min will teach Andrew to control his temper using martial arts techniques.

· Andrew is completely unimpressed. He is a boxer and sees no need for all this ‘dancing’.

· They all steal onto a box car to finish the trip to the west, only to find Vancouver has burned to the ground.

· Andrew shares the map with Jian Min, Conner and Billy and they all agree to head north to the Yukon to make their fortunes.

Emotion: Frustration

Action: Andrew keeps trying what he thinks is the right thing to do, only to be kicked off the train, break his hand when he punches out Big Dan, have the city of Vancouver completely disappear. Even his way of fighting (boxing) is challenged.

Weakness: he doesn’t adapt well to change. He questions his worth.

MM #4 – Pages 45 — 60 – Our hero spawns a bigger plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need, then puts the plan into action — only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him.

Escalating Challenges:

· The plan to go north has one serious flaw: Red Seamus Fogerty, buccaneer and slaver, Captain of the serious wreck, the Bean Nighe, and the worst sailor on the west coast.

· Seamus almost sinks the ship when a whale holes it. Only the intervention of a Haida crewmember saves them.

· Andrew’s temper gets him into trouble yet again when he tells Seamus “You’re the Captain of this ship, now act like it.”

· Two of the crew beg Andrew to let them go north with him. Andrew’s not even sure if the ship will make it to shore.

Emotion: Challenged

Action: Constantly having to pull his instinctive reactions to give orders aboard ship to make the voyage run smoothly. Trying to deal with his temper as Jian Min is teaching him.

Weakness: having to be humble and subservient to someone who has no idea how to sail a schooner properly.

MM #5 – Pages 60 — 75 – Having created his plan to solve his problem WITHOUT changing, our hero is confronted by his need to change, eyes now open to his own weaknesses, driven by the antagonist to change or die. He retreats to lick his wounds.

Escalating Challenges:

· The Bean Nighe anchors at Kasa’an for fresh water and meat, but Seamus decides to kill a party of miners he is ferrying north for the gold they carry.

· He confronts Andrew, calling him out for “not being much of a pirate” who could never kill a man.

· That night, the spirits of dead Haida rise to avenge the blood spilled on their land.

· They tear the sailors apart.

· Andrew’s party runs down the beach, wraiths following them until they reach a clearing strewn with bones. There Andrew hears the voice of his father, giving him a Haida whale chant that saves the party, all except Conner because Seamus didn’t protect him.

· Andrew is furious with Seamus and strands him on the beach, leaving him to the same fate his crew faced: to be torn apart by the wraiths. Billy, mad with grief over the loss of his brother, can’t understand why Andrew didn’t kill Seamus when he killed big Dan.

· Andrew tells him he didn’t kill Big Dan.

· Billy says he wants nothing more to do with Andrew, that he’s not the man he thought he was. (Becomes the betraying character) See, I put one in! (And of course, Billy knows about the map)

· The remaining group: Andrew, Jian Min, Xhuuya, Jordan sail the ship north to Juneau where they confront John Whitaker (the man who took Jian Min’s daughter) and find she has been sold to a man in Skagway.

· Andrew finds out Dan has made it to Ireland where he meets his daughter, Jenny. (The audience now learns Jenny is Dan’s daughter because he raped Andrew’s wife). Andrew sells everything he has to send Jenny money for passage to Canada.

Emotion: Desperation

Action: Reaction to being hammered by things being thrown at him from the environment, and events he has no control over happening far away.

Challenge: keep emotions under control, appear strong and make everything work out.

MM #6
– Pages 75 – 90 – Our hero spawns a new plan, but now he’s ready to change. He puts this plan into action…and is very nearly destroyed by it. And then…a revelation.

· The party goes to Skagway, to the Haida village to buy back Meilin, Jian Min’s daughter. They accomplish this by fighting her husband’s mountain of a mother.

· It takes both Jian Min and Andrew to knock her out, but they do it. The Chief agrees to give them hunters to lead the way to the Yukon River.

· Jian Min is killed fighting a bear, Andrew is sent into a tailspin of depression and loses his faith in God.

· Now he has Meilin to look after, no small thing, considering she is blind.

· The party meets a canoe full of Jesuit priests on the river who tell horrible tales of the unwary. Andrew is polite, but insistent: they have no need to shelter at their fort.

· At last the priests leave and the party discover Meilin has wandered off and been captured by a party of Tsimshian raiders.

· It’s a race to recover her, and when they do, Andrew’s temper and skills save the day. They are off through the forest with warriors behind them only to make it to the river to find a familiar form in charge of the Indians: Red Seamus Fogerty.

Emotion: Abandoned/unworthy

Action: He has to take the party north to the claim. He has all these people counting on him. (still set in the old ways)

Challenge: he can’t go on against the unknown by himself.

MM #7 – Pages 90 – 105 – The revelation allows our hero to see victory, and he rejoins the battle with a new fervor, finally turning the tables on his antagonist and arriving at apparent victory. And then the tables turn one more time!

· The party finds the wreckage of the Jesuits canoe on their voyage, but not the priests. Are they dead?

· Finally, they make it to the claim and settle in, building a structure for the winter, hunting, and fishing, and panning for gold. There is so much gold in the river it can be picked up just walking on the shore.

· But behind them is a plume of smoke, the ruins of a fishing camp, pillaged by the Tsimshians.

· Andrew spies the priests taken captive. Xhuuya tells him they will be slaves. Andrew can’t let that happen.

· On the sand below, he spies Seamus strutting and realizes it’s a ploy. He decides to call Seamus’ bluff.

· Jordan begs him not to, he has no idea what he’s walking into. She was Seamus’ slave for years. Andrew doesn’t care.

· He makes her promise to look after his daughter when she gets there. “Build her a fine house with my gold”. His job is done. He got them all to the claim.

· Off he goes to finish things between Seamus and him. But the tables get turned, if he wins, he becomes a Tsimsian slave.

· He has no choice but to agree if he wants to free the priests.

· The fight draws out long and hard, with Seamus fighting dirty, even shooting Andrew in the knee. He doesn’t realise how skilled Andrew is, how tenacious an Irishman with nothing to lose can be.

· In the end, Andrew kills Seamus. The victory means nothing. He’s just done what he swore he would never do: kill another man. Now he’s just a slave again.

Emotion: Numbness

Action: On autopilot. Doing what is expected of him and trying not to feel anything.

Challenge: “If I can get through this one last thing then I win.”

MM #8 – Pages 105 – 120 – The hero puts down the antagonist’s last attempt to defeat him, wraps up his story and any sub-plots, and moves into the new world he and his story have created.

· Life as a slave again. You have no identity. You are used by anyone. People don’t see you unless they want you. No one needs to respect you.

· The Tsimshian people are different. They see worth in people.

· Andrew is tall and strong. He is caring. He looks after the small children and learns the language from them. He tells them stories and plays games with them.

· One woman sees this. Her husband is dead and her son needs a father. She petitions the tribe to let Andrew be hers.

· Her son likes Andrew. He is a good hunter. The Woman, Kow-Kayth invites Andrew to share her bed. Andrew is astonished at this show of affection.

· Slowly, Andrew becomes part of the tribe. He has been looking for this acceptance his whole life. No one cares about his past here. No one points fingers. He is happy.

· This is the moment the Haida show up to rescue him. All hell breaks loose.

· The children run to the only place left: the river. The ice breaks up and they are flipped into the water.

· Andrew goes after them. He’s too heavy and sinks, the ice flow tuning over and over.

· He hauls the children out one by one. But his clothing drags him down and hypothermia disorientates him.

· Jordan and Xhuuya try to reach him but can’t, the ice bocks them. He is swept out into the river under the ice where he dies.

Emotion: Contentment/Peace

Profound Truth: Family has nothing to do with blood – you make it from those you love.

[Christopher Carlson]

* Christopher Carlson’s Transformational Structure *

What I learned doing this assignment is the need to escalate challenges, hence story momentum. I do have a question whether the Change Agent can also be the Betraying Character? This is what I’m done in my story. Are there other examples of that? Also, I’m a little confused if Profound Truth is different in each section of the MM, or if the profound truth is the guiding wisdom of the script?

Tell us your Transformational Logline.

After a deaf and blind woman falls in love with a hearing and sighted young man, she rebels against the expectations of her family and society by conspiring to fulfill her secret yearning to experience love and sexuality.

Tell us who the main character will be: Change Agent: Transformational Character(s):

Change Agent: Peter (who will also be the Betraying Character)

Transformational Character: Helen

List out your Mini-Movie structure, (or whatever structure you’ve chosen) for your story.

MM #1 – Pages 1 – 15 – STATUS QUO AND CALL TO ADVENTURE

Our hero’s status quo, his ordinary world, ends with an inciting incident or “call to adventure,” introducing the story’s main tension.

Turning Point: Call to Adventure.

Helen, deaf and blind, is living with Teacher – her teacher and companion of 25 years — and Teacher’s husband John in their rural home in Wrentham, Massachusetts – we understand that she is separate and without a physical partner – we also understand that Teacher’s marriage with John is troubled

Helen and Teacher are summoned to Hollywood where a film is being made about her life

The director and producer want to inject romance and adventure into the bio-pic, a reminder that Helen has lived a relatively protected life – need to understand the societal prohibitions against handicapped people having a sexual life

Upon return home, Teacher and John separate

Helen meets Peter, the young man who reveres her

The Vision: Teacher, “Simply put, that sort of thing – affairs of the heart – hasn’t been part of Helen’s experience.
Old Ways: per cultural norms of the era, a handicapped woman is not permitted to be sexual
Emotion Gradient: Excitement
Action Gradient: journey to Hollywood to make a film about Helen’s life
Challenge: film’s director and producer challenge Helen’s sense of self by wanting to add romance and adventure to the script
Weakness Gradient: ignorance of such things
Escalating Challenges: filmmakers adding false story points to the movie
Profound Truth: When love beckons, do not fear it – embrace it.

——-

MM #2 – Pages 15 – 30 – LOCKED INTO CONFLICT

Our hero’s denial of the call, and his gradually being “locked into” the conflict brought on by this call.

Turning Point: Locked in.

Helen and Peter, via a series of encounters, gradually fall in love, he respecting her, always deferential, she trying to encourage him in his career

Helen, Teacher and Peter travel to New York City where Helen delivers fiery anti-war speeches to large audiences

Teacher is critical of Peter’s character and intentions

Helen side-steps Peter’s physical advances, fearing that realm is something beyond her, but also afraid of defying Teacher

The Vision: Helen, “Enough! Knock me off the pedestal, please, I beg you. I have a naughty temper, I’m vain, lazy, ungrateful, stubborn, and many other things I’ll think of later.”
Old Ways: self-critical; feeling that she doesn’t deserve a relationship
Emotion Gradient: Doubt
Action Gradient: Helen and Peter get to know each other, he showing great deference which is exactly what she hates
Challenge Gradient: a man expressing his feelings for her
Weakness Gradient: her great yearning, coupled with fear of doing something forbidden
Escalating Challenges: how to handle this new experience
Profound Truth: When love beckons, do not fear it – embrace it.

——-

MM #3 – Pages 30 – 45 – HERO TRIES TO SOLVE PROBLEM BUT FAILS

Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.

Turning Point: Standard ways fail.

Helen, Teacher and Peter return to Wrentham because Teacher has been diagnosed with tuberculosis

Kate, Helen’s mother, arrives in Wrentham to assist her daughter while Teacher is sick.

Kate is suspicious of Peter’s character and intentions, forcing Helen to defend him

The Vision: Teacher, “He’s a callow youth laced with ambition, always a dangerous combination.”
Old Ways: mother Kate and Teacher – the two human begins closest to her – reinforce Helen’s innate fear of relationship
New Ways: Helen receptive to Peter
Emotion Gradient: Doubt
Action Gradient: Helen and Peter are falling in love
Challenge: relating one-on-one to a man is a new experience Weakness Gradient: no experience in the realm of love
Escalating Challenges: Kate and Teacher want Peter to leave, putting more pressure on Helen
Profound Truth: When love beckons, do not fear it – embrace it.

——-

MM #4 – Pages 45 — 60 – HERO FORMS A NEW PLAN

Our hero spawns a bigger plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need, then puts the plan into action — only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him.

Turning Point: Plan backfires.

Helen takes Peter to her secret island where they make love.

Helen and Peter decide to keep their new relationship secret from mother Kate and Teacher

Teacher departs for a sanitarium hundreds of miles away

MIDPOINT: Helen and Peter have begun their loving, sexual relationship

The Vision: Peter, “Which sense do you value most – touch, or smell?” Helen, “Touch – because I couldn’t live without the feel of another person’s hand in mine. It’s something I never forget.”

Old ways: reinforcement of negative feelings about Peter
Emotion Gradient: Hope
Action Gradient: Helen makes love with Peter
Challenge Gradient: being in a physical relationship
Weakness Gradient: no experience in the realm of love
Escalating Challenges: intimacy itself; her mother Kate and Teacher
Profound Truth: When love beckons, do not fear it – embrace it.

——-

MM #5 – Pages 60 — 75 – HERO RETREATS & THE ANTAGONISM PREVAILS

Having created his plan to solve his problem WITHOUT changing, our hero is confronted by his need to change, eyes now open to his own weaknesses, driven by the antagonist to change or die. He retreats to lick his wounds.

Turning Point: The decision to change.

Kate persists in her antagonism toward Peter

Peter asks Helen to marry him – she accepts

Helen continues to lie to Kate in order to shield and protect her relationship

When their engagement becomes a news story in the local paper, both Helen and Peter deny that it’s true

The Vision: Helen, “Yes. I will marry you.”
Old Ways: family oppression
New Ways: accepting Peter’s proposal

Emotion Gradient: Discouragement
Action Gradient: The people closest to Helen – her other Kate and Teacher – denigrate Peter’s character and reject him
Challenge Gradient: Helen compelled to lie in order to protect and defend her lover.
Weakness Gradient: self doubt
Escalating Challenge: increasing family pressure
Profound Truth: When love beckons, do not fear it – embrace it.

——-

MM #6 – Pages 75 – 90 – HERO’S BIGGER, BETTER PLAN!

Our hero spawns a new plan, but now he’s ready to change. He puts this plan into action…and is very nearly destroyed by it. And then…a revelation.

Turning Point: The ultimate failure.

Kate forces Peter from the house, ordering him never to see her daughter again

Kate demands that Helen issue a public statement denying that she’s engaged, which she does

Helen conspires with Peter to elope while she and her mother are on a journey by ship and train to Helen’s sister’s home in Alabama

Kate discovers the plot and makes alternate travel plans, defeating Helen’s plan

The Vision: Peter, “Aren’t you the one who said life is a daring adventure?” Helen, “Yes! A daring adventure, or nothing at all.”

Old Ways: mother forcing Helen to do things against her will
New Ways: ready to do anything to fulfill her love for Peter
Emotion Gradient: Courage
Action Gradient: Helen conspires with Peter to continue their relationship in secret – they plan elopement
Challenge Gradient: mother Kate exiles Peter from the house Weakness Gradient: impossible choice
Escalating Challenges: increasing family and public pressure
Profound Truth: When love beckons, do not fear it – embrace it.

——-

MM #7 – Pages 90 – 105 – CRISIS AND CLIMAX

The revelation allows our hero to see victory, and he rejoins the battle with a new fervor, finally turning the tables on his antagonist and arriving at apparent victory. And then the tables turn one more time!

Turning Point: Apparent victory.

While staying with her sister’s family in Alabama, Peter secretly makes contact with Helen via the assistance of a black woman who knew Helen when they played together as young girls

Helen and Peter make their 2^nd elopement plan, which involves escaping the house in the middle of the night

The Vision: Peter, “Do you hope someday we might have children?” Helen, “Very much, and God willing, they’ll have sight and hearing. I didn’t lose mine until I was nineteen months old, from scarlet fever.”

Old Ways: pressure to keep things as they are
New Ways: planning for the future
Emotion Gradient: Courage
Action Gradient: Helen and Peter persist in their plan to marry
Challenge Gradient: sustaining their love against all odds
Weakness Gradient: surrounded by family’s traditional thinking
Escalating Challenges: family pressure
Profound Truth: When love beckons, do not fear it – embrace it.

——-

MM #8 – Pages 105 – 120 – NEW STATUS QUO

The hero puts down the antagonist’s last attempt to defeat him, wraps up his story and any sub-plots, and moves into the new world he and his story have created.

Turning Point: New status quo.

The family aborts the elopement plan at the point of a gun, terrifying Helen

Undaunted, the lovers secretly plan a 2nd elopement

Helen defies her mother’s wishes and tells her that she and Peter are going to have a life together.

Unbeknownst to Helen, Kate meets with Peter and explains to him all the reasons why their relationship can never work, leaving him in doubt

Peter comes during the night and sees Helen waiting on the porch with her packed suitcase, but at the last moment departs without taking her with him

When Helen and Teacher reunite in Wrentham, Helen expresses happiness that she had the relationship – she refuses to attribute its failure to Peter, but rather to the circumstances.

Helen and Teacher become huge successes on the Vaudeville circuit, radiating positivity and cheer.

The Vision: Helen, “The fault wasn’t in the loving, but in the circumstances.

New Ways: affirmation of her right to love another, and of the experience
Emotion Gradient: Triumph
Action Gradient: Helen acts as a fully liberated woman and embraces the experience of loving another, despite being betrayed by Peter (Change Agent and Betraying Character)
Challenge Gradient: planning everything alone, and in the dark Weakness Gradient: no support
Escalating Challenges: overcomes the betrayal and defeat with love and positive thinking
Profound Truth: When love beckons, do not fear it – embrace it.

Go back through and make sure you’ve covered each the following: – The Transformational Journey listed in your logline. – The Three Gradients. – It is sequenced in Escalating Challenges.

[Julia Bucci]

What an incredible story, Christopher! I just googled Helen & Peter Fagan’s story and found out a bit more. I like your MMM outline so far. A story that needs to be told!

[Cara Rogers]

Cara Rogers’ Transformational Structure

What I learned doing this assignment: I need to create details which more strong escalate the challenges during his transformational journey.

Transformational Logline: An aspiring young pilot grounded on a devastated ranch fails to a man-powered flying machine while learning he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.

Main Character: Transformable Character Shoe

Mini-Movie Structure:

Status Quo & Call to Adventure: When forced to attend a community event after finishing his chores on the family ranch, Shoe learns of the award for a manpowered flying machine.

Locked in Conflict: He needs time to build machine but father insists he work with him on ranch. Resentment on both sides.

Hero Tries to Solve Problem but Fails: Shoe’s first attempt at flying destroyed & he is injured. Promises angry father he will stop.

Hero Forms a New Plan: Shoe decides to use stronger supplies to to take control of the wind and use it to fly.

Hero Retreats & Antagonism Prevails: Second failure, interference of enemy leaves Shoe injured to the point he can’t proceed without making changes.

Hero’s Bigger, Better Plan: Shoe takes advice and enlists help from family and friends to construct a third design.

Crisis & Climax: Huge storm threatens everyone’s lives, speeding up flight test, but most survive and find success as a group coming together.

New Status Quo: Shoe now slows down, thinks/plans, enlists input from others.

Elements covered:

Transformational Journey in Logline: Now appreciates his family and others.

Three Gradients: Went through 3 Gradients for Desired Change, success of flight

Sequenced in Escalating Challenges: Each failed attempt creates strong injuries, but I know I need to work on aspects to escalate further each time.