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Lesson 1
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7 Replies
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Subject Line: Claudia’s Character Journey Structure.
My vision: To become the best screenwriter I can be, and to find success in the industry.
What I learned from this assignment is: doing this exercise for each character automatically results in a multi-layered story being woven into the screenplay. How cool!
Character Structure for Grace O’Malley, protagonist.
Beginning: Grace is a dutiful daughter, reporting for duty as an Army nurse in WWII.
Inciting Incident: Grace meets Booker, a Tuskegee airman and is attracted to him even though her family would be appalled.
Turning Point 1: Grace follows the directions of a doctor even though she and Ann both think his diagnosis is wrong – and Ann, a more experienced nurse, urges her not to do so. Grace’s patient dies because of the incorrect treatment.
Act 2: Grace falls for Booker and tells her parents about him. They are horrified, and remind her of her duty to uphold the family’s honor – unlike her brother.
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: In an effort to forget Booker, Grace starts dating a White soldier – and gets pregnant. She goes to tell him about the pregnancy – and finds him with another woman. She tries to commit suicide, but Ann stops her.
Act 3: Lacking any good options, Grace asks Ann to perform an abortion, which Ann does.
Turning Point 3: Grace confesses her love to Booker, but he rejects her. Ann, comforting Grace, confesses her love – and Grace rejects her.
Act 4 Climax: Grace and Ann fight to save Booker, who is badly injured, while their field hospital is under attack. Ann sacrifices herself to save them.
Resolution: Booker confesses his love and agrees that he and Grace should try to make a life together.
Character Structure for Ann Wahl, antagonist.
Beginning: As a teenager, Ann realizes she is attracted to other women.
Inciting Incident: Ann’s parents find her kissing another girl, kick her out of the house and disown her.
Turning Point 1: Ann joins the Army, trains as a nurse, hides her sexual orientation at all costs.
Act 2: Ann meets Grace, can’t help but fall for her.
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: Grace falls for Booker, and Ann is jealous.
Act 3: Ann works to undermine Booker in Grace’s eyes (and maybe vice versa).
Turning Point 3: Ann talks obliquely about loving whoever you want – and Grace thinks she’s talking about Grace’s love for Booker, not Ann’s love for her.
Act 4 Climax: Grace rejects Ann after she confesses her love.
Resolution: Ann realizes she loves Grace enough to want her to be happy. She sacrifices herself to give Grace and Booker a chance at life and love. Ann dies.
Character Structure for Booker Thomas, love interest.
Beginning: Booker is raised in segregated Alabama.
Inciting Incident: Booker’s father is lynched for allegedly disrespecting a White woman. Booker vows to live a life as separate from Whites as possible.
Turning Point 1: Booker joins the Tuskegee airmen, is sent to the European theater.
Act 2: Booker meets Grace and is attracted to her but rejects any idea of a relationship.
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: Rachel Schneider, a Jewish nurse, befriends Booker after he encounters yet another racist incident.
Act 3: Booker rejects Grace even though he is in love with her.
Turning Point 3: Rachel convinced Booker not to give up on his life – and to try to win back Grace.
Act 4 Climax: Booker gets in dogfight protecting a bomber – and is left behind by those pilots. He crashes – and everything goes black.
Resolution: Booker discovers that Ann and Grace have saved him. He admits his love for Grace, agrees that they should try to make a life together.
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Subject line: Will Jennings’ Character Structure
My Vision: I will write movies that are extremely funny and entertaining and bring a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment to a world starving for true enjoyment.
What I learned from doing this assignment is how the antagonist has a completely different timeline of events than the protagonist.
2. Start with the Protagonist and your source material. Create a beginning, middle, and end of the character’s story.
Dual Protagonists (The Twin Girls)
Beginning: The girls are informed by their mother the Queen; it is time to travel to Earth and begin the mission.
Middle: The girls find out that Brandi’s mom is the leader of a crime family and they have put a lot of people in danger.
End: The gang summons all their mobsters to the twins’ house to show them who is boss once and for all. The fairies and muses appear and disappear while punching out the bad guys until they split.
3. Add the rest of the structure to the characters in the script. Try to get to the point as we’ve done in the Iron Man example above.
Beginning: The girls are informed by their mother the Queen it is
time to travel to Earth and begin the mission. <div>Inciting Incident: The girls are introduced in school
and a rude girl embarrasses them in front of the entire class.Turning Point 1: The girls decide to throw a party
for all the uncool kids and the bad girl shows up with her mother’s
motorcycle gang.Act 2: The girls try contacting the authorities to assist.
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: The girls find out that
Brandi’s mom is the leader of a crime family and they have put a lot of
people in danger.Act 3: They take a trip back to Fairyland to formulate a new plan
against such fantastic odds.Turning Point 3: They bring muses and fairies back to Earth to
gather evidence against the crooks.Act 4 Climax: The gang summons all their mobsters to the twins’ house to
show them who is boss once and for all. The fairies and muses appear and
disappear while punching out the bad guys until they split.
Resolution: The gang goes to prison and the girls are now the
undisputed leaders of the new cool kids.4. Repeat the process with your Antagonist. (Brandi)
Beginning: Having grown up with the criminal element of Mom and Dad, taking advantage of ruling the school was a natural progression.
Middle: Brandi is the big girl on the junior high campus, and you better understand it or else.
End: Mom and Dad end up in the slammer while Brandi goes back to juvenile detention to cool her heels.
Beginning: Having grown up with the criminal element of Mom and Dad
ruling the school was a natural.
Inciting Incident: Having been tossed into juvenile hall for a few
transgressions, Brandi transforms into a major tough chick. </div>Turning Point 1: Two popular twins from England enlist in their class
and they must be immediately publicly put down to show her authority.Act 2: Brandi learns the twins are having a major bash and her
clique is not invited.Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: Brandi is the big girl on the junior
high campus, and you better understand it or else.Act 3: The threat of losing the most popular girl status causes
Brandi to get Mom and Dad and the gang involved to level the playing
field.Turning Point 3: The gang shows up at the twins’ house smashes all
the out-of-this-world technical toys and leaves them defenseless.Act 4 Climax: The gang summons all their mobsters to the twins’ house to
show them who is boss once and for all. The fairies and muses appear and
disappear while punching out the bad guys until they split.
Resolution: The gang goes to prison and the girls are now the
undisputed leaders of the new cool kids.-
This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Will Jennings.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
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Tony J. Scott Character Structure
My true vision as a writer is to fall in love with writing and stay motivated to write from the love of writing and not as a chore and then hoping others will love my creations and become well known as a top writer in the screenplay community.
High Concept: In a world where the Vatican is winning the war against the Vampires a young black woman must fulfill prophesy by traveling back and forth through time to Savannah 1863 to kill her slave ancestor, break her family curse and lead the peace agreement.
2. Start with the Protagonist and your source material. Create a beginning, middle, and end of the character’s story.
3. Add the rest of the structure to the characters to the script. Try to get to the point as we’ve done in the Iron Man example above.
Beginning:
Nadia has a traumatic memory triggered during her birthday party.
Inciting
Incident: Her father lets it slip that the only way to possibly end the
vampire curse for herself is to kill her ancestor while he is sleeping.
Turning
Point 1: She finds out that a gift she received will allow her to time
travel.
Act
2: Nadia travels back and forth in time to Savannah 1863 hoping to find
her ancestor and kill him in the past while he is living as a plantation
slave.
Turning
Point 2 / Midpoint: Vampire hunters arrive at the plantation and plan to
kill Nadia’s ancestor before she can.
Act
3: Nadia researches all she can to find out more about the era.
Turning
Point 3: Nadia discovers that her father has been lying to her and the
rest of the Vampires about who should be the interim leader.
Act
4 Climax: Nadia has to bite the Vampire hunter. She returns to the future,
removes her father from office and puts her uncle as head. Her uncle issues
in the peace agreement as it should have been.
Resolution:
Nadia realizes that she has disrupted time in a major way and has to
return to the past one more time.4. Repeat the process with your Antagonist.
2. Start with the Protagonist and your source material. Create a beginning, middle, and end of the character’s story.
3. Add the rest of the structure to the characters to the script. Try to get to the point as we’ve done in the Iron Man example above.
Beginning:
Horace throws a grand vampire coming out ball which doubles as war effort
fund raiser.
Inciting
Incident: Horace hears rumors of the other families wanting to wake up
Horace’s father Josiah in hopes to end the losing war.
Turning
Point 1: Horace lets it slip out that maybe Nadia could prevent becoming a
vampire if her grandfather was dead, as a joke or impossibility.
Act
2: Horace becomes more desperate in trying to remain head of the family.
Turning
Point 2 / Midpoint: Horace gets a prisoner to attempt to kill his father.
Act
3: Horace has a zoom meet with a corrupt Vatican official about future
relationships.
Turning
Point 3: He has to prevent Nadia from exposing the truth.
Act
4 Climax: Horace is caught trying to kill his father and exposed as not
the true interim family head.
Resolution:
He is sentenced; his processing plant destroyed, human survivors and victims
are returned to loved ones. -
Mahee’s Character Structure
My Vision – I want to be a great writer who is well-respected and recognized in the industry, with successful books published and blockbuster movies produced. I want to create a successful movie franchise that audiences all over the world will love, rave about, look forward to, and continue to enjoy many years from now.
What I learned from doing this assignment is creating character structures.
Trevon Campbell (Protagonist) Character Journey Structure
Beginning:
Trevon is under complete control of Reverend DuVernay. He joins DuVernay’s violent mob and attacks an ongoing conference on black history where his father is delivering a speech.
Inciting Incident:
His father is murdered in his own home. Trevon suspects the hand of DuVernay.
Turning Point 1:
The assassin who killed his father is not of this planet. But he has secret links to DuVernay. And DuVernay’s men are gunning for him.
Act 2:
Trevon goes into hiding. Pores over his father’s research papers looking for possible answers. Finds a connection to an alternate world on Planet X in the Sirius star system.
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint:
Trevon realizes he must embark on an interdimensional mission to Planet X to find his father’s assassin.
Act 3:
In a parallel world on Planet X, Trevon meets his father’s extraterrestrial alter ego FALLAG and his own alter ego TALIYA.
Turning Point 3:
Planet X can only be saved by TALIYA, who is fighting on the dark side with the ruthless and evil warlord 1ONTAE’s forces.
Act 4 Climax:
Trevon lures TALIYA away from 1ONTAE, then helps him defeat 1ONTAE and put Planet X under the control of his father FALLAG.
Resolution:
Trevon returns home. Runs against DuVernay in the elections and defeats him.
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Reverend DuVernay (Antagonist) Character Journey Structure
Beginning:
DuVernay gained popularity and power by standing up for the black people in public while secretly using and abusing his followers and supporters in private.
Inciting Incident:
His path to the top of the political ladder gets jeopardized when Professor Cedric Campbell campaigns against his corrupt practices, lies, and dangerous policies.
Turning Point 1:
Professor Cedric Campbell is murdered at his home.
Act 2:
With his path to the congressional seat cleared, he amasses massive gains in power and support as he prepares for the elections.
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint:
His most loyal follower and supporter, Trevon, has become a thorn in his path and is determined to bring him down.
Act 3:
He unleashes his mobsters to chase down Trevon and kill him. But Trevon escapes and goes into hiding.
Turning Point 3:
Trevon resurfaces after several days, rejuvenated in his efforts to bring him down.
Act 4 Climax:
Trevon runs against him in the elections. Exposes his dark side to the media and public.
Resolution:
DuVernay loses his power and his support. Gets defeated by Trevon in the elections.
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<font size=”3″>My Vision: I want a space that is dedicated to writing, so I can have an entire wall for notecard storyboarding. I want my projects to advance in competitions and then be requested by the studios. I want to see those projects in festivals, in theaters, on streaming platforms. I want writing and producing to be my full time job.
</font><font size=”3″>What I learned doing this assignment is writing out the full character outlines even if the event from one character aren’t in the story provides motivations for the story and characters that make sense. It allows misunderstandings between characters to be unforced. </font>
Eddie-protagonist
Beginning: Eddie turns down a promotion when he’s clearly capable of the job.<div>
Inciting Incident: Spills an 8 ball of cocaine at a party.
Turning Point 1: fails to raise the money to pay off the debt. In the following standoff Eddie kills the drug dealer to save a girl and himself.
Act 2: Town views Eddie as a hero when an undercover agent introduces himself as the dealers handler, forces Eddie to become his new CI and takes the drug dealers place to keep an operation going.
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: Eddie realizes this path leads to either prison or death. He must break free from the agents grip.
Act 3: Uncovers govt plot running drugs through the town.
Turning Point 3: Fed govt building Eddie is informed the govt knows about his activities
Act 4 Climax: Face off with the cartels, govt and locals over the drug route
Resolution: with his drug life over he takes over assisting the agents victim’s assistance.
Det Taylor-Antagonist
Beginning: starts working under cover operations in the Midwest
Inciting Incident: Partner or attached ops person is severely injured/killed during an operation.
Turning Point 1: A person under Taylors guidance is severely injured in an op he set up, took short cuts.
Act 2: 3 letter agency leans on Taylor to protect their op. Tracking drugs tainted or marked of Chinese fentanyl
Turning Point 2 New head of dept. takes over and has no field experience yet demands immediate results.
Act 3: His C.I. is killed by Eddie.
Turning Point 3: New C.I. Eddie uncovers the govt trade route
Act 4 Climax: Survive the exodus as locals, govt, and cartels clash over drug route disruption
Resolution: death, arrest, or suspension
</div>
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Anna’s Character Structure
My personal vision: to get my writing mojo back.
What I learned from this assignment: I’ve been doing a lot of character development research, as well as visiting the actual location where much of this story takes place, and this exercise has helped me solidify all those pretty shiny things into some kind of framework.
Title: La Sirène (The Mermaid)
Concept: A Coast Guard maverick suspects that his wheel-chair-bound oceanography professor, who holds the fate of his career in her hands, is involved in a series of terrorist attacks against poachers by killer dolphins.
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
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Character: Jacob Staats
Role: Protagonist
Character Journey Overview:
Beginning: Jacob has taken a temporary “demotion” from surfman to a “quiet” port due to his wife’s high-risk pregnancy. He is only here until she drops the kid, and then its back to the surf, high seas, and being the hero.
Middle: Due to Jacob’s poor attitude both in his own officer training, and also training his team, tragedy strikes one of his crew.
End: Jacob trains his crew and thwarts Capt’n Jack’s attack on the wind farm. And then, in a double-high-tower-surprise ending that shows he can still be the one who rides in to save the day, Lorelei and the whales help him save his secondary antagonist.
Act 1:
Beginning: Jacob is bored stiff in a “quiet port” doing health and safety checks. The local fishermen, led by Gomes, have no respect for his intent to keep them safe.
Inciting Incident: They respond to assist a boat that exploded due to alleged “killer dolphins.” Nobody believes such a crazy tale. But they realize the damaged ship was operating too close to a pod of endangered Right whales, engaged in poaching salmon out-of-season, so Jacob cites them.
Turning Point 1: Jacob’s C.O. “promotes” him and puts him in charge of building a new environmental enforcement team which includes investigating potential eco-terrorist incidents, but there’s a catch. He must attend environmental classes with an “expert in leviathan communication” (Lorelei) and a bunch of pro-anarchist students.
Act 2:
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: The fight becomes personal after a Coast Guard vessel gets sabotaged and the brass stops laughing at his report of “killer dolphins.”
Act 3:
Turning Point 3: Jacob abandons a sinking ship (to civilian rescue) in order to pursue Capt’n Jack, but because he failed to properly train his crew, one is seriously injured and the terrorist gets away.
Act 4 Climax #1: Jacob thwarts the terrorist’s attack on his ultimate target. He sinks beneath the waves.
Act 4 Climax #2: Before he can recover the villain’s body, he gets called out to rescue his secondary antagonist (Gomes), whose boat has sunk in a hurricane. Lorelei calls the whales to raise the ship, and the rest of the mystery is revealed.
Resolution: Now that Jacob and his team have been let in on the big secret, he is given the choice to go back to being the front-line hero, but he declines. Its time to train a new generation of heroes what he knows.
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Character: Capt’n Jack
Role: Antagonist
Character Journey Overview:
Beginning: In 2008, Kustaa Enginn, a civilian scientist who has been helping the Navy develop an interface to communicate with dolphins, leaps into the Strait of Hormuz to rescue Lorelei, the Navy’s half-human / half-leviathan munitions expert, after an Iranian fighter jet explodes the mines that she and her dolphin team are in the process of disarming.
Middle: A mysterious environmental agitator known only by his nom de guerre “Capt’n Jack” perfects his dolphin communication device, recruits useful idiots, and begins taking “direct action” against those he deems responsible for harming his “sea brothers.”
Resolution: That pesky Coast Guard unit which began dogging him shortly after his first successful mission intercepts his dolphin team before they can finish mining his end-target. They fight, his boat gets rammed, and he sinks beneath the surf of an incoming hurricane.
Act I:
Beginning: Capt’n Jack perfects his dolphin communication device and selects a target.
Inciting Incident: Capt’n Jack has his first successful test of his dolphin team’s ability to plant explosives onto a target and swim away unharmed.
Turning Point 1: Capt’n Jack recruits “red herrings” to take the heat while he blows up his next target.
Act 2:
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: Coast Guard investigators are cramping his style. He targets a bigger target to keep them busy, and then hits one of their boats.
Act 3:
Turning Point 3: One of the Coast Guard vessels tracks his dolphin team right back to his go-fast boat, the Dreki. He rams their boat and gets away.
Act 4 Climax: He uses the cover of the incoming hurricane to mine his real target, the nascent wind farm whose seafloor mapping sonar has deafened and killed numerous sea brothers. But that Coast Guard ship comes out of nowhere, they fight, and sink the Dreki. Capt’n Jack refuses to take Jacob’s hand and sinks beneath the waves.
Resolution: A periscope appears close to a Saudi Arabian luxury yacht, where a business meeting is taking place about increasing the supply of oil. A buxom babe looks into the water and says, “Oh, look dolphins!” We hear a “thunk” and the dolphins swim away. A moment later, the ship explodes. The Níðhǫggr surfaces and we hear mechanical “dolphin song” as the end-credits roll.
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Character: Lorelei Saba
Role: Secondary Antagonist / Triangle Character
Character Journey Overview:
Beginning: Lorelei Saba is gravely injured after the Iranians drop missiles into the water where she and her dolphin team are helping the U.S. Navy disarm mines.
Middle: Newly elevated to pod matriarch, Lorelei visits the far southern outpost of her “kingdom” to hold court with both her non-human (aquatic mammal) subjects and human (Wampanoag tribe) allies/distant kin. She poses as a “leviathan communications expert” at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (whose higher-ups know what she is) to vet prospective allies.
End: Lorelei has found her new champion, not some tree-hugging graduate student, but a poor boy from Appalachia who “gets” the competing interests she must balance.
Act 1:
Beginning: Lorelei is maimed while disarming mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Fifteen years later, she ascends to pod matriarch and wishes to shift her pod (whose numbers are dwindling) away from being used by the US military for dangerous “adventures”. She goes on a tour of her historical kingdom, renewing old alliances (both human and aquatic mammal), ending at the southernmost point, the waters of Cape Cod.
Inciting Incident: With the help of allies, she poses as a “leviathan communication expert” at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to vet potential new human allies from among the best and brightest future oceanographers. But much to her chagrin, the military has sent a spy from the Coast Guard.
Turning Point 1: Midpoint: Several of her most promising students take direct action against a local wind farm which has been harming the “sea brothers” under her dominion. While Lorelei doesn’t participate, neither does she discourage this non-violent form of protest.
Act 2:
Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: Her students get arrested after one of their publicity stunts ends in a tragedy. Then her Wampanoag ally, and distant cousin, Gomes comes to her with information that a mysterious “Capt’n Jack” character has been riling up discontent among the young people of the tribe with talk of blowing up enemy targets. To make matters worse, she gets word that the military “student spy” is digging into her past and suspects she is the ringleader.
Act 3:
Turning Point 3: After the “spy” who has been dogging her tail is targeted by the real eco-terrorist and one of his team is injured, Lorelei sends out her non-human security team and confirms there is an unknown pod sited in Cape Cod waters. Lorelei passes this information along to Jacob, who she now realizes is not a spy.
Act 4 Climax: While Jacob is laying out his trap, Gomes’ fishing boat sinks during a hurricane. With 30’ waves, the Coast Guard can’t get a ship out to help them. Lorelei calls upon allies to call back the one man she knows is capable of navigating such high surf to get her onsite so she can help. But that requires her to trust Jacob and his team to keep her secret.
Resolution: Lorelei calls the whales and they raise the ship from the bottom of the ocean. Jacob and his team are the allies she was hoping to find.
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Starting with a much simpler version for now.
KAVISH in four acts:
1. finally got my girl to move in with me OH SHIT IT’S HUANTED!
2. fine, fuck, I’ll tick these fresh boxes too
3. oh, the ghost needs help, and my girl’s more interested in that than me but okay
4. girl-less, I was brave anyway – DAY SAVED, GIRL BACK!
LACY in four acts:
1. okay really gotta make a decision about this relationship OOH YAY A DISTRACTION!
2. I am loving this adventure, and not loving boy’s resistance to it
3. okay the ghost needs help, and apparently I have to lose my bestie to fly
4. boy-less, I moved independently – GHOST SAVED, BOY FOUGHT FOR ME!
MATT in four acts:
1. yay, my life is great OH SHIT MY WIFE IS MISSING
2. gonna do everything I can to find her
3. it’s been years and it’s not working OH SHIT I’M DEAD
4. might as well help these idiots HOLY FUCK THEY FOUND MY WIFE WE’RE HAPPY AGAIN!
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