Lesson 10

[Paul Penley]

Paul P's Counterexamples:

What I learned doing this assignment: I loved the idea of making a subtle argument to give the charaters a reason to change or see another way to solve a problem. I'm still not 100% sure ihow to make it work. Anothe pass at the example s given should help. Thank you.

8 Challenges to the Old Way:

1. Being quick to the gun solves every challenge.
Counter Example: What if you didn't have your gun? How would you survive? Smile more? Find another alternative to violence.

2. Women are heartless and self serving beasts more ruthless and deadly then men.
Counter Example: Grace rescues Adam and tries to help him escape.

3. What is Hell? Dante's Inferno
Counter Example: Hell can be anywhere. A town, a relationship, a person, a desert, a saloon, a home, It's all in how you perceive it.

4. The child suffers from the inequities of the father.
Counter Example: But what if you learned from your father's mistakes? What if his failure made you stronger?

5. All Indians are killers.
Counter Example: What if they were trying to save humanity all along. What if the Apache were the gatekeepers to hell and were fighting to keep Hell's demons and the evil inside?

6. Outlaws only care about themselves.
Counter Example: What if they were just trying to make the lives of their loved ones better and stealing from those who had more wealth than they could possibly need?

7. The Irish are cowards.
Counter Example: The Irish left Ireland because of a the ENglish and a potato famine. They braved the Seas to come to America where things were just as hard.

8. Mankind was a curse on the Angels and a mistake made by God.
Counter Example: Man is not responsible for the Angel's punishment. Both Man and Angels were given the freedom of choice. Both Mankind and Angels must be held accuntable by good Angels and men.

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by  Paul Penley.

[Lonnie Nichols]

Lonnie’s Counterexamples

What I learned from this lesson: I learned to look at a “fixed” or “knee jerk” response more creatively, look at scenes and scenarios from different perspectives.

Brainstorm at least 5 Question challenged and 5 Counterexamples you can put in your screenplay.

Title: Rubytown

Logline: A teenage track star turned drug addict is abducted by friendly ET’s and returns with super powers. She struggles to overcome the dark forces of a small town as she begins shutting down its drug lords.

Example 1:
Ruby’s stepmother, Ida, thinks Ruby needs institutionalized, due to her irradicate behavior.
Counterexample: Ruby simply needs understanding and time due to her father’s death. Ida should not take the easy way out and simply send Ruby off. She must put her prejudices aside, and realize Ruby can be healed without the old school way of institutions.

Example 2:
Ruby is rejected by her friends, especially her boyfriend Troy, when she says she was abducted by aliens and treated.
Counterexample: Troy needs to “think out of the box”, and listen to Ruby. If Ruby is healed, doing better, he should feel her joy…. he needs less judgement, like “I’m so happy you are well!” (no matter how you got here… I believe you!)

Example 3:
Ruby goes public with the mayor’s (Eddie Pasconi) involvement with drugs…. he’s local “kingpin”. He and his cronies go after her and her family.

Counterexample… she needs to change her approach. Instead of rushing publicly with the mayor’s role in the drug scene, Ruby could be more creative and set up a scenario in which the mayor stumbles on his own, and he can’t go after Ruby.

Example 4: The town folk thinks Ruby is corrupt and “crazy”, and not cured from her drug addiction.
They must realize people can change, they need to observe her actions now, not from her actions from the past.

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by  Lonnie Nichols.

[margo meck]

Margo’s Counterexamples and Question Challenges

What I learned doing this assignment is…? Not only do I need to figure out how to show the Old Ways so that I can question them, but which Old Ways would be the best to emphasize.

Five Question Challenges to 5 Old Ways

1 Do you always do what your mother tells you to?
Brandi is 18 and lives with her mother. She goes from being dependent on her mother to wanting to get married right out of high school and being dependent on her husband.

2 So, your Big Dream is marriage and a family? Over 50% of all marriages end in divorce. What will you do when you get divorced?
Brandi lives in a small town and her dreams are not very big.

3 Are you going to let those jerks get under your skin?
Because of Brandi finding out (and then most of the small town finding out) that she is the product of incest, she is full of shame and everyone in town shuns her.

4 Don’t you want to see the world before you settle down? Don’t you know there’s more out there than this little speck on the map?
Brandi lives in a small town and has never been far from it. She is ignorant of the larger world and what it might have to offer.

5 Don’t you want to learn new things? What skills do you have that you could sell in case something happened, like your husband was hurt and couldn’t work or lost his job, or dozen other things?
Brandi has no sell-able skills. She is dependent financially on her mother now, and then her husband after her marriage. If something doesn’t change, she will always be dependent.

Five Counterexamples to one Old Way (dependence)

1 Brandi is so dependent, she didn’t even learn to drive. Her only transportation is a bicycle.
A friend of her mother’s will let her use his Vespa if she can pass the driving test. She studies and passes. Driving the scooter is a big lift to independence she didn’t know she was missing.

2 A friend of her mother’s gives her a job as a go-fer. With her own source of income, again she gets a taste of independence.

3 When Brandi jumps out of an airplane on a parachute jump hoping it will kill her but finds it is exhilarating, she gets yet another “feeling” of independence in the free fall.

4 She gets that same “feeling” of freedom from learning parachute surfing and opens a whole new world to her.

5 When she picks up the skills for parachute surfing quickly and starts competing, she sees a new picture of who she is and “gets” what independence might look like.

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by  margo meck.

[Mark Roeder]

Mark Roeder’s Counterexamples

What I learned doing this assignment is to challenge Rosemary’s old ways with questions, arguments and more counterexamples.

QUESTION CHALLENGES TO OLD WAY:

1.Challenge: “Maybe the baby panda died because you didn’t care about it. You didn’t show it love.”

Old way: scientific in a cold hearted way.

How it might play out: After a baby panda dies under Rosemary’s watch at the zoo, someone points this out to her.

2.Challenge: A zoo worker points out how good it is that pandas disperse seeds by rolling around and then climbing trees and swimming and how helpful that is.

Old ways: prejudice against pandas

How it might play out: This happens after a panda poops on her from a tree and she rants about how they only eat and poo and they’re all disgusting, lazy creatures.

3.Challenge: “They can climb trees better than you.”

Old ways: prejudice against pandas, judgmental

How it might play out: Someone at the zoo counters her panda prejudice that they are fat, worthless creatures who eat 80 pounds of food a day 18 hours a day, sleep the rest, and roll because they’re too lazy to walk.

4.Challenge: “Does it make sense to not care for your child because a different panda bit you?”

Old ways: prejudice against pandas

How it might play out: Blaze could point this out to her after he rescues/kidnaps her and gives her his vision that her son is the promised panda.

5. Challenge: “Giant pandas at least have a reason to abandon a cub if they give birth to more than one. They don’t have sufficient milk or energy to care for two, so they focus on the attentions of their strongest cub. You only had one, and you tried to kill it. A true monster you are.”

Old ways: prejudice against pandas

How it might play out: Blaze or a member of his team could point this out to her after they rescue/kidnap her..

COUNTEREXAMPLES TO OLD WAY:

1. Challenge: On receiving end of her own behavior: inseminates pandas without caring, gets inseminated by pandas.

Old ways: scientific in cold hearted way, prejudice against pandas.

How it might play out: She artificially inseminates pandas, has nightmares about pandas experimenting on her, then after Blaze rescues/kidnaps her he tells her all pandas are aliens and he leads a team of woman warriors that were on experimented on by pandas like her, but she’s the first to give birth to a panda.

2.Challenge: Blaze is a counterexample by believing Rosemary’s panda is the promised panda that can stop the invasion. Hs vision is a counterexample to her belief that they are all the same disgusting, hateful creatures.

Old ways: prejudice against pandas

How it might play out: Rosemary tries to kill her own panda son, and Incisor and other pandas pounce on her. Blaze rescues/kidnaps her and shows her his vision.

3. Challenge: Traps pandas in a cage. They put her in a cage.

Old ways: prejudice against pandas, controlling, scientific in cold hearted way

How it might play out: Rosemary tries to control pandas making them go in cage. When the alien pandas attack, Incisor and the alien pandas put her in a cage.

4. Challenge: A zookeeper shows the pandas love and gets better results than her.

Old way: prejudice against pandas, scientific in a cold hearted way

How it might play out: After shoving pandas in a cage and yelling at them and using negative reinforcement, Rosemary sees a zookeeper effortlessly gets one in a cage with love (and bamboo).

5. Challenge: Rosemary takes action counter to normal and it works: She stops fighting Kyo and gives him a chance to show what’s special inside: believes even though he triggered the invasion, he can make his own choice. Decides to be good mother. It works because Kyo shows he is a counterexample, protecting Blaze and attacking Incisor, fighting with her against the pandas, and then regenerating her back to life.

Old ways: prejudice against pandas, suspicious that he’s not the promised panda, scientific in a cold hearted way

How it might play out: Rosemary found Kyo was created to trigger the invasion and sent a signal which caused the invasion. Rosemary fights him, then stops and gives him this choice.

[Jennifer Quintenz-Berry]

Jenn’s Counterexamples

What I learned doing this assignment is: I completely missed the fact that I never show the defining moment of Taylor’s life in the story, they just talk about it but we never relive it. I found a way to challenge the old idea that “telling Sydney the truth will damage Taylor and Sydney’s relationship” by having them fight about the thing Taylor kept from her in the car leading up to the accident.

Old Way: "Telling Sydney the truth will hurt her and damage our relationship."

Question Challenge: Riaz asks Taylor, "Was Sydney not strong enough to handle the truth?"
Impact: This forces Taylor to confront her assumption that Sydney is too fragile to hear something difficult.

Question Challenge: Riaz asks, "What’s worse—Sydney knowing the truth or staying with someone who’s hurting her?"
Impact: This shifts Taylor’s focus from the immediate discomfort of honesty to the long-term consequences of silence.

Question Challenge: Riaz says, "If Sydney can’t handle you being honest, is your relationship as close as you think?"
Impact: Taylor begins to consider whether withholding the truth is actually undermining the trust in their relationship.

Question Challenge: Carrie asks, "Wouldn’t you want someone to tell you the truth if it were the other way around?"
Impact: This turns the situation back on Taylor, making her empathize with Sydney’s potential desire for honesty.

Counterexample: Taylor admits to Sydney that she made a minor mistake (accidentally spilling a secret of Sydney’s). Sydney responds with understanding and warmth.
Impact: This shows Taylor that honesty doesn’t always lead to conflict.

Counterexample: Carrie tells a mutual friend a difficult truth, and though it initially causes tension, it ultimately strengthens their relationship.
Impact: Taylor sees that honesty, even when painful, can deepen bonds rather than destroy them.

Counterexample: Sydney discovers Christopher cheating which is awful, but learning Taylor knew about it devastates her. She tells Taylor, "I’d rather someone hurt me with the truth than comfort me with a lie."
Impact: Taylor realizes that dishonesty, even by omission, is far more damaging than telling the truth.

Old Way: "People like Taylor are inherently unlucky or doomed.”

Question Challenge: Carrie asks, "Is it really bad luck, or are you only focusing on the things that go wrong?"
Impact: Taylor reflects on how her mindset might be shaping her belief in being unlucky.

Question Challenge: Carrie, referencing Taylor surviving the crash, says, "Do you really think someone doomed would have made it through that?"
Impact: This challenges Taylor’s belief that she’s inherently cursed.

Question Challenge: Carrie remarks, "Sounds like Christopher’s the kind of guy who likes other people insecure."
Impact: Taylor starts to see how toxic people like Christopher may reinforce her belief in bad luck.

Counterexample: Taylor makes a change during a time jump and saves herself from terrible burns.
Impact: She begins to see how her actions, not fate, influence outcomes.

Counterexample: Taylor learns Riaz overcame immense hardship through persistence and determination rather than attributing their success to luck.
Impact: This demonstrates to Taylor that effort, not luck, is what matters.

Counterexample: Taylor takes a chance on something (e.g., applying a lesson from Carrie in a difficult moment) and it unexpectedly works out.
Impact: This contradicts her belief in being doomed.

Counterexample: Sydney faces a setback but remains hopeful and proactive, contrasting sharply with Taylor’s defeatist attitude.
Impact: Taylor begins to question why she views herself differently from Sydney.

~ end

[Margaret]

Margaret’s Counterexamples

What I learned: This concept was new to me. Putting in Counterexamples as part of planning the profound message is a great tool!

COUNTER EXAMPLES OF OLD WAYS

Old Way: Margot assumes she is of little worth because she is elderly
Counterexamples:
Dialogue:
• Comment about Margot’s ability as a seamstress to create beauty that endures even in tragedy.
• Bible verse quoted, “For such a time as this.” (Ester 4:14)
• Bible verse quoted, “I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:13)
• When Margot successfully sews her first rag doll with hidden code, Marie-Claude validates Margot’s unique skill: “Your old hands are skilled. They know things your mind hasn’t yet realized.”

Experience: Margo is able to correctly code a rag doll and a child is saved (Suzanne)
Character: Marie-Claude develops a code for the rag dolls.
Old Way: Lise assumes she cannot be a spy because she can’t keep a secret and is too talkative.
Counterexamples:
Dialogue: Comment by Helene that gift of gab is a treasured skill for a spy. “If you can talk an ear off a Nazi he will run to escape you.”

Experience:
• Lise is able to divert a Nazi’s attention from inspecting a coded rag doll.
• Lise is able to navigate sewing circle spy’s questions with her gift of gab.

Character:
• Marie-Claude was able to escape round-up by feigning dementia and talking nonsense to Nazi’s.
• Helene lies to son about her resistance activities.

Old Way: Margot and Lise’s fear and passive resistance to the Nazi occupation.
Counterexamples:
Dialogue: Comment by Helene that grandmothers are needed for active resistance.
Experience:
• Margot learns coding and designs rag dolls.
• Lise utilizes her toy shop for active resistance.
Character: Helene and Marie-Claude are active resistance workers.