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Lesson 12
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Mike’s Challenging Situations
I learned to take some boring scenes and infuse them with more moments of action revealing a character acting in a way that might be counter to how they actually wished they could act. The list of possible challenges gives several options to develop engaging scenes.
Scene 1:
A. Current Scene Logline: Sam and his friends face escalating danger while hiding in the stone ruins of an old building in the forest. One of their friends has run off and chased by a person in a Sasquatch mask. Sam wants to keep them calm while trying not to panic, and when a hunter on a research team arrives.
B. Essence: Sam under increasing pressure.
C. Brainstorm list of possible challenges.
1. Goal: Keep calm and find a way safely out of the forest.
Problems with phones; battery drains, low battery, broken, lost.
Need fire wood but it’s outside with whatever else out there.
Eerie place, occult ritual debris and abandoned backpacks and gear.
Something outside getting closer.
2. Needs: To redeem the situation since he led them into this area.
Things go wrong.
Trying to be calm but starting to freak out.
Blame-shifting but feeling guilty.
Abandons them to get fire wood.
3. Values: Frienship.
Wants everything to work out. Just wanted a little excursion to face his past fears with his friends before they all drift apart with the different directions of life. But leading them into this situation threatens to dissolve his efforts.
4. Wound: Growing apart, staying behind.
Everything changes except him. He doesn’t know why.
His friends become more distant. This is the last time they’ll all be together.
He saw a Sasquatch as a kid and has been terrified ever since to return to this area.
5. Physical: Lacks the courage and he trembles and buckles with adrenaline.
Trembles, drops things.
Voice shakes. Panic increases. More emotionally fragile.
Teary-eyed fear.
Angry. Attacks Nate. Lets go and leaves them to get wood.
D. Quick summary of how you will write the scene differently with the new challenge.
Getting dark in the stone ruins Sam’s friends: Maddy, Megan, Katie, and Nate—they get colder but are afraid to get wood. Sam suggests they all go but Nate refuses and says that someone is out there and no one else should risk their safety since this was Sam’s idea.
Sam denies responsibility. “How can this be my fault? Is every person to be blamed for making a choice to end up in the place that makes them a victim? Or is it the thing that makes the person a victim to be blamed? It’s getting cold.”
Megan tries her phone but it won’t respond. “The battery’s dead. Completely shot. This has never happened. Maddy’s lost hers and searches but doesn’t find it. Katie has some charge left but Sam persuades her not to use it, yet, until they need to. Sam’s phone is fine but also won’t use it but drops it a couple times by accident (nerves). Nate’s phone is broken and he can’t use it. He’s not okay with Sam’s decision.
They here motion outside. Someone coming closer.
Sam says he’ll get the wood but Nate demands his phone. Sam tells the girls to guard him but Nate wrestles Sam for the phone. Sam recovers and slams Nate against the wall, looking mad-eyed and fearful telling him to be calm.
He lets Nate go, shaking, and about to exit when a gun clicks and a barrel pushed in his face and a gruff hunter enters. “Looks like yer gonna need a fire.”
Scene 2:
A. Current Scene Logline: Megan, Maddy, and Dr. Julian are luring a Sasquatch to a trap but it’s not the Sasquatch they’re looking for, which is too bad, ‘cause this one’s more aggressive.
B. Essence: Put the characters through horror and tragedy.
C. Brainstorm list of possible challenges.
1. Goal: Sam, Maddy, and Megan lure a Sasquatch.
The three friends help Dr. Julian to catch a Sasquatch.
They want to do it without harm or injury.
2. Needs: Sam needs a victory and to keep his remaining friends safe.
His tree knock brings the Sasquatch.
A different, more aggressive Sasquatch.
His friends in danger.
3. Values: Courage and level-headed thinking.
The Sasquatch charges and Maddy freezes.
Sam goes for Maddy but Maddy but Sasquatch kills Maddy.
Sam shocked, makes a move to attack but he’s got no weapon.
4. Wound: His goal destroyed. Only one friend left.
His childhood fear has become his nightmare. Megan left standing.
Fears of friends growing apart by inadvertently bringing them to this place where they died. He should’ve just let them go. Then they would’ve been okay.
5. Physical: About to attack Sasquatch.
He throws a rock towards Sasquatch but misses.
He shouts at it.
He grabs a stick and thinks to beat and stab it.
Dr. Julian warns him than is ripped apart himself.
Sam injects Sasquatch with tranquilizer.
D. Quick summary of how you will write the scene differently with the new challenge.
Sam, Megan, and Maddy search, flashlights ready, pausing to listen if a Bigfoot is near.
They think they hear something close but can’t be sure. Sam picks up a stick and knocks twice on a tree breaking the stick on the second knock.
A stone brushes past Maddy’s head and nails Sam in the shoulder. Megan searches with the flashlight. Sam grasps his shoulder. Maddy freezes. A putrefying scent captures them.
As Megan checks, Sam’s demeanour drops. Megan spins, Maddy screams. There it is, it’s huge, but it’s not the Sasquatch they’ve been seeing. This one has a scar on it’s face, some fresh wounds, and blood matted in its hair.
Maddy wants to run but she’s frozen. They all are. The Sasquatch springs to action and Sam tries the brave thing but what can he really do? This thing can tear him apart, so, he does nothing. Megan searches for something. She finds a stick and takes a swing but it has to affect.
Sam leads Maddy away but not quick enough. The Sasquatch captures Maddy. She reaches Sam and he reaches for her. He almost has her but it dashes her against a tree. Blood flows from her head. She’s unresponsive. She’s dead.
Megan weeps at the sight and Sam holds her corpse, full of anger and sobbing.
The Sasquatch stays. Watches.
Dr. Julian arrives and sees the corpse. He sees Sam and tells him to stand down.
But Dr. Julian rushes the distracted Sasquatch, or so it seems because as he sprints to inject the Bigfoot, it turns on him and he drops the shot. The Sasquatch TEARS him apart, the sound of snapping bones and ripping flesh.
Sam grabs the shot and drives it into the Bigfoot’s arm and flies backward. Megan helps him up and they sprint away, towards the trap.
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Exciting!
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I was just going to say! This really sounds awesome 🙂
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Christi Falk’s Challenging Situations
What I’ve learned that is improving my writing is that the main character is the main character. They should be in all scenes. If not all, then referenced in the scenes they’re not in. It speaks directly to theme and tone.
I will be referencing my Public Domain Agatha Christie
Scene 1: P 55 Anne’s connection with Eustache
Current Scene Logline: Eustache seeks out Anne as she weeps alone in the courtyard.
Essence: Anne and Eustache connect, forming a surrogate father/daughter bond.
C- Brainstorm a list of challenges:
Goal- Anne tries to find a handle on her emotions alone.
-Eustache sits down even though it’s clear she’s in distress.
Needs – Anne needs to figure out her path in life at this point, a penniless orphan.
-Eustache and others offer her supplicant roles, not anything that would recognize her independence.
-Anne doesn’t even know what she wants and it’s frustrating.
Values- Privacy, not to keep looking pathetic.
– Anne realizes not only has she run away from the crowd, she’s been wearing the wrong colour socks all day.
Wound – Her father just died without providing for her.
– she’s currently at a retreat that will shut her out when done and she has nowhere to go.
D – New story- Anne is found by Eustache, feigning looking for a place to smoke. He pretends he’s not affected by Anne’s crying, which makes her cry more. He mentions she’s wearing two different socks but the solution is easily fixable. Anne begins to laugh through her tears. They embrace.
Scene 2- P 19 Anne and Suzanne pick out costumes
Current Scene Logline: Suzanne insists on paying for a costume for Anne as subterfuge to get her to open up.
Essence: Never having a mother or female role model, Anne is pulled along in Suzanne’s wake.
C- Brainstorm a list of challenges:
Goal- Suzanne wants to get Anne to open up.
-Anne doesn’t know how to talk to Suzanne.
Needs- Anne needs to connect with Suzanne.
-Anne holds back about meeting Harry, even though Suzanne has asked specifically about a love story.
-Suzanne knows everything about Anne and it scares her into silence.
Values- Belonging
-Anne wishes to belong but is very mistrustful of everyone she meets on her journey, especially Suzanne.
Wound- Anne never met her mother
-Suzanne usurps the role of a mother or an aunt maime type, forcibly breaking down what fragile walls Anne has managed to erect.
Physical- Suzanne keeps pulling costumes and masks from the rack for Anne.
-Anne doesn’t want a costume but doesn’t know how to refuse.
D- New Story- Crazy amounts of exposition given in fragmented pieces. Anne’s going to face her dead father’s plagiarizer. Carton, the man she met at the bus station who gave her his ticket. The stewardess that was just a bit off. But she kept back meeting Harry and his place in Carton’s death.
She forms lines from Suzanne with great difficulty, and keeping Harry from her is her first step towards adult independence.
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Challenging situations:
What I learned doing this assignment was making my protagonist have more challenges in the following two scenes.
Scene 1
A. Current Scene Log Line
Tina has a blind date with an engineer she met on a dating website and hopes to have a chance with him.
B. Essence
Tina is trying to replace her former boyfriend with a successful engineer.
C. Challenges
When the date asks Tina what she’s looking for in a relationship, Tina’s responses are on the surface and lack depth, causing him to think she really doesn’t know what she’s looking for.
When the date asks hypothetical relationship questions, Tina’s responses reflect selfishness and gold-digging tendencies.
Tina doesn’t ask the date what he’s looking for in a relationship, she doesn’t seem to care. Her responses sound rehearsed and lack depth.
The date says he doesn’t think they’re a match and Tina doesn’t understand why yet. She feels she’s a great catch, but her date says he can sense her desperation, her hunger for material things and her loneliness.
Scene 2
A. Current Scene Logline
Tina is smitten with the attractiveness of Barry.
B. Essence
Tina thinks Barry might be a good catch, but she doesn’t notice that he’s actually checking out the little girls among them.
C. Challenges
Barry is asked by Tina why he is hanging around the Sunday School area. Barry lies and says he is the uncle of one of the little girls, yet he struggles with remembering her name. He says the right name when he hears a kid call her name and says he’s having a “senior moment.”
When Tina asks for his cell phone to put her number in it, he has to quickly stop secretly recording the little girls prior giving her his phone before she notices that he’s recording.
When new visitors are greeted in the church, Tina introduces Barry to the congregation and is almost about to announce that he’s the uncle of one of the girls in the Sunday School area, but Barry stops her in front of everyone, causing them, and Tina, to wonder what the problem is.
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Susan McClary’s Challenging Situations
What I’ve learned that is improving my writing is I need to go much bigger and badder.
Scene 1:
A. Current Scene Logline: GG goes to buy new glasses
B. Essence: GG buys new glasses that Kitten broke by knocking off desk, optician helps him buy a new pair that actually look good
C. Brainstorm list of possible challenges.
GG trips over mat while entering store wearing an old pair of glasses that are no longer his prescription
GG touches the Optician’s hand while handing her the glasses almost falls off chair
GG tells her he needs something unbreakable and points to some ugly glasses
GG has a whole list of requirements for the glasses: they must has blue blockers for computer work, be sturdy, have unbreakable frames and lenses, aren’t too heavy….
GG can’t fathom that the good looking glasses won’t break (she twists them)
GG has to have his vision checked again because he only has an old pair. While in the chair he starts to hyperventilate because the ophthamologist is also a beautiful woman and she is so close to him.
She has to give him a paper bag to breathe into.
GG sees himself differently in new frames
D. Quick summary of how you will write the scene differently with the new challenge.
Instead of just a kindly optician and ophthamologist assisting GG with new glasses, GG comes up against his difficulty with women, his clumsiness, his opinion of how he does and should look, a startling revelation that he is actually handsome. There are women in the world who aren’t out to get him. Optician flirts with him a bit.
Scene 2:
A. Current Scene Logline: Pets acting out after brother leaves
B. Essence: GG is out of his depth, doesn’t know what to do
C. Brainstorm list of possible challenges.
Pets won’t eat their food
Pets knock over food and water bowls
Pets bark, squawk, Meow LOUDLY (like an alarm), yowl
Pets follow him under his feet
Pets walk in zig zags in front of him so he can’t get anywhere
Pets get zoomies and run around house knocking everything over and moving furniture
GG has to clean up broken glass and try and see if any of the pets have glass on them
He tries to vacuum them (different reactions: some don’t won’t to stop the vacuuming, others try and smack him/scratch him, knock him over
In desperation GG closes himself in bedroom with laptop, but Pets scream outside the door, push toys underneath, bang on the door, scratch the door, and then OPEN the door and jump on top of the bed with him.
D. Quick summary of how you will write the scene differently with the new challenge.
I was writing this scene in a milder way. The trouble GG has immediately is at an extreme level and just keeps coming.
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