Lesson 12: Exchange your work

[Mark Roeder]

I’m ready to exchange feedback on the outline if anyone wants to. Let me know.
Thanks,
Mark

[Alfred Dunham]

Alfred Dunham’s Ready to Exchange Feedback Version 2

I didn’t like Version 1 myself, so I rewrote it.

OUTLINE FOR
DEATHWATCH

CONCEPT
A young man on the cusp of adulthood is challenged with an incurable disease. He has plans, but does he keep them or give up?

MAIN CONFLICT
Life: will you choose it or lose it? Albert is thrust into the company of three other life travelers who are forced to join him as they each battle their way through the quagmire of life’s existential questions. Each must choose. Who will win? Who will not?

GENRE
Drama, Contained.

TITLE
DEATHWATCH

LOGLINE
A college kid’s hopes are ripped away, and his tempters will finish him off if he doesn’t choose quickly.

OVERALL, OBJECTIVE STORY, STORY DRIVER CHARACTERS
To minimize the number of characters while still representing all eight of the characteristic sets, each Driver Character has been paired with a Passenger Character to create four Complex Characters.

ALBERT (AL) DUNSTON, (19) = Protagonist (with Action/Decision characteristics of Pursue/Consider )
Paired with the Reason Character with Action/Decision characteristics of Control/Logic

HELEN (NURSE) KRAMER, (31) = Guardian (with Action/Decision characteristics of Help/Conscience )
Paired with the Sidekick Character with Action/Decision characteristics of Support/Faith

ARCHIE COBB, (55) = Antagonist (with Action/Decision characteristics of Prevent/Reconsider )
Paired with the Emotion Character with Action/Decision characteristics of Uncontrolled/Feeling

JAMES (DOC) ANDREWS (27) = Contagonist (with Action/Decision characteristics of Hinder/Temptation )
Paired with the Skeptic Character with Action/Decision characteristics of Oppose/Disbelief

INTERNAL, SUBJECTIVE STORE, STORY CHARACTERS
These two characters, who are part of the Overall list of characters, along with their personal connection to each other—the Subjective Story—form the heart of the Overall Story.

Main Character = ALBERT (AL) DUNSTON, (19):
Albert has a Plan, but he’s a bit too full of himself to ever get it to work.

Influence Character = HELEN (NURSE) KRAMER (31):
Helen Reigns in some of Albert’s ego while applauding his willingness to Change. Thus, Albert becomes the Subjective Story Change Character to her Subjective Story Steadfast Character.

ABOUT:
This needs to be completed, It was done, but so hopelessly run-together I couldn’t work with it, so I’m redoing it.
ALBERT DUNSTON
SUMMARY: Albert has been raised in an ultraconservative, Fundamentalist Christian community with constricted views on just about everything from religion to science. But Albert is beginning to see a schism between simple observation and “belief.” This has led him to an interest in physics, and he has started college, and this act, alone, is viewed by his community as rebellion. This is his inner conflict. His wound is living with societal prejudice on the one hand and the fear of censorship on the other. The universe was created by fiat, 6,000 years ago and there is neither discussion nor further thought allowed on the subject. Views on health and illness is similar. If you’re sick, it’s divine judgment, and the treatment is confession.

Internal Conflict
His religious beliefs vs. experience and observation

Subtext
He’s living something of a double life

Wound
He feels like a joke to the world and does not fit in.

Motivation
His curiosity about things

Dilemma
When does he admit his double life and embrace what he’s become – a scientist?

Intrigue (secrecy, stratagem, interest)
His secret life with fellow science students, asking forbidden questions.

Secret Identity
He’s become a scientist.

HELEN KRAMER
Internal Conflict
As with Albert, but less structured, she wonders why she’s being punished, even if she is.

Subtext

Wound

Motivation

Dilemma

Intrigue (secrecy, stratagem, interest)

Secret Identity

ARCHIE COBB
Internal Conflict

Subtext

Wound

Motivation

Dilemma

Intrigue (secrecy, stratagem, interest)

Secret Identity

JAMES ANDREWS
Internal Conflict

Subtext

Wound

Motivation

Dilemma

Intrigue (secrecy, stratagem, interest)

Secret Identity

ACT 1 [CLASSIC ACT I
MMM Step 1: Status Quo “Opening”: Albert finds himself in a restricted ward or unit designated for seriously ill, uncertain prognosis patients. Nurse Helen tries to wave off Archie and James protectively.
MMM Step 2: Inciting Event or Incident: Albert appears to be completely healed, and semi-true to form, he feels the need to brag about it. His fellow inmates fail to find the logic in it and rail against him.
First Major Turning Point: After a miraculous recovery, Albert relapses, and all his religious training comes into play, again. Now, he becomes remorseful as he considers Archie’s advice to shut up and reconsider.

ACT 2 [CLASSIC ACT IIA
MMM Step 3: Plan A or Plan of Action – Fails: Albert tries to become “one of the guys, but his religious “weirdness” continues to trip him up. Nurse Helen tries to counsel Albert not to try to match wits with Archie and James, but they keep drawing him back into the fray.
MMM Step 4: Plan B or New Plan—Fails: Albert tries to take on Archie and James by playing their game, but they are still way ahead of him in both age and experience. He cannot out-argue them.
However, James, by temperament, becomes overwhelmed when Albert relapses once again. Archie finds this humorous, and James finds it disgusting.

A Major Seismic Event Occurs. An Earthquake rattles the hospital and cuts off access to the “Death Ward.” James and Archie both freak out, but for James, it’s more life-threatening than ever.

Mid-Point Major Twist: James Dies. He cannot survive the stress. Archie becomes withdrawn and questions his behavior.

ACT 3 [CLASSIC ACT IIB]
MMM Step 5: Plan C or Rethink Everything – Albert, The Main Character, has still not changed enough. He finally figures out that the problem is not with either James, now deceased, or Archie, but with himself. He withdraws from Nurse Helen and Archie as he tries to regroup his thoughts and actions.

MMM Step 6: Crisis: Archie hallucinates, goes Berserk, and attacks Nurse Helen and Albert. Nurse Helen barricades Albert and herself in the medication room and calls security.

Second Major Turning Point: Security breaks through the rubble and gets Archie out of the hospital. [Not seen, but Loud sounds beyond the steel medication room door]. Later: Nurse Helen gets a call that Archie is gone, taken to a prison hospital, so it’s safe to come out.

ACT 4 [CLASSIC ACT III]
MMM Step 7: Climax: Helen and Albert leave the medication room to a somewhat torn-up ward/unit. Still shaken but the events, Albert and Helen enter into thoughtful conversation as they clean up the mess that Archie left behind. Conversation follows conversation as Albert’s new life is mapped out.

MMM Step 8: Resolution: Nurse Helen gets a call – Once out of the prison hospital, Archie wasted no time in getting himself shanked by a fellow inmate and is now dead. Conversations continue as Helen and Albert explore their feelings for each other, and Helen decides to claim her life back – just not with Albert.

Albert is cleared to leave the hospital. The embrace, and both promise to remain friends “forever.”

Epilogue
Seventy years later: A 90-year-old Albert places a flower on Helen’s grave, but the gravestone reads, “Helen Taylor.” The gravestone next to hers reads, “Gus Tayler.”
Albert expounds, thoughtfully, on their lives and their choices made good that day, long ago.

QUESTIONS TO SOLVE:

The first thing that needs to be solved is when and how Albert finds out about Nurse Helen’s tragic loss. What is its effect on him—early on, later on?

The second thing that needs to be solved. What’s fueling Archie’s attitudes? I need to do a work-up on him like I did for Albert. Ditto for James and Helen

3. Third thing that needs to be solved. Why is Helen so sad? There‘s more to it than just her loss of husband and child. She’s very complex and carries a lot of baggage, as does everyone else. I’m sure a lot of this will emerge when I begin to write and create the story.

4. The fourth thing that needs to be solved. Thinking outside the box, creativity suggests that I need “other” external forces to expand the hope/fear generated by the patients and their diseases. I’m thinking earthquake on a level similar to the one in the San Fernando Valley, where a whole tower toppled over, effectively cutting them off from the rest of the world. This, especially, has a profound fear attachment to Archie

5. I am sure more questions will come, but I’m not far enough along to guess what they might be yet.