Lesson 17

[Lora Sester]

Lora’s Key Scene Improvements

I went through my key scenes and they all work on a fundamental level. I punched them up a bit but like where they’re at for the most part. I learned that I need to really make the midpoint sparkle.

[Chris WIllis]

Chris’s key scene improvements.

I did the most work for this assignment on my final scene. Previously it was 99 year old Polly explaining the tragedy of what-might-have-been to her family at the lynching memorial. Think old lady Rose at the end of Titanic or old man Private Ryan at the end of Saving Private Ryan. Some of my best dialogue. But it was all dialogue, delivered by a 99 year old woman in a wheelchair.

To make the scene more dynamic I made Polly’s monologue a voice over reprised scenes from the script. Scenes that exemplified the points she was making. Until we come back to her at the memorial where she concludes: “The killing of all these souls is truly a shameful cataclysm. But the deeper tragedy is the loss of all that might have been.” Then she fulfills the promise of the title, and says his name.

[Margaret Doner]

Key scenes improvement.

Honestly after doing all the other exercises I felt that my key scenes were where they needed to be. The most important key scene that was changed was the ending. I tied up the script so much more powerfully by bringing in a very important character and making him appear in the ending….it finally felt “finished.”

[James Hernandez]

Day 17:

James’ Key Scene Improvements

What I learned doing this assignment is…that most of my structure points are strong except for the Act 1 turning point and inciting incident. There is always room for improvement, yet I elected to focus on the inciting incident for this assignment because as a whole it would make this rewrite draft significantly better than the first draft.

The most valuable improvement made was with the inciting incident. This is where the two soon to be romantic leads meet causing sparks to initially fly. Along with adding more depth to the scene, the situation offered an opportunity to increase the comedic dialogue between the leads which contrasts the action taking place with the robbery in progress.