Lesson 2

[Diane Keranen]

Title: Diane Puts Essence to Work

What I’ve learned is to let a scene do a specific job. Don’t expect it to do more than it needs to at its place in the overall story. Let its essence be focused on the task for that scene otherwise it gets watered down.

Script I chose: Not Dead Yet
Scene 1 Location: Opening scene. Jake kills for real. (pg1-2)
Logline: Jake shoots his first rabbit and is surprised that it’s not as fun as he expected and tries to hide his reaction.
Essence I’ve discovered: Hunting is a means to teach young boys to accept the act of killing as normal.
New Logline: Jake is traumatized by his horrified reaction to killing a mother rabbit in a brutal manner and the praise from his hunting group.

Scene 2 Location: Early in Act 1, Matt arrives back in the States. (pg 6)
Logline: Greeted by soldier buddy, Matt arrives from overseas.
Essence I’ve discovered: This scene not only sets Matt’s return from service, it also indicates his uncertainty that he can return successfully.
New Logline: Matt returns from overseas an right away into a place of solitude; his pickup truck a friend stored for him.

Scene 3 Location: End of Act 1, Matt’s coming to see his Stewart, his estranged dad. (pg 16-17
Logline: Matt calls Claire, his mom, to remind her he wants to go to Stewart. (
Essence I’ve discovered: This is a major inciting incident for the Matt/Stewart relationship. It needs to do more heavy lifting. The essence of this scene is Matt’s goal of going to see his estranged father to find out how to live “back in the world” but they’ve never had a good relationship. His mother, Claire is a mediator, of sorts, between the two men.
New Logline: Matt, now on the road, is coming to see his estranged dad. Welcome or not. To finally reunite or to cut ties completely.

Scene 4 Location: In Act 2, Flashback. Stewart picks up Claire and baby Matt from the hospital. (pg 28-29)
Logline: Borne of violence, Matt’s birth and Claire’s injuries have Stewart dropping his wife and baby at her parent’s house.
Essence I’ve discovered: They love each other greatly but Stewart fears he will injure them if they stay at the cabin with him.
New Logline: Stewart isolates himself from his wife and baby when the risk of injuring them overwhelms him.

Scene 5 Location: In Act 2, Matt arrives home. (pg38)
Logline: Matt arrives at his house but is unable to get himself to go in.
Essence I’ve discovered: Matt comes to realize just how afraid he is to fail at coming home to his wife and son.
New Logline: Matt arrives home but anxiety keeps him from going inside to see his wife and son.

[Art Blum]

What I’ve learned is that I’m having lots of trouble finding the essence of my story. I’ve come up with a zillion subplots. But I’m working on it.

Scene 1 Location: Opening scene
Logline:In a dream, our hero, a hit and run driver is chased by an ordinary person who saw the crime. She traps the hit and run driver after he exits the highway.

Essence I’ve discovered: Dream turns into a nightmare when the person chasing the hit and run driver turns out to be a beautiful AI robot.

New Logline: Hunted in his dreams, our hero hits a car trying to get away from a robot intent on killing him.

Scene 2 Location: Home Act I

Logline: Hero’s daughter suffers from nightmares resulting from the time a man murdered her mother.

Essence I’ve discovered: The random man is our hero’s supervisor at the sleep center where he works.

New Logline: the man who murdered a child’s mother happens to be our hero’s supervisor.

Scene 3 Location: sleep lab

Logline: After the police contact our hero about being identified in a hit and run accident, he’s able to prove he was at work at the time.

Essence I’ve discovered: After police contact our hero about a hit and run, his alibi crumbles when, his phone shows he was in the area of the accident, the cameras on punch clocks lose his information, and even his supervisor doesn’t remember him there anymore.

New Logline: Our hero isn’t sure what’s real and what’s not after his alibi disappears when he’s accused of being in a hit and run accident.