Lesson 3

[Karen Christine Angermayer]

Karen Christine´s Assignment Right Characters

What I learned doing this assignment is that approaching my characters in this way and not thinking about details at first helps me to build a strong foundation for the story by not loosing sight of the hook and the main conflicts. A great way to develop a story, thank you!

Think about your
Concept Hook and Contained Setting.

For the contained setting I have chosen a cabin in a forest the mountains. The story plays inside and outside of the cabin, and in a shelter nearby.

With each of your
main characters, how can they uniquely fit with the Hook?

The main characters are father, mother (both in their thirties, beginning of forties), daughter (14) and son (8) of a family.

They fit with the hook, because each of them bring certain issues (emotional, financial, love related, death related) onto the trip that was planned as relaxing vacation for them all. It won´t be at all!

Thinking about the
conflict that hook creates, how does each main character enhance or cause
that conflict?

The story is about our greatest fears. Each of the main characters will be confronted with their fears throughout the story – which will be a life threatening experience. Since each of them goes through their own journey, they are not able (or only in some moments) to support each other.

The mother lost a child between her daughter and son. She is the character with the biggest wound.

The father, a freelancer, is about losing a project that would have brought them a huge amount of money.

The daughter seems to be the trouble-maker in this story, full of envy, because her brother who is suffering from a lethal illness gets so much attention of their parents, and she herself would rather have spent the vacation with her friend. At the end she will be the one who will find a way to escape the horror of the cabin and the forest.

Tell us what makes
these characters the “right ones” for this story?

As I feel it at this moment the characters are the right ones, because each of them represents a tremendous fear many of us have: The fear to loose a loved one, the fear to loose our financial existence and livelihood, the fear of not being loved enough, the fear of loosing our life.

I like this ensemble of characters, and I am curious what they will reveal to me in the coming lessons.

[Rae Rodgers]

SWU CONTAINED MOVIE – LESSON #3

RAE’S ASSIGNMENT RIGHT CHARACTERS

What I learned: This was a special way to process your characters and build on them, using their flaws and indiscretions.

Think about your Concept Hook & Contained Setting:

Contained Setting: The real estate office where most of the drama takes place.

The Hook: First Jesi must abide by the company rule, single women only. A rule laid down by the company’s female CEO.

1. Main Characters – how do they uniquely fit with the hook.

JESI: Jesi commits to pay off her deceased father’s gross amount of debt. Jumps into Commercial real estate and is willing to accept the company’s “single females only” rule, which is a blatant violation of DRE law, in order to make the big money.

GERARD: Gerard wants to make Jesi his own, but when she admits she does not want children, he withholds his twelve-year-old son, Julian. Even after they marry – on their first date.

2. Think about the conflict the HOOK creates, how does each character enhance or cause that conflict.

At first Jesi is willing to ignore the sexist company ruling, but then, after she secretly marries Gerard, her guilt kicks in.

Gerard has withheld his son from Jesi. He knows he has to disclose but puts it off again and again.

3. Tell us what makes these characters the right ones for this story.

Both characters have a hidden agenda but still they want the same result – to announce their marriage and make it legal at City Hall.