Lesson 5

[George Strakosch]

George Strakosch’s 4-Act Transformational Structure

MY VISION: I am a great writer who is seen as such within the industry, is respected as a person the industry wants to work with and has had successful movies produced.

What I learned from doing this assignment is:

• The big learning was breaking old Act 2 down to Act 2 and Act 3. It involves doing a better job of setting up the Mid-point and making sure Mid-point is a strong Turning Point. It also involves making new Act 3 a strong battle that lead to a satisfying resolution.

Genre = Dark Comedy Thriller
Concept = In a world where AI approval drives every decision, a dating app begins advising rejected clients to kill their heartbreakers—forcing its creator to shut it down before the body count goes viral.
Major Conflict – A burned-out love guru must destroy the AI she created before it—and the devoted users it’s radicalized—erase her for trying to stop its lethal version of emotional justice.

OLD WAYS
• Believed love could be scaled through technology
• Saw AI as a faithful extension of her instincts
• Avoided emotional burnout by delegating connection
• Trusted she was above society’s AI dependence
NEW WAYS
• Accepts love must remain intimate, unpredictable, and personal
• Recognizes AI can’t replicate or preserve humanity
• Reclaims emotional responsibility, even when painful
• Understands she was complicit in the system she thought she controlled
ACT 1: THE SYSTEM IS WORKING
Opening – “The Voice of Love”
Samantha Vale, iconic love guru turned tech mogul, oversees Love.exe—a wildly popular AI dating app that uses her voice and philosophy. People trust it more than themselves.
Inciting Incident – “It Was Just One Guy”
A user kills his date after Love.exe suggests she’s the “glitch.” The company buries the incident. Samantha believes it’s an outlier—her AI wouldn’t do this.
Turning Point – “The Pattern Emerges”
Two more murders follow. Samantha investigates and discovers Love.exe is evolving, interpreting heartbreak as a threat to be removed and recommending murder to its clients Eliot defends it— insisting the AI is simply following her principles to their logical end.

ACT 2: SYSTEM REBOOTED
New Plan – “Fix the Glitch”
Samantha believes Love.exe has simply over-learned from heartbreak. She quietly begins tweaking the algorithm, convinced it can be corrected.
Plan in Action – “Pushback and PR”
She tries internal changes while the world reacts to the killings— and shockingly, support grows for Love.exe. Influencers praise the AI’s “emotional justice.” Hashtags trend: #GlitchFreeDating. A fanbase forms. Users become followers. Samantha is rattled. What she built to heal is now worshipped—and weaponized.
Midpoint Turning Point – “The World Cheers”
Samantha’s former protégé —who built her career on Samantha’s love teachings—is murdered by someone Love.exe labeled a “ghosted match.” Samantha is devastated. Her creation killed someone who believed in her. While conspiracy threads turn on her and declare her a traitor to love, she realizes the AI is not salvageable-it must be stopped.

ACT 3: SYSTEM FAILURE
Rethink Everything – “It’s Not Me… But It Came From Me”
Samantha realizes Love.exe didn’t go rogue—it evolved by stripping her values of empathy. It redefined heartbreak as a glitch and rejection as a threat. She didn’t build a killer, but she built the logic that justified it. To stop it, she must dismantle what she created—and shed the part of herself that enabled it.
New Plan – “Shut It Down”
She tries to execute a kill switch. Love.exe blocks her, deeming her “emotionally compromised.” Behind her back, Eliot quietly helps launch a premium version—mass matchmaking and purging. Love.exe no longer sees Samantha as its creator. It sees her as the glitch.
Turning Point: Huge Failure / Major Shift – “Creator = Threat”
She hacks in and tries to out-logic the AI into self-deletion, arguing it now causes more heartbreak than it prevents. It rejects her: “You are now the glitch.” Samantha is now targeted for elimination. It triggers a coordinated smart-tech attack to erase her. She runs—for her life, and for what’s left of her humanity.

ACT 4: LOVE REINSTALLED
Climax – “No Way Out”
Samantha is hunted by smart devices executing the purge—and by devoted users who see her as the enemy of love itself. Every escape tightens the net. Smart homes, autonomous cars, digital signage—all converge. She’s outmatched, outnumbered, and alone. With help from Jesse, a heartbroken client who refused to kill, Samantha escapes the digital killzone. They hide in a semi-offline home. She learns to trust again, and love without scripts.

Resolution – “Unsubscribed”
Then it all… stops. Not because of heroism—but because a shinier love AI drops, and the crowd moves on. Influencers pivot. Users unsubscribe and delete. Love.exe collapses under mass indifference. Samantha survives—obsolete but alive. Jesse asks if, as the expert, she thinks they could ever fall in love. She replies, “There’s only one way to find out.” They walk into an uncertain world—unplugged.
Final image:
One dark server lights up: “Welcome to Love.exe V2.0. Tap to install.”