-
Lesson 5
Reply to post your assignment.
-
6 Replies
-
Subject Line: Jim Thompson’s Villain Has a Great Plan!
“What I learned is…?”
I focus too much on the technical and tactical details within each scene than rather than the MIS needed. Looking at the scenes to add MIS while building the Villan’s plan.has been interesting and helps the story’s structure. Not sure that I can change my initial writing style but I can certainly learn to edit by adding MIS while also removing some details if necessary or extraneous.
I have been going back into the outline portion of my novel to add M.I.S. to the beats and characters. I can see a very long road ahead but also a slow improvement to my story. As I said earlier, I am turning the story on its head which has made me also focus more on the investigation side and develop the ‘hero’ rather than the ‘anti-hero’ approach.
Reading the lesson, I did not agree with the conclusions of ‘Basic Instinct’. Rather than Beth as the villain with a plan, I thought it was Cathrine who manipulated and frame Beth. Interesting alternate perspective and I can see how it works.
To create your Villain’s plan, answer these four questions:
1. What is the end goal?
Killing of all the people who harmed his spouse and caused her death. Because of their use of corruption within the court, he attacks and wants to force a restructure of the Court system.
2. How can the Villain accomplish that in a devious way?
Use military and intelligence techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) to execute all lawyers within Fargo,Grand Rapids, and Bismark, ND.
3. How can they cover it up?
Using ‘dummy’ terrorists (Lakota and Arab) with leads to a safe house sends the investigation on a different path. After the attacks in ND, a series of attacks on the power grid in the mid-west, south, and southeast threaten to bring the power grid down. This causes a political storm increasing the pressure on law enforcement to find the terrorist group. Besides the power grid, there are continued attacks on the Federal Court system. All of this leads the FBI and DHS to put aside all indications that this might be a lone individual.
4. Sequence it to make it as intriguing as possible.
At the areas where the power grid attacks have taken place, the terrorists have destroyed the equipment through explosives and incendiary devices. However, one FBI investigator from the Fargo attack, with the assistance of the FBI forensics lab out of Minneapolis pieces together enough from three locations to show how it could be automated and controlled through an Internet connection. Investigating how the equipment was put into place, they find a fake telco lease for the tower going back 5, 10, and 13 years.
-
Leslie A. A. Villain Has a Great Plan!
What I learned from this assignment: in theory, to reverse engineer the story, specific here, the villain. One of the difficulties I had was trying to make a villain that was different – but basically they are all the same. Then I was trying to make an ultimate villain, one that when vanquished, all the world’s problems would be solved – that became far too complicated when I did some research. I should know by now how complicated the world is. Then I thought about a small villain, and intimate villain, but I floundered there. Rather than stop myself with the thought that I just didn’t think like a decent villain, I just went for the steps Hal laid out… try to make it simple and general for now.
What’s the villain’s end goal: To be the top dog, the king of the pile, to have all the chips or all the power, all the money.
How does the villain accomplish this? The villain knows all the other “top dogs” and knows what they have – how much money, into what those top dogs invest, and knows what will temp them to “support his scheme that will ultimately and surprisingly turn on them.”
How does the villain cover up his scheme? The villain makes it appear that all the aspects of his grand plan are good business ventures; things that will feed the egos and give good press to his “rivals.” He makes his rivals feel like partners rather than competitors. He manipulates his rivals into feeling admired by the people rather than hated by them… he is throwing out the ‘gangster’ play book for a ‘savior’ play book.
Sequencing: In order to win the long game, there are steps to take…. experimental habitats on the failing planet earth which will be used by the ‘rivals and their heirs’ to survive in the long run: from semi underground earth habitats to space stations, to lunar bases, to robots building Mars habitats, and testing the ‘paraterraforming’ technologies needed for human survival on other than Earth planets. The Villain sells the future of humanity to his rivals and also the lesser entities needed to gain public approval while all the time planning to seduce the rivals into trips of a lifetime only to have them implode like the sub visiting the Titanic.
-
PETER FELIZ: MY VILLAIN HAS A GREAT PLAN
ASSIGNMENT
To create your Villain’s plan, answer these four questions:
What is the end goal? To become a “kingpin” in Sonora Mexico
How can the Villain accomplish that in a devious way? Become a valuable asset to a drug cartel leader
How can they cover it up? He fakes his incarceration in Sonoran jail holding to extradite him to USA for Ponzi scheme. He uses his blood tests to make himself valuable to a dying drug lord as a marrow transplant donor
Sequence it to make it as intriguing as possible:
1. While living in Arizona Cuichi Valenzuela cons senior citizens to invest in his Ponzi Scam to a total of $200000.
2. He uses the $200K as casino money and wins $1.5 mil .
3. Before the FBI can arrest him he escapes to a family village in Sonora Mexico
4. He helps his uncle to drug marijuana traffic for a drug lord.
5. Though He’s caught and jailed, he uses the notorious Mexican beaurocracy to stall FBI extradition.
6. Cuichi gets a jail doctor to claim that Cuichi is an acceptable transplant donor for an ailing Mexican kingpin to get him out of jail.
7. The Kingpin has enough power to switch one of his minions in Cuichi ‘s place in jail.
8. But Lucky Lunes ‘s jail visit disrupts the rise.
9. Cuichi takes advantage of the calamity to escape both the Authorities and the Mexican kingpin.
10. Cuichi will use Lucky to get access to his $2,000,000,000 cache.
11. Cuichi will dispose of Lucky Lunes
12. Cuichi has observed the local drug kingpin’s operation and notes it has a basic weakness.
13. Cuichi will attack the kingpin with the aid of villagers and topple the cartel… helping a Sonoran politico become president of Mexico and awards Cuichi immense political and financial power.
-
Oops. Forgot to say what I learned today: don’t let myself get bogged down in plausibility. Allow myself to think like a stupid con man. (Not that hard)
-
Jen’s Villain has a Great Plan
What I learned doing this assignment is that although I have some ideas, I need to make them sneaky and not seem like the villain is doing anything wrong. I have watched THE GIFT and OldBoy as a kind of starting point for this screenplay (and need to watch Fatal Attraction) but I want to be careful and not make the villain obvious at all.
What is the end goal? To make Nemi kill herself
How can the Villain accomplish that in a devious way? She is going
to systematically destroy her life – destroy her friendships, her career,
her family and then agree (in a covert way) that she has nothing to live
for
How can they cover it up? She pretends to be a friend and gives her
poor advice that creates poor outcomes for her
Sequence it to make it as intriguing as possible. It needs to start
small, little things that are an annoyance and increasing get more
dangerous/damning to her life: MISLEAD – at the beginning it will seem
like her mother killed herself due to estrangement from her grandchildren
and she will get in a fight with her ex-husband because she told them she
died several years before. This is not her mother who just died, but is
the “villain’s’” mother and everything that happens after this is of the
villain’s design.a. Her dog goes missing, which is very upsetting to her children. Her friends tells her something/tells her kids something that makes them mad at her (maybe she tells them your mother said she doesn’t have time or money to put up posters, but the villain actually offered to do it and then didn’t) But then after a couple weeks a boarder calls and says when are you coming to get your dog? This way the villain didn’t actually hurt the dog – because the villain at the end will be justified in what she does, so we don’t want the audience to be upset with her for hurting a dog (i.e. like boiling a bunny in Fatal Attraction…)
b. Her money is transferred from her checking to her savings so all her bills don’t get paid. She is hit with fees that hurt her financially (in a way she can recover, but causes issues like she can’t afford the birthday party she promised her child – maybe the villain pays for it??? Does it at the last minute, says she doesn’t want anyone to know, but then makes sure they find out, covertly)
5. Her car breaks down (certainly sabotaged) and causes issues with her kids, can’t take them places, etc. Something happens at the mechanic (need to get this from Larry) – maybe “she” called and said don’t fix it, so he sends it to the junk yard – now she doesn’t have a car. Maybe “villain” saves the day again and drives kids.Larry says have sugar put in gas tank, mechanic will at first think full pump, not unreasonable to have person say to not fix it. When she calls and says where is my car, he says you told me not to fix it and I junked it, you dropped off the title. Villain says he is a liar and they find title (she got a copy) but then mechanic’s shop is closed (maybe this is villain’s friend)
6. Something happens with paperwork at school (must have been a mistake) and she dropped all her classes – still went all semester, did work, etc. but is getting no credit. School can’t do anything to fix it.
7. Things heat up with ex-husband. She isn’t there when he comes to get kids, whatever, and ex is getting mad.
8. Someone dies in her family and she doesn’t get notified (villain takes over her phone, deletes messages, sends rude ones)
9. Friends also get “dissed” – she had plan with friends, but ends up blowing them off because “villain” buys tickets to some major concert and she chooses to go to that.
10. Her real identity as a “troll” on a website for parents is leaked. On this site she harasses her friends (tells them things she can’t tell them, like she thinks they are terrible parents). Now all her friends hate her and she is totally dependent on the villain.
11. Husband is caught with child porn, denies knowing anything about it – just had computer serviced – it must have been them setting him. Villain talks her into believing him and taking him back. (and maybe before this he has an affair and she talks him into taking him back then, even though villain set up the affair).
12. Husband is given an anonymous tip that she has pedophile in house – takes kids.
13. She is depressed, villain talks her out of going to therapy, will just give husband more ammunition for getting custody of kids – can give her medication (bad, illegal, gets her addicted and messed up)
14. Villain talks her into driving drunk (pretends she is really drunk and can’t drive her car). She gets stopped for OUI.
15. Gets her investigated by children’s services (has to happen before husband takes them, so before 11)
16. Gets fired from her job
17. Gets evicted from apartment (has nowhere to go – alienated her family)
18. Gets outed for giving her mother some type of medicine that killed her (but looked like natural causes originally)
-
Mary Albanese’s Villain Has a Great Plan!
What I learned: It was great to hear the difference between story and backstory, and how to fold in backstory in little bits through the protagonist’s discovery, when you have the audience on the edge of their seats eagerly anticipating it and NEEDING it.
In my script-to-be, here’s my villain’s plan.
1. END GOAL – to find the Inca’s treasure by coaxing the protagonist to locate it, and instead of keeping it secret as her sect has for generations, to kill the protagonist and hoard the treasure for herself.
2. HOW TO DEVIOUSLY ACCOMPLISH IT? The villain puts the protagonist in serious danger with only one way out – to uncover the secret that only she can discover.
3. HOW CAN THEY COVER IT UP? Once the protagonist has found the treasure and the villain has followed her there, she will kill the protagonist and keep the treasure for herself.
4. SEQUENCE IT. Protagonist realizes she’s in danger. She’s now the last in a line of a family of who have died mysteriously. Why? To figure this out, she must figure out why she is special, and who might be after her. As she puts together the pieces of her heritage to see what was special about her ancestral tree, she discovers that her ancestor discovered a rare secret to the Inca’s treasure and its location. She must go on a journey of discovery to uncover why she is special, and what is the ultimate prize for her hereditary, knowing that the mysterious and hidden villain is not far behind. As she uncovers more pieces of her heredity’s puzzle, she gets closer and closer to uncovering the location of the Inca’s treasure, with the villain not far behind. Who will win? Will our hero get there in time to figure everything out so she can claim the treasure and defeat the villain? Or will the villain who has set her up to discover the treasure’s location get there in time to destroy our hero and keep the treasure for herself?
Log in to reply.