Lesson 6

[Paul Penley]

Paul P’s Transformational Structure

What I learned doing this assignment: The story can become stronger if there are mulitple transformations taking place. In this example I used the Change Agent. Johnny Roper

Transformational Logline: Johnny Roper must face and overcome his horrific childhood trauma in order to reach the level of disciplin he will need to destroy his captors and save his younger brother.

Act 1:

Opening: Johnny is teaching his younger brother Billy knots, while tending to the horses.

Inciting Incident: Indians/ Attack of BALIN – John Sr. protects his two sons and is mortally wounded. He tells Johnny to watch over his youunger brother. Johnny tries to hide Billy from Balin.

Turning Point: Johnny fires his pistol trying to kill the monsterbefore him. He is trown against the rocks next to his dead father. Billy is allowed to leave.

Act 2:

New plan: Save Billy from the evil of the Angels and their demons. Billy fails and doesn’t listen to Johnny.

Plan in action: Johnny repremands Billy in order to save him from retribution. ( last brotherly warning )

Midpoint Turning Point: Johnny chooses an Angel and takes the bite. ( He has one more bite before turning immmortal. )

Act 3:

Rethink everything: Billy isn’t following Johnny’s lead and is failing.

New plan: Get Billy and his Outlaws out of town. Informs him of the escape tunnels. Hide till morning.

Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift: Billy and his Outlaws fail to escape and are captured by different factions of the Demon army. Billy is captured by Lupo. Johnny feeds for the first time and gains new insite and streangth to his Angel powers.

Act 4:

Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict: Johnny embraces the new power of the Angels and Lupo has set a plan of action into place to defeat the Angels. He uses his Skinwalker power combined with his Angel powers.

New Plan: The fight is on. Billy, Johnny, Lupo, the Outlaws and the townspeople fight back against the Angels and their depmon army.

Climax: Johnny is mortally wounded saving one of Billy’s outlaws.

Ultimate Expression of the conflict.: Johnny dies after giving his brother the tools to survive.

Resolution: Billy takes on his brother’s revenge gainst Balin.

New staus quo: Billy Kills Balin and his demons freeing the town. Billy and company escape Hell.

[Lonnie Nichols]

Lonnie’s Transformational Structure

What I learned doing this assignment:

This assignment helped me incorporate the gradients into the main character. I also was able to include those in the 4-act outline. I can see the excellent value of looking at all three gradients when developing the main characters.

“RUBYTOWN” (Sci-fi Drama/Feature)

1) Transformational Logline: (transformational character) A teenage track star, turned “drug addict”, goes missing for weeks. She returns cured, along with possessing super-powers, but must overcome strong resistance from from her small town as she begins “cleaning up” and shutting down the powerful drug lords.

2) Tell us who the main character will be: Ruby, a teenage track star and excellent student. She turns to drugs upon the accidental death of her father.

3) List out your 4-Act structure:

Act 1:
• Opening: Ruby is enjoying being a teenager, along with the popularity of being attractive, good student, and high school track star

• Inciting Incident: After winning a comeback victory in a relay, which she breaks a record at, she discovers her father was killed in an auto accident. Goes into depression, becomes a “victim”

• Turning Point: She tries, and likes, heroine. It soothes her pain, hides her trauma, etc. Goes into denial of her father’s death. Quickly addicted.

• Handicapped brother (wheelchair) loves and tries to help.

Act 2:
• New plan: Her mother puts her in rehab, but Ruby escapes. She is angry at life. Unable to compete in sports.

• Plan in action: she becomes a drug dealer to support her habit and helps her widowed mother with finances. Mother depressed as well due to loss and Ruby’s addiction

• Midpoint Turning Point: Ruby goes missing for nearly a month.

• Handicapped brother searches the town with his friends with no success

Act 3:
• Rethink everything; She mysteriously returns “clean” from drugs, re-joins the track team, and possesses super-powers. She starts having flashbacks of an alien abduction in the desert near her small town.

• New plan: She lives a clean life, plans to help the community. The situation now looks good.

• Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift: She discovers the mayor is the drug “kingpin” of the small town, and he does everything to stop her attempt to clean up the town. His minions even beat up her brother, and start foreclosure on her mom’s house in an attempt to stop Ruby from her “clean up” mission. The entire community rejects her powers….thinks she’s a quack. Ruby gets depressed, near hopelessness, considers drugs again.

Act 4:
• Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict: Ruby goes to the newspaper, to the TV stations, and uses ingenuity to indirectly expose the mayor, taking down the drug cartel in town. The town folk do not believe her powers. Flashback: She was abducted by ETs (give some hints along the way)

• Resolution: She exposes the mayor via surveillance set up by her handicapped brother. She lets everyone know she’s been healed by extraterrestrials. The town folk begin to believe her and celebrate. The citizens of this town, Middletown, is renamed: “Rubytown”.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by  Lonnie Nichols.

[margo meck]

Margo’s Transformational Structure

What I learned doing this assignment is: how designing the story just falls into place when the Emotional Gradient, Action Gradient, and Challenge/Weakness Gradient have already been identified and developed. The story is starting to take shape.

Transformational Logline: The product of incest turns a death wish into a successful life as an extreme sport competitor.

The main character is the protagonist who is the Transformational Character.

4-Act Structure

Act 1

Brandi is planning her wedding. Her big dream is to marry and have a family. The wedding is only weeks away.

Inciting Incident – A friend talks her into submitting DNA to Ancestry dot com. From the results she finds out that her absent uncle is also her father.

Her fiancé cancels the wedding.

In denial she confronts her mother who admits it’s possible.

Turning point: Her dreams are shattered. In anger at what her mother did, Brandi moves out of her mother’s house, but she has no money, no skills, and no knowledge of the world.

Act 2

A friend of her mother’s helps Brandi. He trains her as his receptionist and general go-fer and lets her live in a room at his airplane hangar. Brandi struggles to learn the ropes.

The people in the small town find out about her being the product of incest and shun her. Her old high school friends hassle and torment her.

Turning point: Filled with shame, she has a death wish. She parachutes with her boss hoping it will kill her.

Act 3

Surprisingly, the parachute jump didn’t kill her; in fact, she found it exhilarating.

A friend of her boss talks her into trying parachute surfing. He tells her she has a natural talent and she has hope that maybe life is worth living. Against her wishes, her coach signs her up for a competition. She loses.

She is discouraged but with the help of her coach, she trains harder. She enters other competitions and every time her performance improves. She goes to an intense national competition.

Turning point: Her primary competitor finds out about her past and threatens to release the information to the press if she doesn’t withdraw from the competition.

Act 4

Brandi is torn between her shame and wanting to prove her skill at the competition.

She finds the courage to overcome her shame.

Climax: She competes and wins.

Resolution: Her peers respect her for her skill. She is accepted for who she is, not what her parents did.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by  margo meck.

[Mark Roeder]

What I learned doing this assignment is to create a new challenge for Rosemary when weaving in the emotional gradients. She fails the final test to join Blaze’s team and can’t see her panda son Kyo.

1. Transformational Logline:

A veterinarian repulsed by the pandas she artificially inseminates gives birth to a panda, finds out it’s an alien creation and teams up with her panda to stop a hidden alien agenda.

2. Main character: transformable character (Rosemary)

3. 4-Act Structure:

Act 1: 

Opening: Rosemary artificially inseminates pandas she is repulsed by. She reluctantly does her job, controlling them the best she can, scientific in a cold hearted way.

She thinks the pandas are all the same, like a scarred giant panda who seems vicious toward her, and believes they have a hidden agenda against her

Inciting Incident: Rosemary gives birth to a panda.

Emotion: Denial

Action: Rosemary doesn’t believe she gave birth to a panda. It’s impossible. It doesn’t make sense. She accuses people of messing with her head, playing a dirty trick on her, stealing her real baby and replacing it with a panda. There’s no way it could be hers.

Weakness: She’s suspicious

Emotion: Anger

Action: She attempts to kill her baby panda.

Challenge: She gave birth to a creature she thinks is an abomination.
Weakness: Reluctant. Can’t go through with it.

Turning Point: When she tries to kill Kyo, her own panda son, she’s pounced on by Incisor, the scarred giant panda and his panda community and rescued/kidnapped by Blaze.

Act 2: 

Emotion: Bargaining.

Action: She pleads that she wasn’t going to do it. Swears to Kyo she won’t do that again even if he is a panda. Bargains with Blaze to let her go.

Challenge: Blaze says Kyo is an alien creation and that all pandas are aliens.
Weakness: Judgmental against pandas, scientific in a cold, heartless way, can’t come to grips with her feelings for her son and if it’s really hers if it’s an alien creation.

Blaze’s vision: Rosemary’s panda, Kyo, the first full panda born from a human, is the Promised Panda that will stop the panda alien invasion. Blaze leads an army of women who have been abducted and experimented on by the pandas. He believes Rosemary must protect Kyo and join them in their battle with the alien pandas.

New plan: to escape Blaze and his team and fight alien pandas on her own.

Plan in action: She escapes, and discovers Kyo stowed away with her.

Midpoint Turning Point. Lena Zu (the betrayer on Blaze’s team) hunts them and tries to kill Kyo, and Rosemary saves Kyo by killing Lena. (Lena doesn’t believe in the promised panda, can’t get over her panda prejudice after they abducted her and experimented on her)

Act 3: 

Rethink everything: Rosemary realizes humans can be as bad as pandas. She doesn’t understand why she saved Kyo. Could he be the promised panda?

New plan: she decides she wants to join Blaze’s team, but they only take her son Kyo, and she has to pass dangerous tests to join the team. Blaze’ll train her how to fight the alien pandas and protect her son. During these tests, her bond with her son develops more. In one test, she fails to protect Kyo from a rock that injures his jaw, and she discovers he can regenerative his teeth instantly, and believes he is the Promised Panda now, but she fails the final test. They won’t let her join now. They don’t trust her. She almost makes it, feels she does everything she needed to, but can’t join team. Can’t even see Kyo.

A. Emotion: Depression

B. Action: Has nightmares about pandas, can’t sleep, watches stuff about pandas, like Blaze’s doc that showed her get experimented on by aliens, led by the scarred giant panda. Maybe kidnaps and locks up her panda son. Won’t let him out of cage. Studies him. Decides to let him go. Opens cage. So he can go fulfill his destiny without her. He hugs her goodbye.

C. Challenge: doesn’t make team. Can’t see Kyo.
Weakness: gives up.

She now feels she can’t live without her panda Kyo. She decides to track him down and make Blaze let her join the team.

Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift: She learns her son’s birth triggered the invasion, that he sent a signal and now Incisor, the scarred giant panda, his community and other pandas, some from ships that come down, attack and kill millions of men and abduct millions of women.

Act 4: 

Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict: Rosemary fights her son Kyo, but then decides to fight for him no matter what. Incisor, the scarred giant panda, the one who inseminated Rosemary, claims to be Kyo’s father. Kyo has a dilemma, mother or father, panda or human. Incisor kills Blaze, and Rosemary and Kyo team up to stop Incisor.

Rosemary and Kyo have to go through Incisor’s army and then fight him. Rosemary sacrifices her life to save Kyo’s. But Kyo, the promised panda, nibbles Rosemary to regenerate her back to life.

By defeating Kyo’s father, Kyo becomes the new leader and has the other pandas step down.

A. Emotion: Acceptance

B. Action: Rosemary decides to be as good a mother as she can, and fight for her baby panda, no matter what. She teams up with him, and realizes he has free will, to make his own choice to fight the aliens or join them.

C. Challenge: The alien pandas attack.

Weakness: Has to learn she can’t control her panda.

Resolution: At the zoo animal hospital, Rosemary wrestles with Kyo, playing with him. A human is rough with a panda, and Kyo growls. Rosemary protects the other panda against the abuser. Her son and her now lead a team on treating the pandas with love and not discriminating against them. This is no easy task, since many humans lost loved ones in the war against the pandas.

[Margaret]

Margaret’s Transformational Structure for RAG DOLLS
What I learned: How to incorporate the emotional gradient into the 4-Act structure to ensure the profound message is evident.
Transformational Logline: A grieving, fearful grandmother, oppressed by Nazi’s, joins the resistance and courageously relays messages through her rag dolls.
Concept: After losing family to Nazi cruelty, a network of European grandmothers band together to smuggle intelligence during WWII through coded stitching patterns in rag dolls.
Major Conflict: Four grandmothers use rag dolls to transmit sensitive intelligence to the resistance while attempting to avoid Nazi detection.
Transformational character: Margot Dufour.
Old ways for Margot Dufour:
Timid
Fearful
Perfectionist
Dislikes Change/Risk
New Ways for Margot Dufour:
Courageous
Risk-Taker
Able to act without a perfect plan in place
External Journey for Margot Dufour: From grieving grandmother to resistance fighter
Internal Journey for Margot Dufour: From grieving and fearful to bold and courageous
Profound Truth: God created each of us for a specific purpose.
Change I want the audience to make: Find their calling and step out to fulfill it.
Entertainment Vehicle: A World: World War II, Resistance in Lyons, Religion
FOUR-ACT STRUCTURE
Act 1:
Opening
Margot, an accomplished seamstress, hurries to finish a rag doll to place in the arms of her murdered granddaughter at her funeral. The rag doll is noticed by Lise, a gregarious elderly woman, who invites the grieving Margot to her toy shop.
Nazi’s swarm the university, arresting professors. They leave behind an elderly math professor, Marie-Claude Benoit, who feigns dementia to avoid the round-up.
Helene, a German mother of a Nazi officer, overhears a plan for a roundup of Jewish children at their school in two weeks.
At the toy shop, Helene, expresses interest in the rag dolls and invites Margot and Lise to her sewing club.
Inciting Incident
At Helene’s parlor, the home of a Nazi officer, the three grandmothers, Margo, Lise, and the brilliant Marie-Claude meet. Helene realizes each of the women have had a painful experience and have held on to their own Christian faith to deal with their grief. (One a Catholic, one a Lutheran, one a French Calvinist.
Helene shares her desire to establish a resistance network through Lise’s toy shop, transmitting messages through rag dolls, using a code developed by Marie-Claude. Margot states she is too old, doesn’t feel capable, and has no desire to be involved in clandestine activities. Lise reveals she has never been able to keep a secret.
Helene shares verse Esther 4:14, “For such a time as this” to encourage the women to join her in the resistance. Helene provides the intel on the proposed round-up of children in two weeks and tells them they must act fast to prevent the tragedy.
Turning Point
The women agree to set up a resistance network, quoting Psalm 91 for protection and Isaiah 6:8 “Here I am, send me.” The weekly “sewing club” at the Nazi home will be used to coordinate their efforts.
Act 2:
New plan
Marie-Claude revels in her success to develops a code system that can be used in the design of the rag dolls to transmit messages. Lise establishes toy shop as a distribution center.
Marie-Claude struggles to teach Margot how to code the dolls because she does not understand the elements of sewing needed to make the dolls and her brilliance keeps her from being able to transmit the “to do’s” in simple terms for Margot to understand.
Marie-Claude reveals Margot’s difficulty in learning the code and Helene laments choosing her as the master seamstress.
Helene sends Margot a message with flowers, “For such a time as this” to encourage her.
Margot struggles to design the code naturally into the design of the rag doll and to finish in time.
Plan in action
The messenger comes to the toy shop asking for a doll from the “master seamstress.” Lise realizes she doesn’t have the doll yet and almost blows the operation with Nazi’s listening to the exchange. She tells the messenger to come back in the afternoon. He tells her he will buy the present for his daughter’s birthday at another shop.
Alone, Lise wonders if the plan will work and expresses anger at the delay of the dolls.
Another messenger comes in the afternoon, and Lise sells the rag doll successfully with the coded message to another resistance fighter who asks for the “master seamstress’” work. During the transfer of the message, Nazi’s fill the shop and Margot struggles to lie to a Nazi officer.
The raid on the school is successfully thwarted.
The women meet at the sewing circle, rejoicing in their success and plan next steps. The women comfort Margot’s moral courage/internal conflict with lying by sharing Rahab’s story (lies to protect the spies).
Midpoint Turning Point
Helene’s son realizes that his mother may be involved in thwarting the raid by sharing intelligence and provides her with false intel to test his theory.
Helene’s son, Nikolaus “Klaus”, introduces himself to the “sewing circle” and secretly places each of the women on surveillance. He inserts an elderly spy into the sewing circle to spy on the grandmothers.
Marie-Claude acts like the bumbling grandmother while the spy is present to prevent discovery of her abilities.
Helene realizes her son suspects the group.
Act 3:
Rethink Everything:
The women meet at the toy shop, quietly revealing their distress at the identified surveillance, wondering if they overstepped God’s will.
The women share Acts 5:29, “Obey God rather than men.” Helene states that they are safe, her son will not do anything to expose her. They agree to continue, keeping the sewing circle for sewing alone.
New plan
Helene expands their network using a catholic priest during confession, convincing him with I Corinthians 12:12-27, “Many parts, one body.” Helene provides the information to the priest, then the priest transmits to Marie-Claude.
Marie-Claude transmits to Margot at the toy shop when she drops off rag dolls for sale while displaying dementia to Nazi’s in the shop.
Lise handles the sale and transmission of the doll to a messenger using the code word, “master seamstress.” A Nazi wants the particular coded doll and she has to give him something better for the same price to placate him, loathing that she has to benefit a Nazi.
Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift
Helene’s involvement is confirmed when fake message from Klaus is transmitted. The toy shop is raided. The Nazi’s are unable to determine how the messages are relayed, but threats of torture lead Lise to betray Helene. Feigning ignorance, she does not reveal how the messages are relayed but agree to have the Nazi’s wait in her shop for Helene with the promise of future help to the Nazi’s if they would promise her safety.
Act 4:
Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict
Helene arrives at the toy shop as Margot is drops off rag dolls. Klaus confronts Helene, demanding to know how messages are transmitted. Helene quotes Daniel 3:16-18, “Whether God saves or not…” refusing to co-operate. She has chest pain, but her son shows no compassion in front of his comrades.
Margot witnesses the interrogation, and in her stress pees the floor. She lies to the Nazi officer, lying that it happens all too often with age, asking Lise for an old rag to clean it up. Lise tells her to just leave, she will clean it up, giving her the opportunity to flee and transmitting the message that Margot has not been exposed.
Marie-Claude enters as Klaus arrests his mother. She attempts to use her dementia façade to placate him but is unsuccessful. Her anger erupts and she reveals she is the way the information is transmitted, not revealing the code. She goads Klaus into killing her to avoid giving more information, revealing he missed her the first time around.
Resolution
Margot repeats Job 13:15, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”, and Matthew 16:25 “Lose life to save it” to herself to bolster her courage. She vows to fulfill the purpose God has created her for and hangs a sign outside announcing her mending services.
Margot places a rag doll into Marie-Claude’s arms at her funeral. A previous messenger stops by the casket and observes the doll with its coded message. On her way out of the church, the priest asks her if she is the master seamstress that has set up a new mending shop. She tells him the address and states he will be by with some mending that needs to be done.

[Jennifer Quintenz-Berry]

Jenn’s Transformational Structure

What I learned doing this assignment is:
It’s a lot of moving parts, but it’s starting to come together. I know it will need refinement from here, but I think this is a solid start for the story I want to tell. Going back to double check on the emotional gradients helped, and I think the events are ramping up in intensity. It’s not as obvious as a Godfather-type movie with guns and death, but I think the stakes are significant nonetheless. Eager to see where we go from here!

Transformational Logline:
After surviving the car crash that kills her sister, a college-dropout suffers life-threatening seizures during which she relives past memories. She starts to fall for the handsome neuroscientist racing to cure her, but when she realizes she has the power to rewrite history within these episodes, she risks everything to change her sister’s fate.

The main character:
Taylor Donlan, the Transformational Character

Taylor’s Old Ways:
– Self-defeating
– Sarcastic
– Doesn't see the point in trying
– Believes she suffers unique and unfair misfortune
– Isolates herself from others

Taylor’s New Ways:
– Empowered
– Embraces others
– Able to form genuine friendships
– Values what she once took for granted
– Loves her life

Internal Journey:
From victim to savior.

4-Act structure:

ACT 1

Opening:
Taylor gives the maid of honor speech at Sydney’s wedding to Christopher.
We see the love between Taylor and Sydney, the friendship between Aaron and Taylor, and realize neither of them like Christopher.
But then Taylor’s world seems to get too bright and she is crippled by a terrible pain–
Taylor wakes up in the medical facility she’s been living in for a year.
We learn the wedding was just a memory or hallucination Taylor experienced during a seizure or “lapse.”
Dr. Strove explains that her lapses are getting increasingly dangerous, and that Taylor’s body is starting to fail.
But when Taylor learns that she may never get out of this medical facility, she loses all hope.

Inciting Incident:
Taylor tries to commit suicide but is saved by Dr. Strove.
Recovering from the attempt, but still deeply depressed, Taylor meets Carrie, an old woman with a lust for life.
They slowly warm to each other, and Carrie pushes Taylor to engage with her life.
Taylor can’t help but like Carrie’s acidic sense of humor and starts to open up a little.
Dr. Strove introduces Taylor to world-renowned brain-specialist Riaz who believes he can help her.
Riaz is a kind—and handsome—neuroscientist who specializes in challenging cases.
While Taylor is skeptical that one more doctor will help, Carrie urges her to enjoy the “scenery” if nothing else.
Taylor reluctantly agrees to give it a try, and to her surprise, finds she loves spending time with Riaz.

END OF ACT 1 Turning Point:
Taylor has another lapse that almost kills her – she’s brought back by defibrillator.
We learn that Taylor’s running out of time, which is why Dr. Strove brought Riaz here to work with her.

ACT 2A

Reaction:
Taylor is scared and frustrated – she almost died right when she’s finally got someone interesting in her life.
Taylor and Riaz start talking about the lapses…
Lapse #1 (right after car accident) – reliving the wedding day, unable to stop Sydney from marrying Christopher
Lapse #2 (learning her sister died) – talking about crushes: Taylor – Aaron, and Sydney – Christopher.
Lapse #3 (at facility, panic attack) – night Taylor takes Aaron to dinner with Sydney and Christopher, and Aaron and Sydney hit it off (jelaous)
Riaz determines that lapses are triggered by strong emotions, and that they lead to memories of Taylor’s “what if” moments.
Riaz makes a discovery: each lapse takes as long as the original event likely took – which isn’t how memory works.
Taylor confesses to Carrie that she blames herself for Sydney’s death – not just the accident, but everything leading up to it.
Taylor and Carrie reconnect, Taylor admits she’s falling for Riaz – Carrie is worried for them both.
Carrie starts coughing, but something is definitely wrong. Taylor panics, which brings on another—
LAPSE: reliving Christopher announcing the engagement. Taylor is furious, slams her hands down, upsetting Sydney—but she’s worried about Carrie “I can’t be here right now!”
Taylor wakes up to see Carrie being carried out by a medical team.

The Plan:
Riaz visits—he wasn’t here when she lapsed, feels guilty.
Taylor asks about Carrie; she isn’t allowed to see her and she’s very worried.
Riaz encourages her to focus on her own recovery, so when Carrie’s feeling better, they’ll both be well.
Taylor agrees to another session.
Riaz changes treatment method – wants to do a brain scan while she recounts the next lapse.
Lapse #4 – (triggered by the hospital tapioca) Catching Christopher cheating on Sydney
They talk about what a bastard Christopher is. Riaz is getting interesting readings on the EEG…
Asks Taylor to do another lapse?
Lapse #5 – (generally depressed) Before Taylor can tell her that Christopher was cheating, Sydney says she’s pregnant.
Riaz is horrified—what happened to the baby?
Taylor says the baby hadn’t been born, she died with Sydney in the car crash…
It’s the first time Taylor’s said this aloud—and it triggers another…
LAPSE: Back to childhood, Taylor manages to avoid falling in the campfire that left her arm terribly burned.

Midpoint:
When she returns to the hospital (being packed in ice to bring down a crazy high fever) Taylor realizes she changed her past – the scar is gone.

ACT 2B

Rethink:
Taylor tells Riaz her scar is gone, but he has no memory of it; because her past truly was changed, they’d never discussed it after all.
Taylor tries to convince him what she’s saying really happened.
Riaz gets increasingly concerned, starts to fear the last lapse damaged her brain.
He leaves to set up more diagnostics.
Riaz and Strove are starting to think the way to “cure” Taylor is to medicate her so that her emotinos cannot triger another lapse.
Taylor hates this idea – living out a shell of a life as a zombie? She’d rather die…
Taylor goes to find Carrie, and is let in.
Carrie is dying of lung cancer – she’d hid it all this time, but it’s finally overwhelming her system.
Taylor grieves, but Carrie says the only thing that’s changed is now Taylor knows. Carrie’s still going to live her life until the end.
Carrie asks about Taylor and Riaz’s progress: on both fronts.
Taylor hesitates, fearing Carrie will think she’s crazy: but then she tells Carrie everything.
Carrie listens, skeptically at first, but then asks – if Taylor believes what she’s saying—what’s she gonna do about it?
Taylor is struck: if she could change her own past, maybe she can change Sydney’s fate, too.

New Plan:
Taylor and Carrie set to work, trying to find a patter to the lapses so they can predict the right moment for Taylor to jump back in and change it.
Carrie and Taylor discover that the lapse-episodes correspond to time of day as well as duration of the memories.
They are more and more convinced that Taylor isn’t hallucinating, she’s travelling into the past.
But they can’t figure out the pattern. They figure they only have one more shot at this.
Taylor’s managed to convince Riaz not to medicate her just yet – she tells him she’s making progress controlling her emotions.
Riaz and Taylor have another session where she describes Lapse #6 on an EEG:
Lapse #6 – (after losing her job and Aaron moving away) Taylor slaps Chris in bar, goes home to find Sydney and Aaron together, feels betrayed.
Riaz is encouraged—the EEG shows improvement from the last session.
They celebrate, Riaz cooks dinner for Taylor. It’s unexpectedly intimate, and Taylor realizes Riaz is falling for her, too.
She goes to tell Carrie—finds her fading quickly.
Carrie gives her a letter (for later) and her pendant necklace with her motto inside: “keep fucking going”
Taylor stays with Carrie until she dies.
Numb, Taylor leaves the nurses to their work, takes off her monitor, and collapses in her room—
LAPSE: She goes to back to the café with Sydney, when Sydney tells her she has a crush on Christopher, and freaks out, telling Sydney to leave him immediately, that he’s going to destroy her life. Taylor is wracked with pain, and finally pulled out of the lapse by—
RIAZ – who’s got a defibrillator to her naked chest. He’s found her on the floor, panicked.
When she returns, he starts to cry, gathering her up in an embrace.
Strove enters, sees this, and orders Riaz out of the room—Riaz is instantly fired for becoming involved with a patient.

END OF ACT 2 Turning Point:
Taylor is cut off from Riaz, she’s lost her best friend Carrie, and we learn she flatlined twice. Now Strove tells her he’ll be implementing the medication protocol that Riaz should have started weeks ago—Taylor’s emotions won’t be allowed to trigger any more lapses.

ACT 3

New Plan:
Taylor wakes up, groggy from the medicine she’s been given.
She sees the envelope that contained Carrie’s letter open and empty on her night stand.
She panics, then sees Riaz sitting in a chair across from her, reading the letter.
He had come to say goodbye and apologize for failing Taylor…
Now he sees the depth of her delusion. He’s furious that Carrie played into her delusions without telling anyone…
Taylor asks what he’s talking about?
He shows her the letter: Carrie cracked the pattern – the memories cycle in 84-day loops.
Everything lines up – she figured it out because Carrie had two lapses at the wedding, and the 4th of July when she was 7, it all lines up.
Like a Mobius strip, if it’s 84 days in length – any lapse will correspond to one of the layers beneath.
Taylor demonstrates, and Riaz is shocked to see that the dates and times actually do line up.
He calls it The Mobius Syndrome… but says even if it were real, she can’t use it to save her sister.
If she goes off the medication to lapse again, she will die.
A nurse stops in the doorway, Strove has your termination papers.
Riaz admits he just stopped to say goodbye and apologize for failing Taylor.
Taylor says he hasn’t failed her, and since he’s no longer her doctor—she kisses him.
Riaz freezes, then responds, before breaking away. I can’t… Maybe in another life, but…
Taylor knows she’s lapseing, but she’s happy.
As she collapses in his arms–

Climax:
Taylor LAPSES: back to a night with Aaron. They had no plans, just grabbing dinner.
Taylor can hear Riaz calling to her distantly, but she focuses on Aaron.
She tells him she can see the future, and knows he’ll fall in love with her sister.
When he winces, she realizes he’s already fallen in love. She urges him to tell Sydney, to speak before it’s too late.
Aaron laughs, awkwardly. He’s only known her for a month…
Taylor staggers on the pavement – she knows her body is dying.
Aaron is concerned, tries to help her, but she says it’s too late for her… but it’s not too late for Sydney.
She dials Sydney on her phone and hands it to Aaron—
Taylor dies.

Resolution:
Taylor wakes up in a hospital. At first, she thinks she’s failed.
But then she sees Sydney and Aaron!
Taylor’s past is reset, but she’s lost her love interest, Riaz. They’ve never met in this timeline.
Sydney has broken up with Christopher (who freaked out on her when she bailed on their plans last night)
Sydney and Aaron are clearly in the new stages of a relationship now.
Taylor is so happy for them.
As soon as she can, she finds Carrie: Trust me, we’re going to be good friends.
She convinces Carrie to get a cancer screening and supports Carrie through the treatment.
THREE YEARS LATER: they’re celebrating Carrie’s cancer-free status and Sydney and Aaron’s engagement…
But Taylor is still pining for Riaz, who she thinks never left London.
But Carrie invited Strove and encouraged him to bring a visiting lecturer: Riaz.
Taylor and Riaz hit it off instantly, and Riaz admits he’s in town for the semester, which will give them time to get to know each other.

New Status Quo:
Taylor and Carrie are roommates, and Taylor has finished her graphic design degree and has a new job she loves, with friends she can count on, and now… the possibility of love with the man she’s already fallen for.

~ end

[Terrie Shaft]

Terrie’s Transformational Structure
What I learned doing this assignment is that I can leverage AI to get decent first drafts. Elements of this would benefit from elevation. I embedded the gradients into my AI prompts as well as the transformational journey but I’m not sure I’m escalating things clearly enough. I’m also not sure my mid-point is strong enough. However, wow, glad I can use this tool.
Act 1: The Awakening
Opening:
Valerie, a decorated Texas Ranger, arrives in Marfa, a small border town, to investigate the brutal murder of a young woman. She gathers initial evidence but is told by her superiors that the victim is classified as a "non-citizen," making her death low priority. Valerie complies, terminating the investigation per regulations. However, Constable Bill secretly saves the evidence.
Inciting Incident:
While driving back to her base, Valerie is ambushed by unknown assailants. She defends herself skillfully, killing her attackers, but her autodrive vehicle leaves without her. Shaken, she commandeers the attackers’ vehicle and returns to Marfa, determined to find out why this case is being silenced.
Turning Point:
Valerie consults Doc, who provides compelling evidence the victim was indeed a citizen: her dental work, clothing, and pregnancy all suggest she was misclassified. Valerie begins to suspect a larger problem but clings to protocol, believing it’s a bureaucratic error she can fix through proper channels.
Act 2: The Revelation
New Plan:
Determined to uncover the truth without alerting her superiors, Valerie secretly continues her investigation. She connects the murder to a pattern of missing persons and systemic corruption in the government’s AI-driven "citizenship classification" program.
Plan in Action:
Valerie visits Colton, her former Army buddy living off the grid, for help. He reveals a treasure trove of evidence: the AI, touted as an impartial system, is controlled by a shadow government panel. It’s being manipulated to disenfranchise citizens, maximize profits for the elite, and suppress dissent.
Midpoint Turning Point:
Valerie is confronted with the horrifying realization that the government she once fought for is corrupt at its core. Despite Colton’s compelling evidence, she struggles to reconcile it with her belief in the system. She resolves to find concrete proof and return to Marfa.
Act 3: The Reckoning
Rethink Everything:
Valerie’s worldview begins to unravel. She tries to convince Doc to help her but is blindsided when he betrays her, tipping off the authorities about her unauthorized investigation. This leads to another ambush, forcing her to fight for her life and go completely rogue.
New Plan:
Realizing she can no longer operate within the system, Valerie resolves to take direct action against the shadow panel controlling the AI. She gathers supplies and intel with Colton’s help and infiltrates the compound of one of the panel leaders.
Turning Point (Major Failure):
Valerie discovers the depth of the conspiracy and its unrelenting control over every facet of society. The panel leader offers her a choice: join them and reap immense benefits, or face complete ruin. She refuses, exposing her commitment to justice but realizing she can’t single-handedly take down the system.
Act 4: The Resistance
Climax:
Valerie fights her way through elite security, using her military training and Texas Ranger skills to confront the panel leader. She kills him and exposes the conspiracy, but her evidence is quickly dismissed as irrelevant by the judiciary. The government spins the leader’s death as a random act of violence, undermining her efforts.
Resolution:
Despite the lack of systemic change, Valerie returns to Colton’s off-the-grid community, now fully aware of the uphill battle ahead. Inspired by the community’s resolve, she joins their resistance movement, vowing to fight for justice and democracy. Valerie has transformed into a principled warrior for freedom, embodying the ideals she once believed were inherent in the system.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 4 weeks ago by  Terrie Shaft.