Lesson 6: Transformational Events

[Samantha Reynolds]

Sam Reynolds – Assig. 5

What I learnt: Ordering some of the ways my main character can change slowly over time, has allowed me to see more fully how the story will play out.

I have put the events into my last assignment. Here are some of the changes ordered.

Old Ways:

Allows doctors to dictate what she should do

Afraid to speak up – follow rules

Didn’t know she could make herself have the baby at home

Timid and wants to stay hidden

Accepting that life happens to her and not taking any control

New Ways:

Confident to say NO and do it her way, its ok to lie

Takes control of her life and how she wants the birth to end

Wants to show herself and her baby

Doesn’t care what people think

1. Opening the curtains of the living room and looking out instead of hiding and full of shame.

2. Nadine needs to force herself to get outside of the house and go for a walk.

3. Nadine meets with pregnant ladies, first time and other times on a regular basis. Hides the fact that her baby is dead.

4. Nadine buys a new baby item from the baby store.

5. Nadine tells Johnny she is going to do it her way.

6. Nadine invites one pregnant mom over on porch for tea. Or they meet somewhere. Or see each other at grocery store.

7. Dilemma: after Johnny confronts her, does she go along with what he wants or choose to stick to her path.

8. Nadine tells Johnny that she feels he forced her to terminate the baby. She was on the fence.

9. Researches how and what she needs to have a baby at home and does it. – takes action

10. Nadine hides her plans with Johnny and her sister – really becomes a liar and pretends she is going along but is not.

11. After birth Nadine hides her non-existent belly from everyone.

[Janeen Johnson]

Mary,

I agree with you. Knowing the events/methods by which my characters go from the old ways to the new ways and THEN doing the 4 Act structure would have been better. I, too, tried to order and organize my events rather than just figuring out what would challenge an old way or move someone into a new way. Just figuring out what will move them would have been better before trying to fit them into the act structure.

Janeen

[Janeen Johnson]

Janeen’s Four Act Transformational Structure

What I learned doing this assignment is using the Old Ways to New Ways transitions (from least dramatic to most dramatic change) makes creating the structure quick, easy and effective. Plugging in the new events was pretty simple.

Act 1: 25-30 pp. Set Up and see Old Ways

Opening: Doc chastises Jym for not sticking with the diet he gave her and shames her for her weak will and lack of effort. She is mortified.

Doc loves his wife to distraction, but her health keeps deteriorating as she too fails on diet after diet. Doc lectures his wife.

Inciting Incident: Jym fails at yet another of her brother’s diets and decides to look for a diet that will work for her and research why all of these diets have failed for her. She does her research and homes in on carb control as the key to weight loss and abolishing cravings.

Doc gets his wife an insulin pump in hopes it will help her to feel better.

Doc lectures his clients.

Turning Point: She tries Banting, finds it difficult, the drinking inappropriate and is always on the edge of a binge. She looks for reasons people binge — carb crash

Act 2: 20-30 pp. Challenge the Old Ways

Reaction: Jym loses weight on the Banting diet although it is inconvenient and after a heavy workout she can no longer stick to it. Jen finds Keto and low carb. She finds low carb works, but she is hungry sometimes and has other issues. Keto seems to help her.

Doc trusts his colleagues on advice to help his clients, but balks when they talk about weight loss drugs.

The OB challenges Jen because others see her success and want to do what she does. That’s dangerous.

Ashley (s-i-l) feels much better with her insulin pump and is proud of her husband for helping her.

The Plan: Jym looks at the makeup of the diet, considers carb effects after exercise.

The trainer is hard to convince and tries proportionally more carbs in his diet and sees how hard it is. He is convinced and she convinces him to research strength building that doesn’t impact blood sugar.

Doc realizes the pump is a stopgap measure in his wife’s decline and tries a pre-packaged diet like his upscale partners prescribe for their clients.

Turning Point 2: MIDPOINT — Jym realizes why she failed after exercise and why every diet has failed her.

Doc sees the money opportunity when mentor wants to retire from doing clinical trials in a different state. The mentor wants him to take over and he mulls it over and decides he must.

Ashley does not lose weight with the diet, but attends a 4th of July picnic, eats small portions of family favorites and lands in the hospital. Doc is devastated.

Act 3: 20-30 pp. With Midpoint change, Profound moments that give us new ways

New Plan: She finds a lot of evidence to back up her new opinions and also realizes why her s-i-l keeps going downhill.

Doc eaves family to learn the business

Ashley begs Jen to give her her diet. Jen recruits OB to monitor Ashley while Doc is out of town learning his mentor’s business.

Diet hard with kids in the house. Diet cost too high. Isn’t Jen undermining her own gym’s training programs and classes with her new exercise prescriptives?

More research — finds THM, Schwarzbein, Atkins various diets – including overweight kids, works with S-i-L on cost-conscious diet menus and shopping lists — if it’s not in the house, they can’t eat it.

Turning Point: Jym has lost weight and her s-i-l tries the diet under the OB’s watch, but her brother is furious and orders her s-i-l to stop and Jym to cease and desist or he will pull her funding.

Doc sees the funding of the studies and questions Mentor about motives of studies. Doc understands how money has influenced treatment

Researches studies that point to something other than drugs — diets — and has a revelation of gigantic proportions.

Doc finds that his wife’s progress and his mentor’s research are totally at odds. Which should he believe?

Act 4: 25 pp. Test the change in this character! Prove New Ways!

New Way Proof: S-I-L has seen the light and refuses to go back to her old diets. She loses weight and gains health as do several others at the gym. Jym develops low cost menus and shopping lists for SNAP and WIC clients.

Doc researches studies that point to something other than drugs — diets — and has a revelation of gigantic proportions

Climax: Jym, Ashley and the gym clientele are proof that Jym is right and even her poor clients who can’t afford most carb control diets are succeeding with their families on her new menus.

Doc tells his mentor about the research and the effects of the meds on the body and mentor blows up, says he’s throwing away a good thing, says morally it isn’t wrong, but Doc says ethically, it leads us away from the real solution, not toward it.

Doc understands how to help his wife and is surprised that she has already been helped — by Jen.

Doc talks to Jen and she pleads her case about blame and guilt for non-losers and her program of positive help and results. He says she’s practicing medicine without a license.

Doc is talked into helping others by his wife who says she wants to work at Jym’s gym so Jym can spend more time advising people. OB has been helping people, but really doesn’t have time available to meet the needs of the neighborhood.

Doc says Jym can’t manage alone and reaches the conclusion he has to take OB’s place in Jym’s endeavors.

Conclusion: Jym joins her brother at a local clinic/resource center and her s-i-l takes over the gym, helping their community regain its health and vitality.

[aleta rafton]

Assignment 6

Aleta Rafton’s Transformational Events

I learned to break my story into logical action steps

CHARACTER ARC

Stepdad starts as a weak character shrinking under the verbal abuse and ridicule from his stepson. He’s compulsively overwrapping Christmas ornaments he’s taking off the tree fearing they will break otherwise. He jumps and starts at small noises and is overly fearful. To retrieve the stepson’s favorite ornament given to him as a last Christmas present from his deceased dad which he left on the tree as it went to recycling, the stepdad must overcome all his fears and take drastic action breaking many of his rigid rules. He takes risks so his life transforms from fearful and weak to confident and strong which also results in transforming a bad relationship into a good relationship with stepson

OLD WAYS

Fearful

Overly cautious

Not confident

NEW WAYS

Confident

Brave

Fearless

CHANGES- 6-8 changes/steps to go from old ways to new ways

Sequence easiest to most difficult

Act 1

A perfectionist thinking it will prevent any problems, Stepdad is carefully and methodically wrapping ornaments as he takes them off the tree. He gets distracted by TV news leaving his stepson’s favorite ornament on tree as he puts it out for garbage truck.

Act 2

Stepdad jumps in the car speeding to catch the garbage truck, running red lights, turning without signaling; all things unthinkable just hours earlier

He reaches out to grab ornament in moving vehicle

Turning on tracker relying on unproven device hoping to solve the problem

Act 3

Stepdad has whip training and uses whip to control lion

Terrified he runs right up to lion to retrieve ornament

Owl swoops in to steal ornament just a Stepdad is about to grab it

Owl flies off landing on top of the New Years Eve Ball that drops from the top of One Times Square

Act 4

Though afraid of heights, Stepdad climbs out on top of building ledge high 25 stories above ground. He has to jump to scaffolding to get close enough to use his whip as a lasso to retrieve ornament.

Overcomes fears to retrieve ornament and become hero to his stepson

[MICHAEL O'KEEFE]

[01] What I learned doing this assignment? The importance of showing, not telling. Aligning the transformational events up with the character’s journey, their transformational arc… He or she learns from doing, failing, reassessing and trying again. Again, this process allows a writer to drill down at a deeper, more meaningful level to assure the structure, events and character(s) are in alignment.

[02] Start with the Character Arc and the list of Old Ways and New Ways.

Old Ways = Clendon’s behavior: obsessively working out to stay grounded, training and sparring to keep his anger and want for violence in check. The arrogance and loner, above-it-all mentality along with his right is right and wrong is wrong worldview and how there is no grey areas in life.

New Ways = Clendon learns the meaning of forgiveness, something his mother emphasized. His new behavior includes protecting the ones he loves at the expense of exacting his vengeance. He comes to embrace his mother’s motto: kindness before all else. The journey has taught Clendon not everything in life is black and white. Through personal, emotional and spiritual growth, Clendon embraces what is to come. He is ready to take up the mantle and carry on with his mother’s legacy.

[03] Make a list of 6 – 8 changes or steps that need to happen for that character to go from who they are in the beginning (Old Ways) to who they are in the ending (New Ways).

1. In the beginning, Clendon is at park w/ girlfriend, Gina, having picnic. Young, in love, ideallic.

2. Clendon at school, Detective shows up. Tells Clendon his mother was murdered.

3. Clendon at his mother’s law firm; learns he is filthy rich. Reads his mom’s letter re: kindness

4. Clendon’s emotional breakdown at the graveyard and nearly freezing to death; can’t face reality… Has to change his old ways, not sure how. Collision of guilt and grief.

5. Dino is shot by a crazy person while feeding the homeless. Rushed to hospital. Afterwards, Dad rips him for being kind, for being like his mother.

6. Clendon catches JR in a lie re: his mom. Gets suspicious recalls JR’s look of guilt when talking about revenge and how it wouldn’t bring his mom back. takes a strand of his hair from bathroom, gets it tested; he is the killer!

Each Transformational Event forces the protagonist to face a deficiency and learn a lesson to become who they want to be. It will either put their Old Ways to the test or force them to use the New Ways to deal with this out-of-the-box situation. Each event teaches him/ her something. The early events challenged his Old Ways. The later events trained him in the New Ways.

[04] Sequence the steps from easiest to most difficult. This will imply the journey the character takes.

1. In the beginning, Clendon is at park w/ girlfriend, Gina, having picnic. Young, in love, ideallic.

2. Clendon at school, Detective shows up. Tells Clendon his mother was murdered.

3. Clendon at his mother’s law firm; learns he is filthy rich. Reads his mom’s letter re: kindness

4. Clendon’s emotional breakdown at the graveyard and nearly freezing to death; can’t face reality… Has to change his old ways, not sure how. Collision of guilt and grief.

5. Dino is shot by a crazy person while feeding the homeless. Rushed to hospital. Afterwards, Dad rips him for being kind, for being like his mother.

6. Clendon catches JR in a lie re: his mom. Gets suspicious recalls JR’s look of guilt when talking about revenge and how it wouldn’t bring his mom back. takes a strand of his hair from bathroom, gets it tested; he is the killer!

[05] Brainstorm dramatic events or tests that could cause those changes for the character.

near death experience, loss of old girl friend, learning identity of killer and finding it in his heart to forgive him.

[6] Add these transformational events to your four-act structure.