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Lesson 7
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Ira Drower’s Map of my Story
I learned that combining the 3 tracks of Action, Mission, Villain, and Action can produce an orgainzed story structure useful in determining plot development.
I will revise and update this as soon as I review my notes from the previos lessons.
1. Opening:
(A2) Fight/Kill: Alien Predator kills two local hunters on restricted military land. It hides the bodies.
(V2) Dilemma: Alien Predator inadvertently kills 2 local hunters on restricted military property.
(M2) Fight/Kill: Alien Predator kills two local hunters on restricted military land. It hides the bodies.
2. Inciting Incident:
(A1) Discovery: Prof Warner activates his teleportation device inadvertently sending a signal to an Alien Predator.
(V3) Decision: Alien Predator hides bodies in warehouse of taxidermist near town.
(M2) Fight/Kill: Alien Predator kills two local hunters on restricted military land. It hides the bodies.
(A3) The Order: Universal Planetary Council sends a spy to eliminate Alien Predator.
3. 1st Act Turning Point:
(A4) Track/Hunt: Frank tracks an unknown entity he believes is the Alien Predator.
(A5) Dangerous Situation/Capture: Frank and his assistant capture an Alien and return to the Alien prison.
(M4) Track/Hunt: Frank tracks an unknown entity he believes is the Alien Predator.
(M5) Dangerous Situation/Capture: Frank and his assistant capture an Alien and return it to the secret Alien prison.
4. Midpoint:
(A6) Hunt/Chase: Frank tracks the Alien Predator using 4X4 off-road vehicles and his wolf pack.
(A7) Escape/Evade: Alien Predator evades Frank using mimicry and cloaking to avoid Frank.
(V4) Plan: Alien Predator cloaks itself as Frank and wolf pack leave the cave in search of it.
(M6) Hunt/Chase: Frank tracks the Alien Predator using 4X4 off-road vehicles and his wolf pack.
(A8) Fight: Alien Predator fires a prisoner restriction net it stole from Frank’s jeep, ensnaring one of the wolves.
(M7) Escape/Evade: Alien Predator evades Frank using mimicry and cloaking to avoid Frank.
5. Second Turning Point at End of Act 2:
(A9) Shootout: The Alien Predator tries a frontal assault on the cave entrance using laser blasters and grenades to blow down the cave wall to the inner prison control center.
(A10) Fight/Escape: Frank uses conventional weapons against the Alien Predator and forces it back into the forest.
(V5) Shoot-out: Predator battles Prof Warner’s assitant, Rick who is under control of an Alien spy.
(V9) Shoot-out: Battle at Area 54 when Alien Predator blasts its way into cave and blows a hole in the cave wall into the prison command center.
(M9) Shootout: The Alien Predator tries a frontal assault on the cave entrance using laser blasters and grenades to blow down the cave wall to the inner prison control center.
6. Crisis:
(A11) Discovery: Frank discovers other entities want to kill the Predator before he catches it.
(V8) Hunted becomes Hunter: Alien Predator takes the fight to Frank as it tracks and hunts Frank.
(A13) Taking Hostages: Frank is forced to trade his prisoner for his kidnapped girlfriend.
7. Climax:
(A12) Fight/Capture: Frank battles Alien Predator with blades using trickery to capture the Alien Predator
(A14) Escape/Rescue: Frank’s girlfriend is recused by the wolves who attack. The Alien Predator temporarily escapes.
(V10) Mano-o-mano: Out of ammo, the Alien Predator takes on Frank using a spear.
(M12) Fight/Capture: Frank battles Alien Predator with blades using trickery to capture the Alien Predator
(M15) Fight to the Death: Frank must fight a gang of assassins sent from the Alien Predator’s home planet to kill it.
8. Resolution:
(A14) Escape/Rescue: Frank’s girlfriend is recused by the wolves who attack. The Alien Predator temporarily escapes.
(V11) FIt Ending: Defeated and captured by Frank, Alien Predator is released to its world’s warriors.
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Bob Rowen’s Story Map
What I learned doing this assignment is a unique method of developing a story map and the need to continuously tweak the emerging drafts of it.
Opening: Action 1
Mission 1: Prater (Hero) is introduced in access control of the nuclear facility on his way to Minus 66 for a dangerous job assignment under the reactor. He is described as a former Force Recon Marine Pathfinder – and “a real shit stirrer!”
Villain 1: Edgar (Villain) assigns Prater to a job under the reactor where a horrible nuclear accident occurs. Edgar has his reasons for making this assignment.
Action 1: A nuclear accident occurs under the reactor. Prater becomes grossly contaminated when reactor water and reactor crud gushes down on him during the accident.
Villain 2: Edgar uses the company’s Radiation Protection Training Manual prepared by the Far-West Electric Company’s Nuclear Task Force, that Edgar was part of, in defense of management’s claim that the radiation exposure limits in the plant are safe.
Mission 2: Prater produces solid evidence to the contrary and shares it with Edgar and fellow employees. Who to believe?
Action 2: Prater locks horns with Edgar over what happened at Minus 66. Edgar says “the contamination really isn’t a problem, it’s just a nuisance!” An angry Prater serves notice that he “did not hire on to commit suicide in order to collect a goddamn paycheck”.
Action 3: After the nuclear accident fiasco at Minus 66, a naïve Prater is forced to reexamine his blind faith in Corporate America and the government.
Inciting Incident: Villain 3
Action 4: During a required company safety meeting, Prater calls out a number of reoccurring unsafe working conditions at the nuclear facility, and he addresses the company’s attitude regarding needless and senseless radiation exposure…putting profit over safety.
Mission 3: Prater is emerging as a threat to Edgar’s role of promoting and protecting a failed and dangerous technology in order for the Far-West Gas and Electric Company to “go-nuclear” all along the California coastline.
Villain 3: Edgar orders Prater to sign a false DOT document for a shipment of highly radioactive spent fuel. For what purpose?
First Turning Point at end of Act
1: Action 6Action 5: Extremely radioactive “mysterious” particles are found flying around outside the plant’s radiation controlled area. After discovering the company’s removal of the most important element of the radiological monitoring system at the South Bay Elementary School downwind from the nuclear facility, Prater confronts Edgar and all hell breaks loose!
Villain 4: After threatening Prater regarding his attack on the company’s decision to remove the air sampler at the elementary school, Edgar makes clear Prater “needs to learn the difference between being a technician and a member of management”.
Villain 5: Edgar demands that Prater must accept the company’s decision to remove the air sampler at the elementary school as a condition of employment. And, if he doesn’t and continues to look for trouble, he’s going to find it!
Villain 6: Edgar denies Prater access to an AEC compliance inspector who was in the plant and then threatens Prater if he goes to the AEC on his own.
Mission 4: Prater shares with his wife, Kathryn, that he witnessed the cover-up of a needless and senseless Marine fatality and remained silent because of the Unit’s honor code. He tells her “I will never, ever do that again!”
Action 6: Prater decides to go public! On his way to meet with a Wall Street reporter, Prater is run off the road and crashes. An injured Prater escapes the scene but his documentation disappears.
Mission 5: During his recovery, Prater realizes he must go for broke with Edgar, his cohorts, and the company after he is shown a damning confidential police report.
Action 7: During his convalescing and with the help of his wife, Kathryn, Prater painstakingly constructs from memory a simulation of the confidential police report.
Mid-Point/Dilemma: Mission 6
Mission 6: In consultation with his wife, Kathryn, Prater must choose between a lucrative career and doing the right thing; that is, pursuing what he sees as a “moral imperative”. Prater decides to cause a ruckus at a required company safety meeting in order to publicly address management’s illegal and immoral conduct.
Action 8: Following the company safety meeting, there is a barroom fight between Prater’s small group of supporters and a large number of Edgar’s company men who view Prater and his supporters as troublemakers and a threat to their livelihoods.
Villain 7: Edgar fires Forrest Wilson for refusing to do an unsafe job assignment.
5.Second Turning Point at end of Act 2: Action 9
Mission 7: Prater comes to the aid of Forrest by taking up a collection for him which pisses off Edgar.
Villain 8: Edgar confronts Prater in the reactor control room and orders him to “cease and desist” with his collection effort for Forrest.
Action 9: Edgar very publicly engages Prater in the reactor control room. It’s a setup! Edgar’s plan is working. The verbal altercation between Edgar and Prater turns physical…sort of…and Prater is fired “for striking his superior” in front of all the other employees.
6.Crisis/Dilemma: Mission 8
Mission 8: Prater shares his simulation of the false police report that was sent to the FBI with Dr. Kasun, his befriended University professor. Dr. Kasun says revealing his source would enable him to prove the company conspired against him to make him a national security risk. In order to clear his name, Prater would have to reveal his source but promised he wouldn’t and he doesn’t.
Action 10: As an alternative, Dr. Kasun suggests Prater must go public as quickly and in as many difference ways as possible in order to protect himself and his family.
Mission 9: Prater acts on Dr. Kasun’s suggestion: He appeals the unemployment department’s decision that he was “terminated with cause” in order to require Edgar and others to testify under oath.
Action 11: Prater testifies before the grand jury.
Villain 9: The police report is leaked to the press. Prater suspects Edgar is responsible.
7.Climax: Mission 12
Action 12: A two-day Hearing before the California Unemployment Appeals Board provides Prater an opportunity to obtain transcripts of Edgar’s, et al., testimonies.
Mission 10: Prater tricks Edgar into testifying truthfully.
Villain 10: Edgar’s testimony reveals the company’s lack of concern for radiation safety.
Mission 11: Prater wins his case and uses the transcripts of the Hearings to write his book My Mendocino Bay Diary: A true story of betrayal of the public trust.
Twelve years later . . .
8.Resolution: Action 13-15
Mission 12: At one of his author events and book signings, Prater is asked, “Whatever happened to Edgar Skaggs? Prater responds, “I have no idea”, as if he could care less!
Action 13: However, another person in the audience offers up a bombshell and says, “I know what happened to him. He developed terminal cancer and committed suicide.”
Action 14: Then another person blurts out, “Ray Hastings and Warren Hanson also died of cancer”.
Action 15: Still another person says, “I’ve buried a lot of my classmates at South Bay Elementary School”.
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