Lesson 8

[Lloyd Shellenberger]

Lloyd’s adding empathy and distress. BWTV Module 3 Lesson 8

Working hard every day to become the best writer I can be and as a result I do become the best writer in Hollywood.

What I learned from this assignment is to up the stakes and keep going. I get to ruin and destroy my character’s lives and take them to the brink of disaster and back. Fun! The audience will love it too.

A. Crucible The first mission to Iraq forces Greene to kill American Soldiers caught up in the drug trade. This is the way Puzzle Works does business and so does Col. Greene now. He may be a killer but killing his own isn’t in his nature!

B. Betrayal Lt. Greene and Desmoines take the drugs and cash from the Afghanistan raid and the Fayetteville raid and hide it from Col. Greene.

C. Forced Decision Col. Greene must kill the woman he is with or PW Agents will kill his son and force Greene to watch remotely.

D. Hurt those they love: Lt. Greene has an addictive personality that the drug trade will not mesh with. Col. Greene will eventually be forced to save him over the first season. Col. Greene never wanted his on involved with “The Business”

E. Emotional Dilemma Col Greene must get the mission in the air within 24 hours or the Puzzle Works will kill his entire crew including his son.

F. Exposed Col. Greene’s past as an assassin is hinted at and shown the night he is recruited.

G. Must Make Decision with Future Consequences Col. Greene is against taking the drugs and reselling them as the drug world is violent and cut-throat. There will be future consequences for doing it. The Puzzle works wants the drug trade on the East Coast exposed. The drugs are bait.

2. Looking at your scenes, are there places you can create situations to cause more Empathy/Distress?

Step 1: Check each scene to see if you can build any of these forms of Empathy/Distress into them.

Undeserved misfortune Did Col. Greene’s wife die of natural causes or was she killed by the Puzzle Works to bring him back into the Fold. Den scene Col. Greene is given choice of the women or his son’s life. They film the murder.

External character conflicts: Puzzle Works agents following his son and Sgt. Jones. They are evil and murderous.

Plot intruding on life Col. Greene intended to retire within the next year but the Puzzle Works took away his retirement and financial plans.

Plans that failed Retirement and swearing off the CIA are now out the window.

Witnessing the pain of others. Col. Greene watches as a woman that is with Lt. Greene and Sgt. Jones is murdered as a Message to him.

Extreme consequences Col. Greene and Lt. Greene have now been framed for murder and Lt. Greene’s life is always under threat from the Puzzle Works.

Major loss: Col. Greene’s freedom to ride off into the sunset is now gone. Things have gone from bad to worse. Col. Greene must wait for his opening and outsmart the Puzzle Works.

Brings their wound present. The loss of his wife and the broken promise to her is too much to bear. Killing and innocent woman is also not in his nature.

[CJ Lyons]

CJ’s Empathy/Distress

What I learned from this assignment was that even though I had tons of distress baked into my idea, by increasing the empathy moments I was able to also amplify the distress—I did this by taking minor character from the main character’s past and adding him to the first act to add empathy, and then used the second part of the assignment to rev up both empathy and distress

1. Look through your outline and see if any of these as a bigger frame for your story, or if you already have it in the story, can you emphasize or expand it:

A. Crucible: Rossi facing terrible symptoms but suddenly a girl’s life in her hands

B. Betrayal: Rossi losing nun—could she have saved her if didn’t freeze? How can she face other patients if so? Betrayed herself at deepest level of identity: physician saving lives

C. Forced Decision: Rossi following “delusion”, trusting stranger with greatest secrets

D. Hurt those they love: Jacob’s seen her sympts, but she brushes him off

E. Emotional Dilemma: Rossi forced to either believe she’s delusional or that a dead nun actually spoke to her

F. Exposed: Rossi telling Devon truth, Ryder facing fears into tunnels

G. Must Make Decision with Future Consequences: Rossi trusting Devon (and vice-versa) going into tunnels

2. Looking at your scenes, are there places you can create situations to cause more Empathy/Distress?

Undeserved misfortune: nun killed, Rossi can’t save, Devon finds Jess’s body, Rossi’s sympts obviously terrify her

External character conflicts: Ryder/Devon, Rossi/Ryder, Rossi/Devon, Devon/Royales

Plot intruding on life: Rossi as Patient X, Devon losing Jess and Esme

Plans that failed: Rossi fails to save nun, Rossi and Devon fail to find Esme

Witnessing the pain of others: Jacob sees Rossi’s sympts, Ryder sees her pain at losing the nun, Rossi sees Devon’s pain over Jess and Esme

Extreme consequences: more than missing girl, now a serial killer

Major loss: Devon loses Jess and Esme

Brings their wound present: Jacob still loves Rossi but she can’t open up to him, he’s also closer to her family than she’s ever been; Devon gave up everything to protect Jess and Esme but it was useless and now he’s helpless; Rossi’s sympts beyond her control, but she’s powerless to do anything about them without admitting how sick she really is—which would mean giving up practicing medicine