-
Post Day 3 Assignment Here
Click Reply to post your assignment.
-
22 Replies
-
Jim Peacock Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned: This is actually a lot of fun, and helping me find new pathways in my script.
1. Transformation: A painfully shy computer geek who begins our story unable to make eye contact, accepts the mantle of warrior thrust upon him, and ultimately transforms into a destroyer of men for love of country and the woman he loves. (maybe a tad too strong a pitch??)
2. Love: Two star-crossed lovers overcome barriers in ideology, ethnic backgrounds, and opposites sides in the war on America to be together forever – or not.
-
Erin’s Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing today’s assignment is: The first 10 plots seem to go more easily with story-heavy concepts while these next 10 seemed to be a more natural fit for character-driven stories. Even just doing these two made me think about my main character in a different way, which is helpful.
Sacrifice: Uptight cop Tom1 travels back in time and teams up with Tom2, another version of himself who was also sent back in time, to carry out their mission to prevent WW3. The only way for the mission to succeed is for the Toms to sacrifice their lives by doing something that alters the future timeline so they are never born.
Discovery. Uptight cop Tom1 travels back in time and teams up with Tom2, another version of himself who was also sent back in time, to carry out their mission to prevent WW3. By working closely alongside himself, Tom1 can see his flaws clearly for the first time, and understand why his first two marriages failed.
Out of the four I’ve considered, I’m going to go with the Underdog plot.
-
[PS80] Emmanuel’s Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing this assignment is analyzing a concept through various plots is a great way to see your story in various formats. Some of the plots could be merged into one to elevate the story making it more engaging.
Out of the four plots, I’m going with the rivalry plot.
-
PS80 – Janeen’s Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing this is that some of these plots required me to focus on only one character’s journey for my ensemble cast. This invites a series. 🙂
My original concept: A book club learns mind control techniques and uses them to empower other women to take action against their abusers. As the book club’s ability to empower the abused grows stronger, the actions taken against the abusers turn deadly.
2. Other Plot:
1. Maturation — A wealthy fashionista volunteers at a women’s shelter and wants to help women flee their abusers unaware that her overt efforts disempower them even more and put the shelter, the abused women, and her in more danger than before. As she works with her book club to find new ways to help, she learns that telepathy, empowerment and healing give the women, and her, what they need to escape from danger.
2. Discovery — A librarian finds new ways to stay safe and help women in abusive situations with the help of her book club. Her own similar situation ended in her ex-husband’s death and the estrangement of her children, something she must find a way to avoid for a library patron and her children currently in danger.
-
[PS80] Rob’s Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned: I learned 10 – 20 of the Dramatic Plots and how they can be used to tell the same story in different ways.
Original Concept: Two teenage sisters become convinced that their house is haunted, only to discover an obsessed teenage boy living in their walls, pretending to be their dead mother.
Love: After tragedy rocks their family, two dysfunctional sisters attempt a séance, with hope of finding closure. But when the sisters get a response, they become convinced that the house is haunted by their deceased mother. When the paranormal activity continues to escalate over time, the frightened sisters open up to their father, who thinks his daughters are acting out for attention. The experience drives the sisters together and soon they discover a dangerous teenage boy living in their walls, pretending to be their deceased mother.
Wretched Excess: When a dangerous teenage boy is rejected by the girl he loves, his obsession drives him to break into her family home and hide in her walls. As his mental health deteriorates, he pretends to be the spirit of the girl’s deceased mother and begins stalking the sisters, playing horrific mind games. When his mind fully snaps, the boy believes he can replace their mother by becoming her. The only thing in his way is a protective father.
-
Armand’s Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned…
A story can be told in multiple ways. It’s our job to choose the most marketable.
1. Looking through the 10 plots above, select two that could possibly work for your story.
Transformation
Metamorphosis
2. Tell us your original concept.
A ghost haunting the house where he was murdered is accidentally brought back to life by the teen girl who lives there, just as the killer who was never caught returns for a new spree. Now is up to the revived ghost to protect the living and find out why he died.
3. Tell the name of the plot selection and write a logline for each one.
Transformation / Metamorphosis
A ghost haunting the house where he was murdered falls in love with the young woman who moved into the house recently. Together, they use a seance to bring the ghost back to life just as the killer that was never caught returns for a new murder spree.
4. Then, looking at the four plots (two from yesterday and two from today) tell us which plot you would like to use throughout the Outlining module.
A ghost haunting the house where he was murdered falls in love with the young woman who moved into the house recently. Together, they use a seance to bring the ghost back to life just as the killer that was never caught returns for a new murder spree.
A ghost haunting the house where he was murdered is accidentally brought back to life by the teen girl who lives there. Once he is brought back to life, the revived ghost has the chance to leave the murder home behind and step back into the world, but the return of his never-caught killer puts the people in the house in danger and himself if he stays.
– I like these two. I may need to think about it before making a decision.
-
P80 Amy’s Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing this assignment is that my story can even fit into some plots that I never would have considered before.
Original concept: A nationally known newscaster whose DNA was altered by time travel must battle her husband’s ex-girlfriend to retake her family and convince them she’s who she says she is.
Sacrifice: A woman comes back from time travel a year later to find that her DNA has been altered and her husband’s ex-girlfriend has taken over her family and been a better mom and partner to her husband than she ever was, so comes to realize that she’s going to have to sacrifice her career to get her family back.
Love: A woman comes back from time travel a year later with her DNA altered and has to get the man who was her husband to fall in love with the new her and leave his ex-girlfriend who he started dating when she disappeared and who took over her family.
Plot I would like to use: Revenge
-
Richard’s Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing this is… plotting gets tricker the more characters are central to your story. It also made me realize that arcs for each character need to be fully completed, which means the character depth needs to be the best I can make it right from the first page. I have to haver the reader feel for these seven characters and understand the decisions they will be forced to make as the script progresses.
Concept: Trapped in a castle, seven life-long friends must fight to the death so that the last one standing can receive a pardon from a foreign Lord and his army.
17. Discovery
With the mounting pressure on my protagonists, each of them will make a discovery that will change their lives and the future of their country. Personal, political, and family ties will be questioned to the extreme. The characters will discover emotions and actions they did not think possible before this journey began.
16. Sacrifice
For my story, this plot mirrors that of the discovery plotline. While all my characters discovery new depths that they will go to to achieve what they believe is right, they will be sacrificing family members, life-long friendships, and themselves for the greater good.
Which plot will I use out of the four?
Sacrifice seems to fit best for my story.
-
[PS80] BOB SMITH’s DRAMATIC PLOTS 2
“What I learned doing this this assignment is … ? The variety of plots and how some plots overlap as I discovered with TRANSFORMATION and WRETCHED EXCESS. I learned there are many angles with which to regard a concept.
2. My original concept:
Working Title: “Moths Around a Flame:’ The Making of ‘The Blue Angel.’”
Amid the ‘decadence’ of Weimar Berlin, prominent film director Josef von Sternberg’s grooming of Marlene Dietrich for stardom becomes an affair that parallels the story of the erotic thriller they are filming (“The Blue Angel”) in which a professor’s infatuation with a cabaret showgirl leads to his ruin, plus, the lives of the actors have trajectories that seem to be life imitating art in their resulting feuds, choices, and fates. (Slightly modified in italics.)
3. Tell the name of the plot selection and write a logline for each one:
From today’s choices, I have selected TRANSFORMATION and WRETCHED EXCESS. They are unique to Marlene Dietrich (Transformation) and Emil Jannings (Wretched Excess).
Loglines:
TRANSFORMATION: During pre-production, with the partnership and grooming of director, Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich emerges from being an un unknown into stardom for her role as the showgirl Lola-Lola in the erotic thriller “The Blue Angel” but not without a feud with the film’s starring actor (Emil Jannings).
WRETCHED EXCESS: The proud Oscar winning actor (Emil Jannings) is cast by his friend, the great director Josef von Sternberg as the lead in the erotic thriller, “The Blue Angel” but he is angered by how von Sternberg has him upstaged by Marlene Dietrich in a manner that dethrones him as the star of the film.
The plot I will use for the outlining module is from yesterday: UNDERDOG
Both Marlene and Jannings see themselves as superior and as underdog: Marlene is the novice who needs to be trained for stardom by von Sternberg but von Sternberg’s attention to grooming Dietrich for stardom is seen by Jannings as a loss of superiority as the star actor in “The Blue Angel.” Jannings grieves the loss of von Sternberg’s partnership as he showers Dietrich with attention and develops a partnership with her. Jannings complains to von Sternberg who tells him that it is Marlene who needs the attention, she is the novice, whereas you (Jannings) are an established actor and the star. Jannings complains to von Sternberg about his provocative shots of Dietrich’s legs. Von Sternberg says such shots are necessary to reveal Lola Lola’s showgirl character and why the schoolboys and the Professor are attracted to her. Jannings resorts to harassment of Dietrich (who regards Jannings as a bore and a ham. In the end they come out even, Dietrich with her famous song (“Falling in Love again”) and Jannings with his brilliant scene as the professor when he dies in destitution – a scene with an uncanny similarity to Jannings’ end as a person and actor: A disgraced Nazi favorite facing denazification and the end of an acting career whereas von Sternberg and Dietrich partner in Hollywood with many more movies plus her refusal to return to Nazi Germany, her becoming a US citizen and entertaining troops as they fight the German Army.
-
Pablo Soriano Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing this assignment: By changing the plot slightly, you can discover hidden layers to your story. These new examples (Metamorphosis, Maturation, Transformation, Discovery) are more about the protagonist than the narrative itself. It’s like a story within a story. I also learned that you don’t always have to go from A to B when it comes to conflict and resolution. It might turn out that you actually need to go from A to Z for the character to learn, grow and succeed. Or even fail. Sacrifice, Wretched Excess and Descension are good examples of how a good story/ending isn’t always “happily ever after.” I think that because there are so many ways to tell your story, you might actually discover a breakthrough just by changing the plot.
Concept: A Mexican family attempting to sneak across the border think they have a guardian angel when drones begin to drop off food and supplies, only to find out that they are being televised on the dark web as Americans place bets on their success and are simply trying to give them the advantage for their own gain.
Sacrifice
Irma, a Mexican mother of two young boys, helps to lead a migrant caravan through the desert to the United States. When she discovers that they are being watched and followed by drones, she forms a small team of scouts to take down these machines and find out their purpose. Little do they know that they are all being televised on the dark web for a twisted game show where racist Americans place bets on their success. Knowing that they risk capture and deportation for the sake of the caravan, Irma leaves her sons and sets out to clear a safe passage to give them a sliver of a chance to cross the border safely.
Ascension
Irma, a young, Catholic Mexican woman is pregnant out of wedlock with her first child. Against her family’s wishes, she decides to leave her abusive, gangster boyfriend to give her baby a better life in the states. She barely escapes his clutches and joins a group of migrants with a mission to sneak across the border. But when mysterious drones seem to be following them, the group splits up to avoid all being captured by whomever is surveilling them and she is forced to make the trek alone. Her only hope is another drone that she calls her “guardian angel,” that brings her food and water and seems to guide her to safe passage. Can she trust this unknown ally? Or is she walking into a trap that takes her back to the life she tried to escape?
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Pablo Soriano.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by
-
PS80 Subject: Michelle Damis Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing this is that while a decision may be hard to make, they are designed to simplify work down the road. Also, I hope I’m right in my thinking that you can choose one main plot but still incorporate other plots into the storyline through subtext. Or that in an ensemble you could have one main plot but different characters could have their own plots (which may be why ensemble cast scripts are harder to write)
1. 2 more Potential Plots: Forbidden Love or Sacrifice
2. Original Concept– Parents desperate to be empty-nesters unknowingly trade their soul-sucking 20-something daughter for a blood-sucking tenant.
3. Plot selection and logline–
Quest: Parents desperate to be empty-nesters unknowingly trade their soul-sucking 20-something daughter for a blood-sucking tenant who ends up being their savior just as much as they are his.
Temptation: A vampire looking for a place to live ends up finding a conscience instead.
Forbidden Love: A vampire looking for a place to live ends up finding the family that he didn’t know he needed.
Sacrifice: A vampire looking for a place to live ends up finding the family that he didn’t know he needed, but when elder vampires find out he has broken the rules he must decide between saving himself or saving them.
4. I’m going to have to go with QUEST, however, the elements of temptations, forbidden love, and sacrifice will be woven in thru-out.
-
Claudia’s Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned…. besides the fact that a story can be told multiple ways, changing the entire concept and theme… that by simply looking at the plot types and incorporate multiple ways to elevate the story via subtext.
Additional Two plot Outlines:
Sacrifice and Transformation
Original Concept: 1) After a cynical agnostic FBI agent, who is assigned to investigate a popular televangelist for embezzlement, uncovers a plot by his own agency and a top politician to take down the man and his ministry, he enlists the minister’s help to expose the truth.
Which Plot outline will I be using???? I think I will use Underdog…. though I need more time to really know that this is the way I want to go.
-
What I learned is that I will try to write smart horror, per Cheryl’s brilliant suggestion after phone pitch, and therefore work on transformation as my modus operandi.
My two choices from the last ten are transformation and sacrifice but I must use all twenty plots in the chapters of my three novels to jazz them up and give them narrative thrust.
I am imagining how horror would differ from satirical noir thriller, eliciting disgust, terror, laughter, and a more visceral catharsis than the carefully planned fear of a suspense thriller. Since I published short fiction in three Doubleday anthologies that were literary horror, suspense, and fantasy, I may be able to integrate this in my novels, like a streak of red slashing through all three.
Horror is about excess so I must exaggerate my characters’ flaws into violent actions and activities and find a way to weave in the more intellectual aspects of the drama and environmental/medical mission of my trilogy in ways that are not pedantic or so labored that they wreck the screenplay.
I must review my three novels from the POV of the funeral director turned hospitality food guy turned serial killer/rapist/arsonist turned homeless boat lover turned hit man turned female chef who sacrifices her life to poison the CEO of STEMGARCHS to give drugs to people to cure neurodegenerative diseases.
Are people allowed to laugh in horror films?
-
Are people allowed to laugh in horror films?
Look up and watch films by Sam Raimi: Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, Drag Me To Hell…so many more. If he didn’t invent horror-comedy he certainly made it mainstream.
Also the Scream franchise. Slasher Comedy.
-
-
Quincy (Quinn)’s Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing this is being able to choose the plots ahead of time is really helping me form the story. I’ve been noodling over the concept for a few days now and I’m starting to see how it can flow.
Today’s plots:
- Metamorphosis: Cassie tries to get rid of Helen, but then seeks to help her.
- Discovery: Cassie/Helen discover they were part of an experiment gone wrong.
The plot I will use: Escape
.enoyna llet t’nod…hhhS .ruof lla fo noitanibmoc a :esu yllaer lliw I tolP
-
PS80 Budinscak Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing this assignment:
o After reviewing the second set of dramatic plots, I think my story is a hybrid.
o There are numerous plots that satisfy components of my story, but I only found two to be truly germane to the whole story.
o There are many different ways to say the same thing, it’s finding the one that says it best and is the most marketable to/for producers.
o There is much to do before doing any writing. A discipline that I need to establish for myself.
Assignment:
Original Concept:
In 1986, two preteen cousins learn about family and life during a trip with their uncle, a conniving chef who has a deadline to deliver a package from upstate NY to Burbank, CA, or the family’s restaurant will be burned to the ground.
#13 – Maturation
Over the course of a 3-day, cross-country car trip, two preteen cousins learn life’s lessons and how family protects from their self-centered conniving uncle who’s agreed to deliver an unknown package across the country to save his family’s restaurant from being burned to the ground.
#17 – Discovery
Similar yet opposite cousins learn lessons about family and life during a trip with their uncle, a lowlife criminal who agrees to personally drive across the country to deliver an unknown package for a crime boss.
Relative to the four plots selected, I am using Adventure as the best fit currently for my story.
-
What I learned is that I have so much to work with that it is difficult to make a decision when presented with so many options!
My concept is “you can’t go home”. The idea that where you grew up is never as good or bad as we remember in our memories.
Third choice in this part is transformation, following the journey of the main character through her breakdown early in her life, to the break through that it wasn’t as terrible as it initially seemed.
Fourth option would be maturation. In this version I would change the timeline to a shorter number of years that she’d been away and avoided the hometown in order to bring the tension and plot into a tighter story.
(From yesterday:
The two that I think could work best for my story are the Quest and the Underdog.
For the Quest aspect my protagonist has searched for peace from feeling that this pivotal humiliation in high school followed her throughout her life. In returning to her hometown she finds her strength was there all along.
In the underdog version the love triangle would play a bigger part. Showcasing the two suiters and pitting them in more sharp contrast one to the other, at least to the main characters eyes.)
I am leaning toward Quest to work on for the duration of the Outlining module. But am undecided.
-
“What I learned doing this is that the formats turned out to be variations on the theme. Because of the different structure of the formats, the main characters change places, and the storyline changes, but the core message stays the same…interesting.”
Assignment
1. Looking through the 10 plots above, select two that could possibly work for your story.
Sacrifice
A woman under the spell of a powerful billionaire does everything to please him. Even if this means: grooming teenage girls and lure them to his private island. However, when his sexual demands become more violent and a young girl dies, she starts to rethink her childhood and realizes that she was a victim of child abuse herself and has transformed from victim to predator. Her father was befriended with her now-husband and she went from her father’s prison to the prison of her husband. She must now find a way to cut herself loose and save her soul. She turns against her husband, who now threatens to kill her, and when she helps the girls escape, but she is shot and ends up in a coma. He manages to blame his wife and it seems that he is off the hook, but just before she dies, the woman makes one of the girls she has saved promise to fights him and have him arrested and convicted. In court, the girl testifies against him, even though he has threatened to kill her. When she testifies nevertheless, he commits suicide and the girls are finally free.
Discovery
A girl who has been a victim all her life falls for the seduction of a well-known billionaire. She even becomes his accomplish in luring young girls to his mansion. But when his demands become more and more perverse, she understands, that what she’s doing to the other girls is repeating what has been done to her all of her life and when he askes her to help him rape a thirteen-year-old girl, she can’t go through with it and turns against him. She helps the other girls escape and is deadly wounded. The policemen (and his wife) who she has been working with to get the billionaire behind bars are sitting next to her when she wakes up. They offer her to come and live with them, she envisions her life with this family and dies a happy child.
2. Original concept:
A struggling artist becomes a surrogate mother to pay the rent, but when she finds out the couple she’s carrying the baby for are child traffickers for a pedophile network she must run for her life and that of her unborn child.
3. Tell the name of the plot selection and write a logline for each one.
loglines 4 concepts
1. escape
Logline:
When a struggling artist becomes a surrogate mother and finds out she’s carrying the baby for child traffickers of a pedophile network, she must run for her life and that of her unborn child, before they lay hands on the baby.
Escape
A struggling artist breaks up with her boyfriend and therefore can no longer afford to live in her NYC apartment and decides to become a surrogate mother to pay the rent. The couple she is carrying the baby for inviting her to come and stay with them during her pregnancy and introduce her to a well-known billionaire. They bath her in luxury and they boost her career as an artist but soon she starts to suspect there is something wrong with these people and investigates. She finds out the couple is supplying a pedophile network, who communicate through the darknet. The couple catches her checking out their computer and covertly confine her; they send her to the billionaire who owns an island, where he lives together with a group of very young girls of whom he claims to be the foster father. She asks the girls for help, but they are brainwashed and too scared to talk. She tries to escape but they catch her. She is now locked up in a room, tries to get the other girls to help her, but to no avail. When the baby is due in several weeks one of the girls finally helps her escape. She is now chased and moves from motel to motel and when she alarms the police, but the police don’t believe her. The billionaire is a public figure and highly respected. She’s terrified and when the couple finds her and threatens to kill her, she gives in; she will give the baby up for abortion. Only to return to the house to continue her search for evidence against the couple and the billionaire and when she finds out that the girl that helped her at the island is brutally raped by the billionaire, she has only one mission: to set the girl free and kill them all.
2. The Riddle
Logline:
A troubled pregnant teenager is talked into an abortion by the clinic’s doctor and send to a benefactor’s private island to recover, only to find out that she is being recruited to satisfy the sexual preferences of a billionaire’s couple and that no one has yet managed to escape from their island.
A teenage girl from an underprivileged background is thrown out by her mother and stepfather when they find out she’s pregnant. At the abortion clinic, she starts to doubt whether she will have the abortion or to keep the baby. She tells the dr. she has nowhere to go and asks him if he could help her to find an organization where she can stay until the baby is born. However, the doctor convinces her to have an abortion, while she desperately wants to keep the baby. He offers his help and introduces her to a well-known billionaire and his wife who have a foster home for teenage girls on their private island. They take care of them lovingly and the girls seem very happy but never leave the island alone. The dr. from the abortion clinic brings in new girls all the time and even though they are under age they are allowed to drink alcohol and join parties with influential people. The girls are waiting to work on their future and study, but they never do. The billionaire couple promises them all kinds of things but they never follow through. The doctor talks to her, explaining that she must do certain things to be able to lead this life of luxury. The girl now realizes why she’s here and she’s now forced by the couple to have sex with them and their guests. She tries to escape, but they make it very clear to her: some girls fled and never made it from the island. She now has to fight to get her life back.
3. Sacrifice
Logline:
When a billionaire’s wife finds out her husband has brutally raped one of the girls she has recruited to please him, she must find a way to save the girls that are living under his reign, before she’s too late to save her soul.
A woman under the spell of a powerful billionaire does everything to please him. Even if this means: grooming teenage girls and lure them to his private island. However, when his sexual demands become more violent and a young girl dies, she starts to rethink her childhood and realizes that she was a victim of child abuse herself and has transformed from victim to predator. Her father was befriended with her now-husband and she went from her father’s prison to the prison of her husband. She must now find a way to cut herself loose and save her soul. She turns against her husband, who now threatens to kill her when she helps the girls escape. She gets shot and ends up in a coma. He manages to blame her and it seems that he is off the hook, but just before she dies, the woman makes one of the girls she has saved promise to fight him and have him arrested and convicted. In court, the girl testifies against him, even though he has threatened to kill her. When she testifies nevertheless, he commits suicide and the girls are finally free.
4. Discovery
Logline:
A teenage girl falls victim to a child-abusing billionaire couple and starts recruiting for them, but when a young girl dies, she must turn against them, before they kill them all.
A girl who has been a victim all her life falls for the seduction of a well-known billionaire. She even becomes his accomplish in luring young girls to his mansion. But when his demands become more and more perverse, she understands, that what she’s doing to the other girls is repeating what has been done to her all of her life and when he askes her to help him rape a thirteen-year-old girl, she can’t go through with it and turns against him. She helps the other girls escape and is deadly wounded. The policemen (and his wife) who she has been working with to get the billionaire behind bars are sitting next to her when she wakes up. They offer her to come and live with them and when she envisions her life with her new family, dies a happy child.
4. Then, looking at the four plots (two from yesterday and two from today) tell us which plot you would like to use throughout the Outlining module.
1. escape
Logline:
When a struggling artist becomes a surrogate mother and finds out she’s carrying the baby for child traffickers of a pedophile network, she must run for her life and that of her unborn child, before they lay hands on the baby.
-
[PS80] Jennifer’s Dramatic Plots 2
WHAT I LEARNED DOING THIS:
I’m seeing where I get hung up in the concept development process and recognize that having a time limit really helps me move forward more rapidly. I’m also seeing that the plot for this screenplay is going to have elements from a couple different types of plots that work synergistically in a satire. I have read the 20 Plots book before, as well as a couple others on very similar topics (descriptions of plot types), but I find it useful to look at the plot types in this simple outlined format and see which make sense for the concepts I explore going forward with future projects.
ORIGINAL CONCEPT:
A high school overachiever will do literally anything to beat her rival and win a prestigious award guaranteed to get her into her dream college — even commit murder.
2 PLOT SELECTIONS THAT MIGHT WORK:
Sacrifice:
This version of the sacrifice plot would be flipped upside down: A high school overachiever slowly sacrifices everything she’s loved and worked for in hopes of beating her rival to win a prestigious award guaranteed to get her into her dream college, devolving into an achievement-driven sociopath. (This would likely need another character as a foil for the rapidly devolving anti-hero main character.)
Transformation:
A high school overachiever sets forth to become the ideal candidate for a prestigious scholarship and transforms into the worst version of herself, going from hard worker to manipulator all the way to murderer.
PLOT SELECTION I WILL BE USING MOVING FORWARD:
Quest:
A high school overachiever will do literally anything to beat her rival and win and prestigious award guaranteed to get her into her dream college — even commit murder. Taking a strict quest approach from a satirical slant, this version sees the overachiever high school student on a brutal mission to win the prestigious scholarship competition that she wants to win at all costs and is told from her perspective, with every student, teacher, or parent who comes in between her and her goal as an obstacle to be overcome, even if it means murder. She will ruin the lives of anyone along the way to her goal.
-
Suya Lee Dramatic Plots 2
Outlining & Your Character Structure Day
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
It’s interesting about the 20 plot points. Imagining only the 20. I am writing a new story I didn’t come in with to this screenwriting program. I had another idea to write, but doing the concept module, I had like you say another 99 ideas to choose from. So, I chose something new. I actually loved doing that module, but it was scary as hell doing it. It’s hard to look at them, and decide which ones. I narrowed down the four. These two today seems more of a theme than a plot. Both are useful in storytelling.
Concept:
When a group of old timers at a veteran’s retirement home win the mega lottery, they buy an old cruise ship to sail around the world with their extended families, but pirates attack their ship in South-East Asia and the veterans must face the last battle of their lives to save their families.
I’ve chose #16 Sacrifice and #19 Wretched Excess.
Sacrifice:
Veterans know what family means. It means more than winning the mega lottery. More than half a billion dollars. They would give all their money to the Pirates to save their loved ones. They would sacrifice their lives to save them.
Pirates have nothing to lose. Sacrificing their lives means nothing to them. When one of the leaders’ son is kidnapped by the Veterans, and a stand-off occur, that Pirate leader will sacrifice his life for his son.
Wretched Excess:
This is more of a theme in my story, but very much at the forefront of this story. Veterans win the mega lottery. Since they grew up poor, they like to get a bargain, something on sale, scrimp, etc. So, they buy an old second-hand small cruise ship instead of a new one. But, they like to eat, so make sure that they get the top food for the cruise around the world for their family. Pirates kidnap them especially because the veterans won the mega lottery. They are poor and have no future, but pirating on the high seas. They see this as their lottery to a better life.
I think I could use all 4 story plots in my story. It will help shape the story as I write it. Plots and themes for this story are intertwined.
-
[PS80] James Salter Dramatic Plots 2
What I learned doing this assignment is:
That you could take an original concept and find a different path and structure for each, and still have a very good concept with a different character structure
1. Looking through the 10 plots above, select two that could possibly
work for your story.
1) is 16. Sacrifice
This plot has a strong moral dilemma at its center. The protagonist is playing for high stakes and a sacrifice must be made at a great personal cost. They should undergo a major transformation during the course of the story, moving from a lower moral state to a higher one, with events forcing their decisions throughout the story.
First lay an adequate foundation of character so the reader understands who is about to make this sacrifice. Make the motivation of your protagonist clear so we understand why they would make such a sacrifice. Finally, the
protagonist must give up something of great value in order to accomplish a higher ideal.
2) is 18. Wretched Excess:
This plot is about the psychological decline of a character, based around a character flaw. The decline needs to evoke sympathy, otherwise no one would watch such a story. Every action of the plot relates to character,
exposing more and more of who this person is and why this decline is happening.
Usually, it starts with how he is before events start to change him, then how he is as he successively deteriorates, and finally what happens after
events reach a crisis point, forcing him to either give in completely to his flaw (tragedy) or recover from it
2. Tell us your original concept:
Outer Space is too large of an area for earth to be the only life form.
3. Tell the name of the plot selection and write a logline for each one:
Sacrifice, & Wretched Excess:
Jake has sacrificed love fame and fortune his entire adult life to accomplish this one thing he’s wanted this taken from him after after he’s accomplish and completed something or someone has to pay.
After losing everything everything hes worked for his entire duck life he falls into a deep depression loses all sense of reality and can only see what he was working for and the accomplishments and sacrifices he had been through to get there and now he’s a madman with one agenda going into space.
4. Then, looking at the four plots (two from yesterday and two from today) tell us which plot you would like to use throughout the Outlining module:
6 Revenge:
Your hero has a moral justification for vengeance and seeks retaliation against the antagonist. The natural progression: normal life, a crime against the hero, normal channels fail to resolve it, plans for revenge, pursuit of the antagonist, the confrontation, apparent failure that requires improvising, final revenge.
-
PS80 – Jodi’s Dramatic Plots 2 – Day 3
What I learned doing this is that by choosing different plots we have more opportunities to find more gems in our story ideas. We don’t have to commit to it. If it doesn’t work, we can try new ones, but it’s best to explore more options than just be set on the one that you instantly envisioned.
TIMELY: Texas creates bounty hunters and vigilantism against any woman who chooses to have an abortion, along with the nightmare this creates for anyone trying to help a pregnant woman it also creates a nightmare for the State Senator who is the author of this law as he learns his Daughter has been raped and was impregnated. The Senator begins to learn firsthand how this law tragically impacts all involved.
The two plots I chose are:
1. Sacrifice – Belonging to a very conservative family, a social worker fights the system that created the bounty hunting abortion ban having witnessed first hand the devastation this horrific unconstitutional law has created.
2. Discovery – A pro-life social worker sees how the ‘heartbeat’ law has ruined lives and killed many women who were forced to have back alley abortions, she fights the new system with an awareness campaign.
The plot I chose to continue with out of the four plots is: Sacrifice. I plan on using elements from all four though.
Log in to reply.