[Busy]

Subject Line: Busy’s Mystery Sequence

“What I learned is you need to start with the reveal of the big secret and reverse-engineer it to create a mystery sequence. (This is for a pilot for tweens/teens so two mysteries will keep it less complicated for kids/young teens).

1. What is the big secret that the Villain is covering up? Lorelei killed Ron.

2. How many ways can they cover that secret?

Did Lorelei kill Ron?

What is Steffi hiding?

Those become the mysteries.

The first mystery must engage the Hero into solving it.

Sequence the mysteries so that each one leads us to the next one. Include ONE Red Herring mystery if you can.

Create a Mystery Chain for each main mystery.

Mystery #1 Did Lorelei kill Ron?

Befriend the lonely Maisie to use her later

She was with Ron at the lounge. Did she do it?

Get Maisie to help her, by encouraging her to investigate and tell her what’s happening while she’s in jail.

Maisie tells the court during the arraignment that she heard Steffi confess to Kevin in his office.

The information is now fruit of the poisonous tree (HIPAA laws broken – Maisie works in her father’s practice for pocket money) – Lorelei goes free dues to the knowledge of Steffi’s confession shows they arrested the wrong person

Mystery #2 – What is Steffi hiding (RED HERRING)?

Steffi becomes caustic and then unhelpful to the police

Steffi says things that make her seem she’s glad Ron’s dead

Steffi had monkshood in her garden, but pulled it out and discarded it after Ron died.

Steffi has complained to friends in the past that she was frustrated that Ron would not dig into his massive trust fund and that they had to live on their smaller salaries.

Steffi alludes to hating Lorelei for having an affair with Ron and that she deserves whatever she gets (prison).

Steffi confesses to Kevin.

Steffi recants confession in judge’s chambers since it was supposed to be covered by HIPAA.

Steffi seems smug instead of relieved that the confession cannot be used.

[Busy]

Busy’s Villain Has A Great Plan!

What I learned is your villain should have their endgame planned out before you start writing the script, map out the sequences and cover-ups to make it as intriguing as possible, and make sure the villain is putting your hero in danger.

1. What is the end goal?

To get Ron’s $100M inheritance.

2 (& 4). How can Lorelei accomplish this in a devious way? Sequence it to make it as intriguing as possible.

1 . Start an affair with Ron

2. Reveal the affair to Ron’s wife, Steffi.

3. Tell Steffi he is leaving her and she will never access to Ron’s wealth

4. Manipulate and recruit Steffi to help murder Ron and in return, take a 10% cut of

inheritance for doing the actual murdering him.

5. Manipulate the police investigation.

6. Manipulate Maisie to muddy the waters with her own investigation to prove

Lorelei’s innocence.

7. Get Steffi to make Lorelei Steffi’s beneficiary (in a trust) to make Steffi keep the

bargain.

8. Kill Steffi and make it look like suicide because she killed her husband

9. kill Maisie in an investigative accident

10. inherit millions.

3. How can they cover it up?

1. Manipulate Maisie to muddy the waters with her own investigation to prove Lorelei’s “innocence.”

2. “Help” Maisie investigate so she finds only what Lorelei wants her to find.

3. Get Steffi to make Lorelei Steffi’s beneficiary (in a trust) to make Steffi keep the bargain.

3. Make Steffi’s death look like a suicide.

4. Kill Maisie when she turns out to be a good investigator and won’t stop investigating after Steffi’s death.

4. Sequence it to make it as intriguing as possible

See Q2’s answers because it is in a sequence I think/hope is intriguing.

[Busy]

Busy’s SOTL Stacking Suspense

What I learned: SOTL was a more intricate story and script with multiple villains and a flawed but trying-to-do-her-best hero than in BI, which had a truly terrible cop (her0) who is flawed and just terrible at his job and immediately is out gunned mentally by the villain. But that has little to do with the MIS stacking and is just an observation.

By going offer BI scene by scene first, I was able to identify the MIS for each main and important supporting character as well as the driving MIS for each scene. This was a great exercise in viewing the scenes differently than I normally do. Creating a ladder on which to hang M.I. & S. within the action and characters.

[Busy]

Busy’s BI Stacking Suspense

I learned, watching BI and using the Stacking Suspense grid, that thrillers go big – subtlety can get lost. Showing an action but not revealing the face of the person taking the action immediately adds mystery in the short term. Each main and supporting character has their own MIS and a hidden backstory that is revealed as part not just as a backstory but how it affects what’s happening on screen now really ratchets up the suspense. Making a killer not just a stone-cold psychopath but someone who does actually feel provides a depth of character to disarm the audience but still leaves you with doubt (creating intrigue) as to whether she is being honest for once or if it is all part of a/the ruse.

MIS used throughout the script keeps the tension very high.

[Busy]

Busy’s World and Characters

What I learned from this assignment is: every main and supporting character needs to have their own M.I.S. that supports and deepens the story’s M.I.S.

1. Remind us of your concept and the big M.I.S. of your story:

When a man is murdered at a summer resort, a young girl must prove who the real killer is before her only friend goes to prison.

Big Mystery: How did Steffi kill her husband?

Intrigue: Lorelei and Steffi manipulate Maisie to taint her investigation so much that no one will be able to bring the actual evidence against them.

Suspense: Are the attempts on Lorelei’s life bids to silence Maisie as she gets closer to the truth?

2. Tell us the intriguing world you have selected for this story:

World: The dangerous mind games and manipulations of a high-functioning teenage sociopath.

3. The M.I.S of each character:

Maisie (Hero)

Mystery: How will she save her only friend from prison when she’s only twelve?

Intrigue: Maisie eavesdrops and investigates the people at The Tyler Place resort, even when told by the local police to stay out of it.

Suspense: Can she get the evidence she needs for the police to arrest Ron Sherman’s killer before she gets killed?

Steffi (Red Herring):

Mystery: Why did she kill her husband, Ron?

Intrigue: How did she kill her husband without being in town?

Suspense: Is she trying to kill Maisie because she won’t give up investigating?

Lorelei (Villain):

Mystery: Why was she “framed” for the murder?

Intrigue: Her ability to manipulate others and seem vulnerable while pulling all the strings.

Suspense: Will she stop Maisie from finding out the truth about her and telling the police?

[Busy]

Busy’s Big MIS

What I learned doing this assignment is that I needed a solid reason for the psychological manipulation of young Maisie and her investigation into how Steffi murdered Ron (i.e., the Intrigue).

Logline: When a man is murdered at a summer resort, a young girl must prove who the real killer is before her only friend goes to prison.

1. What are the conventions of your story?

Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: 12-year-old Maisie

Dangerous Villain: Lorelei (although it appears to be Steffi throughout most of the story.

High stakes: Lorelei going to prison/Maisie losing her only friend.

Life and death situations: Lorelei being arrested, Maisie investigating a murderer, Lorelei almost getting murdered, Maisie almost dying, and Lorelei trying to kill Maisie outright.

This story is thrilling because? Maisie finds herself deep in a dangerous murder mystery where the murderer influences the child and her investigation, causing twists and danger around every corner of Maisie.

2. Tell us the Big M.I.S. of your story?

Big Mystery: How did Steffi kill her husband?

Big Intrigue: Lorelei and Steffi manipulate Maisie to taint her investigation so much that no one will be able to bring the actual evidence against them.

Big Suspense: Are the attempts on Lorelei’s life actually attempts to silence Maisie as she gets closer to the truth?

[Busy]

Don’t Worry, Darling

Thriller Conventions

What I learned from doing this assignment is to recognize the conventions of a thriller as part of its framework, although judging from this film, that was not enough to make it a great film.

Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Alice Chambers, a happy housewife madly in love with her husband in an idyllic company town called Victory during what looks like the 1950s, suddenly starts having terrifying hallucinations when she sees her friend take her own life, only to realize that she and everyone else is being lied to by the company/town founder. She begins remembering snippets of another life – one where she’s a surgeon in an unhappy marriage in the present day. Even after she’s forced into electroshock therapy, her subconscious will not let her forget. Hence, she fights to find out the truth.

Dangerous Villain: Frank, the charismatic but creepy founder of The Victory Project/town, pontificates in “Guruspeak” and is idolized by all the men who work for him. Frank demands 100% loyalty and discretion from all (including the wives, who are forbidden to do anything other than be a housewife), and no one is allowed to question his rules or, God forbid, break them. He privately tells Alice she was right that her life is not what it seems and tells her he wanted her to challenge him only to gaslight her in front of an entire dinner party.

High stakes: Alice’s sanity, Alice’s life, Jack, her husband’s life, the life of all of the women trapped in Victory and cannot leave, the unmasking of what the VIctory Project is.

Life and death situations: Jack and Alice driving at high speeds in the desert with their eyes covered, Margaret slitting her own throat and falling off of the building, Alice covering her head with plastic wrap so she can’t breathe (and being unable to remove it), Jack suffocating Alice, Alice killing Jack, Alice being chased in the desert by the Men in red overalls as she tries to escape in Jack’s car, several of the men in red overalls and the doctor being killed when their cars collide. Frank is stabbed to death by his up-to-now-totally-supportive wife, Shelley.

This movie is thrilling because? We have an increasing, unrelenting concern for Alice’s stability and life as she starts unraveling the secrets and getting blocked at every turn.

What is the BIG Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense of this story?

Big Mystery: What the hell is The Victory Project, and why can’t the women leave?

Big Intrigue: The Victory Project’s controlling everyone’s lives.

Big Suspense: Will Alice be killed before discovering the truth about her life in Victory?

Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great thriller? This was not a great thriller. It was derivative of better movies like The Stepford Wives (an idyllic town with overly happy, content wives), Gone Girl (a perfect couple with sinister reality underlying), and Last Night in Soho (a woman becoming unable to tell reality from fantasy), to name a few. That said, it did keep up the suspense and lay breadcrumbs to keep us learning the truth right along with Alice.

[Busy]

Barbara “Busy” Turell s a member of this group, I agree to the following:

1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.

2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.

I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.

3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.

4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.

5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.

6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.

[Busy]

Hello all! Call me Busy. Everyone does. I’ve written a couple of scripts for fun but never a thriller, and I would love to write one, so here I am, ready to learn with my new classmates. I took years off from working to care for my elderly parents who both had terminal illnesses. Now that they are both passed on, I look forward to the possibilities before me.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by  Busy.

[Busy]

Sometimes the Real villain is not revealed until even later in the movie. Someone can be in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game without knowing exactly who is putting them in such danger for most of it. Unseen villains are usually the scariest for the viewer.

[Busy]

Thanks for the kind words. Losing your father-in-law to COVID must have been devastating. And you moved during the pandemic! I also lived in LA (and New York, for that matter) and loved both places, and I’m sure you will too. I’d love it if you used my nickname for a character! I routinely use the names of people I know or those with interesting names.