Christopher DeWan
Forum Replies Created
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Bree Barton
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Hi everyone,
I’m Bree, though I’m using my partner Chris’s account—hence the mismatch of name & picture. I’ve written two scripts, but I’m really more of a novelist; I’ve got four books under my belt. I took Hal’s thriller class last fall and it was great stuff. Now I’ve got a new horror idea I’m super excited about. I’m hoping to at least get the scaffolding up by the end of the month.
Something unique about me? I was born and raised in Dallas and lived in LA for the last ten years, so you might say I’m a city girl. But we just moved to a new house in upstate New York where I’m currently auditioning for the role of “country girl.” Most recent audition tape: I went for a midnight wander in the woods and came back with a tick burrowed into my side. I didn’t have tweezers. So I pulled out my handy Oral-B dental floss… and lynched it. Popped right out, head and all. When in doubt, floss it out!
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What I learned is that my reveals are heavily stacked toward the back end of this story. I think in part that’s because it’s more of a mystery than thriller (if anyone is still reading these things or ever was: sorry if I sound like a broken record). But I do think it would behoove me to build in more reveals in the first and second act of the book to keep things tense and exciting. This exercise was a good way to start doing that; it definitely catalyzed some ideas.
Reveal #1
Intrigue: Dead body in the flowers.
Mystery: Who is she? Did she fall?
Reveal: She didn’t fall—she was pushed.
Reveal #2
Intrigue: A flower pot drops, narrowly missing Skye’s head.
Reveal: The killer is still in the village.
Suspense: Skye decides to investigate…putting his own life at risk.
Reveal #3
Intrigue: What is Vero’s secret? Why is she so upset?
Reveal: She’s pregnant—and she wants an abortion.
Mystery: Who got her pregnant?
Reveal #4
Mystery: Where is Franco’s sister?
Intrigue: He’s kept this information secret for some reason. Hasn’t ‘said much about her.
Reveal: His sister isn’t dead.
Reveal #5
Mystery: Who is the guest across the street from Skye?
Reveal: He’s a British man with a sick wife. Sounds a lot like William and Margaret.
Intrigue: Did this man kill Francesca?
Suspense: Is he going to kill Skye next?
Reveal #6
Intrigue: Lorna had sex with Franco, but hasn’t mentioned it to anyone involved in the investigation.
Mystery: Why is she revolted by the memory now?
Reveal: Lorna has since learned something about Franco that changed everything.
Reveal #7
Mystery: Why didn’t Alessandro show up to meet Skye?
Reveal: He’s in the hospital. He was poisoned.
Suspense: Will Skye be poisoned next?
Reveal #8
Mystery: Why does Terra hate Skye so much?
Reveal: He got her best friend pregnant.
Intrigue: Is the villain going to use this against him?
Reveal #9
Mystery: Why is the birth certificate important?
Reveal: Lorna’s birthdate isn’t what she’s been told. (Ooooh and maybe this is how Vero knew it was her own daughter! Maybe SHE was the one trying to give Lorna the truth.)
Intrigue: Someone lied to her about the circumstances of her birth.
Suspense: What is going to happen to Skye now that he’s discovered this?
Reveal #10
Mystery: Who is Lorna, really?
Reveal: She’s Francesca’s daughter.
Reveal #11
Reveal: Lorna killed Francesca.
Intrigue: She’s been the one pulling the puppet strings all along.
Suspense: Now that Skye knows the truth—she throws him into the catacombs.
Reveal: #12
Mystery: What really happened when William took Lorna home?
Reveal: William was an abusive/absent father to Lorna. He also killed Margaret!
Suspense: And now she’s going to kill
Reveal #13
Intrigue: Skye is imprisoned, going to die.
Suspense: Will he be able to get out?
Reveal: His cute little Midwestern mom rescues him—not as innocent as she seems.
Reveal #14
Intrigue: There’s still something Lorna is hiding.
Mystery: What is she hiding?
Reveal: It wasn’t Lorna who killed Francesca. It was Poppy.
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What I learned doing this assignment is that (once again) it’s hard to have two timelines, because it means your hero doesn’t always come into direct contact with another character, which makes it hard to create a trust/distrust sequence. But it did make me realize I need to build up a stronger red herring in the modern-day timeline (Franco), in addition to the red herring in the 1987 timeline (Vero), so that I can create more of that push and pull with Skye, our trusty hero.
1. Make a list of the main characters.
✴Hero: Skye
✴Villain: Lorna
✴Red Herring Character: Vero
✴Trusted, but shouldn’t be: Poppy
✴Isn’t trusted, but should be: Franco
2. With each character, ask these questions:
✴SKYE✴
A) Trustable
B) Well he was drunk when the landlady died, so he’s not the most reliable narrator—even if he seems sublimely trustable, he might be guilty. He also has A Secret he’s holding close.
C) Dunno. If his secret were about to come out, I guess.
✴LORNA✴
A) Un/Trustable
B) She’s actually a good person, in a desperate situation.
C) Protecting her daughter at all cost.
✴VERO✴
A) Trustable
B) When she’s lying to her mom, brother, best friend, etc. Or when she’s having an affair with the married man—so she doesn’t appear trustable, but in fact she is.
C) Abortion/baby/affair/complicated relationship with brother and mother
✴POPPY✴
A) Untrustable
B) She’s a kid. Kids seem innocent… until proven guilty.
C) Sleepwalking, anger—maybe SHE was actually trying to protect her mom.
✴FRANCO✴
A) Trustable
B) He seems like the obvious killer—but just because he’s broody doesn’t mean he did it.
C) I guess he could get aggressive if his back were up against the wall.
3. With each character relationship, brainstorm how trust or distrust might show up between them.
✴Hero / Villain: Skye/Lorna. At first it seems like they’re on the same side, but then they begin to suspect each other (of course, Lorna is only pretending to suspect).
✴Hero / Red Herring Character: Since these are two different timelines, they don’t quite intersect—but another red herring is Franco (see below).
✴Hero / Trusted, but shouldn’t be: Skye/Poppy. Maybe Skye has an interaction with Poppy and thinks she’s really adorable? He could be the one person Poppy smiles at and opens up to!
✴Hero / Isn’t trusted, but should be: Skye/Franco. Skye mistrusts Franco from the start (which means I might not be able to make him quite so buffoonish). If Franco dodges questions about where he was that night… Skye mistrusts him more and more, as Franco gets more evasive…
New Version of Thriller Map
OPENING: Francesca’s body in the flowers.
(L) Mystery 1: Who killed Francesca? (Lorna “sees” her fall to her death.)
INCITING INCIDENT: We meet Skye as he discovers the body. He decides to crowdsource the mystery, fast-tracking his way to fame. He’s going to be the one to solve it. In so doing, he paints a target on his back.
(S) Life Threatening 1: Something falls and almost hits him: a flower pot. It’s just a fluke, he thinks, but he can’t help but feel unnerved.
(V) Mystery 2: We meet Vero, who’s hiding something. What is her secret? Build in tension with her mom Francesca… she doesn’t like her mom, but her brother Franco seems to hate her mom even more…
(L) Villain’s Plan 1: Lorna tries to leave with her kids—but the bridge is blocked by carabinieri. And there’s no other way in or out of Montefiori. She should run into Skye here, and Poppy brightens up immediately, to Lorna’s surprise. Skye takes quite a shine to her, too. Calls her his “English Rose.”
(S) Life Threatening 2: Skye makes his murder map… has an unsettling conversation with the British hotel guest across the street. Is he being watched?
(V) Mystery 3: What is Vero’s relationship with the British hotel guest?
(S) Mystery: What is Skye hiding? He’s always getting calls from an unknown number, never answers. if I can make it vague—he knows he hurt someone. That it’s his fault. So maybe he’s not as innocent as he appears. Something is weighing on his conscience, for sure.
(L) Villain’s Plan 2: Conversation with Skye. Lorna tries to dissuade him from investigating the murder. Then plants a seed that there was someone else there that night. (She is “suspicious” of Skye—or is playing suspicious.) But Poppy is really charmed by him, and the feeling is mutual.
(S) Mystery 4: Did Francesca’s son kill her? Skye interviews Franco. Doesn’t seem like a killer, but he’s vague about his sister and her whereabouts.
(V) Life Threatening 3: Vero tries to get her abortion—plan is discovered by her brother. He is furious and dangerously angry.
(S) Mystery 5: He befriends Alessandro, a carabinieri, who’s going to get him in—because Skye promised to collaborate with him on Flik. Alessandro promises to get Skye into Francesca’s apartment. What will they find there?
(V) Life Threatening 4: Vero’s best friend abandons her; now she has to find a way to get to Milan on her own.
(S) Mystery: What does the carabinieri know about Francesca and Alessandro’s relationship? Skye takes him out for a beer that night. Shadows of his secret; a number calls on his phone and he doesn’t answer. Alessandro presses him, but Skye is elusive and vague.
(L) Villain’s Plan 3: Lorna befriends the local carabinieri. Whispers some stuff into his ear about Skye. Maybe Skye has been keeping a secret? Or Lorna “overheard” a strange sound coming from his hotel room? “He seems like a decent chap (lad?), but I’m not sure about the company he keeps…” Lorna carries diphenhydramine/Nytol, basically British benadryl, to help her insomniac daughter sleep—but in large doses, a person can lose consciousness. She sneaks quite a large dose into Alessandro’s espresso, though of course we don’t learn this till later…
(S) Life Threatening: Skye goes to where he’s supposed to meet the carabinieri—and the guy doesn’t show. S breaks into the apartment himself (using skills he saw… on Flik). He doesn’t really find anything, but takes some stuff that might have meaning later. At the end of his break-in, he runs into another carabinieri officer and thinks he’s busted, but actually the guy is only there to tell him what happened to Alessandro: he suddenly took ill and was taken to the hospital on the mainland.
(S) Villain’s Plan 4: Skye’s fans begin attacking him after a vicious rumor spreads. His account gets suspended, and Skye gets canceled. (Mystery: Who reported him? And also… do they know the other thing he did?) He loses his followers—and also his eyes on the ground, since he can no longer crowdsource the mystery. He’s on his own.
(S) Life Threatening 5: The NOTE appears.
TURNING POINT 1: Someone is coming after Skye now: he can no longer deny it. Now he has to solve the case, because his life is on the line, too.
(S) Life Threatening 6: scalding shower/little things different in his hotel room. Someone has access to his room and belongings. Maybe someone texts obscene things on his phone? Or posts things and deletes them? Could be why his account got canceled…
(V) Life Threatening 7: V is attacked outside the abortion clinic. She wonders if her brother sent him. Her brother can’t forgive her mother for doing nothing while their father died, and he can’t forgive Vero that she’s going to leave him stuck in Montefiori.
(S) Mystery: What happened to Franco’s sister? Skye corners him—and finds out Franco lied. Skye starts to suspect that Franco may have killed his mom and his sister.
(L) Villain’s Plan 5: This needs to be an innocuous Lorna scene that we only fully understand later, after the reveal. So maybe she goes to the library to “keep the kids entertained”? La Biblioteca del Santo Bonaventura.” But really she’s there to scour Skye’s profile and look up dirt on him. Since Terra wrote some scathing thought piece about her brother, Lorna finds her easily. (And has Terra been posting vague things all along about how her brother is not the nice guy people think he is? “A Former Flik Dick is still more of a dick than you could ever imagine.”) I think I can position this scene as Lorna is “learning about Skye” because she suspects him of having something to do with the murder… but actually she is trying to find his weaknesses, and she creates an anonymous account so she can scare/threaten Terra.
(S) Life Threatening 8: Just as Skye gets a call from his sobbing sister, telling him she’s been threatened. “Of course one of your stupid fans would do this. They’re trash humans.” He tries to calm her, it’s NBD, fans say all sorts of shit online. But then, as he’s getting back to his hotel room with Terra still on the phone, he realizes someone has broken in. Blood, dead animal, thorny rose… something that links specifically to the threat Terra got. So he realizes it’s someone in Italy who’s doing this. The same person who’s after him.
(V) Life Threatening 9: V tells William, expecting sympathy—gets cold fury. Scene with William’s wife. Seems like Margaret is going to hurt Vero… but in fact, she warns her.
(S) Mystery 6: Who is Lorna, really? Skye finds something in her apartment. A birth certificate where the dates don’t match… so maybe he needs to chat with Lorna earlier, about her birthday. He’s a Pisces, she’s a Gemini. She’s all, “I never felt particularly interesting. Or particularly two-faced.” But oddly, the birth certificate in Francesca’s room says end of December. She’s actually a Capricorn…
*MIDPOINT*: Maybe Skye gets a lead and is sure it’s VERO? The lurking sister, hiding in the shadows? Then we get our red herring mystery… but also, maybe the bridge COLLAPSES. Terramoto! This should ramp up the tension, since that bridge is the only way in or out of Montefiori—and now everyone is trapped. Including the murderer. Tourists are flipping out.
(L) Did someone sabotage the bridge? Lorna tries to escape with her kids—”it’s not safe for them here”—and something happens, it starts to collapse or something (would have to be a coincidence, I think); they almost get killed. Basically Lorna tries to do something to deflect attention, and ends up drawing more of it. Suddenly she’s on the news and her.her kids’ faces are plastered everywhere. Enough to warrant a call from her dad. “I told you not to go over there. Bad things happen in that place. They call it The Dying Village for a reason. There’s nothing there for you but death.”
(S) Life Threatening 10: Chase scene. Skye gets to the bridge, and now it’s collapsed. He’s at the edge of the precipice. Skye thinks it’s the murderer… but it’s just a crazed fan. Maybe this is also where we get Skye’s confession—to someone? Maybe to Lorna? (Could be awkward, but it should be someone surprising. Maybe it’s Terra. Or maybe it goes back to Terra’s friend, who he just saw over Christmas break or something. Now that she’s of age… he got her pregnant… and when he told her he didn’t want to move back to Ohio and raise a family, she had an abortion.)
(L) Villain’s Plan 6: Lorna with kids out in the world, doing something we can’t know what she’s doing yet but it’s a part of her plan. Maybe they run into someone, and Ollie starts running his mouth? There’s some kind of discrepancy. He’s like, “No, my mom was awake that night!” or whatever. We get an eerie sense of the cracks in her story.
(L) Lorna lets her darker side peek out, not the sweet docile British mum. Maybe in an interaction with some random person where her rage boils over? Or maybe when she’s trying to leave Montefiori and she can’t? She could get tearful, telling them her son needs medical assistance…”airlift us out” or whatever. The carabinieri refuse.
(S) Life Threatening: Skye’s mom calls him in tears. Someone has mailed them a death certificate (or maybe they just got an email about coming to identify a body…)
(V) Need a Vero scene here… maybe if it seemed like Franco was the one fantasizing about killing his mom, but then it’s Vero. Or vice versa—we suspect it’s Vero, but then we get a conversation Franco had with Vero, or one she overhears, and he’s the new prime suspect. (Also feels out of place.)
(L) Flashback scene? (I know Hal says we’re not allowed to do flashbacks, but this is a novel, people!) We see Lorna reflecting on when she fucked Franco a few days earlier, revealing her severely pent-up sexual side… and of course she’s felt sick about it ever since (for reasons the reader won’t understand until later… hi, Game of Thrones!).
(S) Life Threatening 12: Alessandro dies in hospital. Mom hears about it on the news… knows Skye has lied to her. She senses he’s in danger but what can she do about it?
(S) Life Threatening 11: Carabinieri brings Skye in for questioning, accuses him of having something to do with Alessandro’s death.
TURNING POINT 2: Skye is captured, thrown into the catacombs to die.
(L) Villain’s Plan 7: She abducts Skye—uses her knowledge of the catacombs to lure him down there.
(S) Life Threatening 13: Skye is imprisoned in the catacombs beneath the nunnery.
(L) Villain’s Plan 8: She’s panicking… not sure what to do next…
(S) Life Threatening 14: Skye attempts an escape—and ALMOST succeeds. Is caught by Lorna.
(V) Mystery 6: Who was Francesca, really? And who was she to Lorna?
CLIMAX: The truth comes out about everything—Vero, Lorna. Or, well. The almost truth.
(W)
(V)
(L) Mystery 7: Did Lorna kill Francesca? No! It was actually… dun dun dun… her daughter.
(S) Life Threatening 15: Skye understands everything now—including why Lorna has to kill him.
(C or K) MIDWESTERN MOM SAVES THE DAY
RESOLUTION: I’m not sure yet. I think Poppy is going to get away with it, either because Lorna takes the fall… or possibly because… Skye lets them get away with it? But somehow Skye has to emerge victorious. Does that mean Skye goes to Italian jail for the murder? I’m afraid this won’t feel like a satisfying ending. But maybe if he gets his fame, which is what he wanted anyway, that will be enough…
(S) Still don’t know what happens here. Getting closer, though.
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What I learned doing this assignment is that twists are fun! And diverting the reader’s expectations is an interesting nut to crack.
1. Something planned for doesn’t happen.
✴Maybe when carabinieri offers to meet Skye, he doesn’t show… Skye breaks into the apartment himself (using… skills he saw on a Flik video). Only later does he found out the reason the guy stood him up is that he was injured. (Which means Lorna needs to go there first: slips something in his drink? Maybe she’s got seizure medication, or allergy medication, or insulin, some kind of medication her kids need… and she slips it into the carabiniere’s cappuccino foam. Troppo Italiano.)
2. Lost their resources.
✴When Skye loses his account, he loses his followers—and he also loses his eyes on the ground, since there’s no one left to help him solve the mystery.
3. Someone changes sides.
✴It seemed like Franco was the one fantasizing about killing his mom, but then it’s Vero. Or vice versa—we suspect it’s Vero, but then we get a conversation Franco had with Vero, or one she overhears, and he’s the new prime suspect.
✴Maybe Vero’s bf, the British guy, turns against her.
4. A new problem occurs.
✴The suspension bridge fails—the only way in or out of Montefiori—they’re trapped in the town. Can’t get out.
5. A lie is uncovered.
✴The birth certificate. Dates don’t match.
✴Maybe Skye’s mom discovered he has lied? This is what propels her to come to Italy…
6. New consequences emerge.
✴Skye’s sister gets threatened—how would Lorna find her, though? Maybe she wrote some scathing thought piece about her brother, and Lorna is able to track her down.
✴Carabinieri getting injured.
7. New options emerge.
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8. A mistake returns to haunt them.
✴I’d love to find something here that Skye does in the past, some kind of mistake. Maybe he got an ex pregnant?
9. A trust is violated.
✴One of Lorna’s kids starts talking openly about that night—probably Ollie? He’s like, “No, my mom was awake!” Or whatever. Contradicts her story.
✴Skye finds out Franco lied to him about something.
10. We see an unexpected side of someone.
✴Lorna lets her darker side peek out, not the sweet docile British mum. Maybe in an interaction with some random person where her rage boils over? Or maybe when she’s trying to leave Montefiori and she can’t? (She could get tearful, telling them her son just got stung by a bee and needs medical assistance… or his epidural pen…)
✴OR could be Lorna’s pent-up sexual side when she fucks Franco… and of course she’s felt sick about it ever since…
11. It just got more dangerous.
✴After the carabinieri gets hurt, maybe. Or someone has been in Skye’s room.
✴Someone mails a death certificate to Skye’s parents—mom totally freaks out.
12. Secret identity uncovered.
✴Lorna reveals who she really is—and who Francesca was to her.
✴Vero’s true identity revealed.
✴William’s true identity revealed… lol. So many secret identities@
13. The worst thing possible happens.
✴Skye gets abducted/left to die?
14. The “solution” makes things worse.
✴Skye’s crowdsourcing puts him in more and more danger.
✴Lorna tries to do something to deflect attention—and ends up drawing more of it.
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What I learned is that Skye can’t have all the Life Threatening sequences; some of them belong to Vero. I don’t know how much that detracts from the tension of the MIS, if it’s a non-negotiable requirement of thrillers that our focus needs to be solely on Skye (hero). Frankly, I think the reader needs to have an eerie sense as the novel progresses that Lorna (villain) and Vero (red herring) are *also* being threatened. Again, this probably tilts the story more toward mystery than thriller, since we’re supposed to be guessing who the killer is, as opposed to a movie like Bourne, where the line between hero and villain is crystal clear from the start. I’ve really thrown down the gauntlet for myself with this one, not just with multiple POV characters, but two timelines to boot.
OPENING: Francesca’s body in the flowers.
(L) Mystery 1: Who killed Francesca? (Lorna sees her fall to her death.)
INCITING INCIDENT: We meet Skye as he discovers the body. He decides to crowdsource the mystery, fast-tracking his way to fame. He’s going to be the one to solve it. In so doing, he puts a target on his back.
(S) Life Threatening 1: Something falls and almost hits him: a flower pot. It’s just a fluke, he thinks, but he can’t help but feel unnerved.
(V) Mystery 2: We meet Vero, who’s hiding something. What is her secret?
(L) Villain’s Plan 1: Lorna tries to leave with her kids—but the bridge is blocked by carabinieri. And there’s no other way in or out.
(S) Life Threatening 2: Skye makes his murder map… has an unsettling conversation with the British hotel guest across the street. Is he being watched?
(V) Mystery 3: What is Vero’s relationship with the British hotel guest?
(L) Villain’s Plan 2: Conversation with Skye. Tries to dissuade him from investigating the murder. Then plants a seed that there was someone else there that night. (She is “suspicious” of Skye—or is playing suspicious.)
(S) Mystery 4: Did Francesca’s son kill her? Skye interviews Franco.
(V) Life Threatening 3: Vero tries to get her abortion—plan is discovered by her brother. He is furious and dangerously angry.
(S) Mystery 5: What will Skye find in Francesca’s apartment? He befriends the carabinieri, who’s going to get him in—because Skye promised to collaborate with him on Flik.
(V) Life Threatening 4: Vero’s best friend abandons her, so she has to find a way to get to Milan on her own.
(S) Villain’s Plan 3: Skye’s Flik account gets cancelled. (Mystery: Who reported him?)
(L) Villain’s Plan 4: Lorna befriends the local carabinieri. Whispers some stuff into his ear about Skye.
(S) Life Threatening 5: The NOTE appears.
TURNING POINT 1: Someone is coming after Skye now: he can no longer deny it. Now he has to solve the case, because his life is on the line, too.
(S) Life Threatening 6: scalding shower/little things different in his room
(V) Life Threatening 7: V is attacked outside the abortion clinic.
(L) Villain’s Plan 5: Not sure… some sort of seemingly innocuous Lorna scene that we only fully understand later, after the reveal…
(S) Life Threatening 8: someone breaks into his apartment, blood, etc.
(V) Life Threatening 9: V tells William, expecting sympathy—gets cold fury. Scene with William’s wife.
(S) Mystery 6: Who is Lorna, really? Skye finds something in her apartment.
*MIDPOINT*: Major revelation: Lorna isn’t who she says she is. Or is this too early? Maybe Skye gets a lead and is sure it’s VERO? The lurking sister, hiding in the shadows? Then we get our red herring mystery…
(S) Life Threatening 10: Chase scene/crazed fan
(L) Villain’s Plan 6: Lorna with kids out in the world, doing something we can’t know what she’s doing yet but it’s some part of her plan.
(S) Life Threatening 11: Carabinieri bring Skye in for questioning—accuse him of having something to do with Francesca’s death.
(V) need a Vero scene here
(S) Life Threatening 12: carabinieri turns up dead?
TURNING POINT 2: Skye is captured, thrown into the catacombs to die.
(L) Villain’s Plan 7: She abducts Skye—uses her knowledge of the catacombs to lure him down there.
(S) Life Threatening 13: Skye is imprisoned in the catacombs beneath the nunnery.
(L) Villain’s Plan 8: She’s panicking… not sure what to do next…
(S) Life Threatening 14: Skye attempts an escape—and ALMOST succeeds. Is caught by Lorna.
(V) Mystery 6: Who was Francesca, really? And who was she to Lorna?
CLIMAX: The truth comes out about everything—Vero, Lorna. Or, well. The almost truth.
(W)
(V)
(L) Mystery 7: Did Lorna kill Francesca?
(S) Life Threatening 15: Skye understands everything now—including why Lorna has to kill him.
(C or K) MIDWESTERN MOM SAVES THE DAY
RESOLUTION: It wasn’t Lorna who killed Francesca. It was her daughter. And they’re going to get away with it, because… Skye will let them? But somehow Skye has to be emerge victorious. Maybe, if he gets his fame, that will be enough…
(S) I don’t know what happens here haha.
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What I learned is that there’s a lot happening behind the scenes of a thriller! And also that I have an interesting tension emerging in the way I’m writing the story—Skye is such a sweet, buffoonish character, and it’s hard to keep that suspense alive and tight if the voice in his POV chapters is more humorous, comical, etc. Not sure if I’m writing a proper thriller/mystery, or Knives Out. (Would that I could write Knives Out!) It’s something I need to think on.
1. What is the Villain’s plan and how does that put the Hero in danger?
Lorna needs to silence Skye at all costs. The fact that he’s got a global platform and is a (sort of) celebrity both helps and hurts her cause—it means the whole world is watching, and if he suddenly disappears, people will notice. But it also means he’s got farther to fall. If she can discredit him, expose him, maybe even get him kicked off the Flik platform, then she can potentially undermine anything he finds in his amateur “investigation.” Lorna is hoping his fall from grace will be all she needs. Of course, that’s not what happens; all her tampering with his pubic persona only makes people thirstier. They actually pay MORE attention to the Skye shit show the more she works to undermine him. Which means she has to ramp up her tactics to shut him up for good.
2. What other potential dangers could your Hero experience &
3. Choose the ones that work for this story (in bold).
Potential dangers for Skye:
✴A flower pot crashes from an upper balcony (a cat? someone else?)
✴He sees a shadow—or someone’s been in his room?
✴Someone’s been on his BALCONY, covered one of his clothespins… or something else that belongs to him… maybe his murder map… in blood?
✴A threatening note
✴What can Lorna use that a British mum would have? Tries to kill him with a Benadryl overdose, maybe? haha
✴He will be… knocked over the head? Disfigured? Since his looks are his claim to fame… (bewitching curly brown hair and bright blue eyes)
✴He will be abducted, imprisoned, left to die
✴Could I have a chase scene? Through a disco, maybe? But not the brutal disco stabbing scene of Killing Eve. I think maybe it’s not actually the villain. Just a crazed fan
✴Maybe his cop friend gets injured. Or Franco?
✴Some sort of creepy child’s toy or something… some touristy object… or even, like, scalding water in the shower!! That could work. It’s so fucking Italy. Lorna somehow tweaks the plumbing. Skye: “I swear it wasn’t like this before.” He goes to his cop friend and they laugh at him. “Pussy American.” He learns the Italian word for wimp.
Other threats:
✴she’ll try to discredit/cancel him on social media
✴she’ll try to accuse HIM of the murder—so desperate to get likes that he killed an old lady (bevy of new hashtags: #WillKillForLikes, #Skiller)
✴pictures of him go up online? pictures of him in his Airbnb room? or at a disco (could backfire, people could love him even more) so we know someone’s been in his room
✴she’ll threaten his sister? (Terra: “just got a very scary email, Skye”)
✴DOES SKYE HAVE HIS OWN SECRET?! (I would like to do this but I don’t know how. his high school girlfriend got an abortion, maybe? tying together the threads?)
✴loss of his collabs/funding. Kicked off the Flik platform, maybe?
✴other parties who need to solve the mystery (police? not very thrilling)
4. Sequence those dangers in order and make a list.
✴tries to get him cancelled/Flik feeding frenzy
✴succeeds in getting him kicked off Flik—and a petition starts to reinstate his account
✴leaves a note
✴scalding shower
✴breaks into his apartment, blood, etc. (maybe changes little things earlier> Things aren’t where he left them, etc?)
✴chase scene/crazed fan
✴exposes his secret?
✴accuses him of murder?
✴injures cop friend (or Franco?)
✴abducted/imprisoned
✴attempted murder
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Bree’s Mystery Sequence
What I learned is… this assignment was harder than the Villain’s Intrigue. I think, since I have two timelines in my novel—a twist that is concealed from the reader for most of the book, because it seems like the two storylines are contemporaneous—it makes it tricky to mete out the mysteries in a chronological chain. There are also 3 point-of-view characters, so we get chapters from their alternating POVs. Vero’s story takes place in 1985 in the three days leading up to the flower festival/murder. Skye’s story and Lorna’s story both take place in 2022 in the three days after the flower festival/murder. (Yes: there were two murders at this festival, 37 years apart. Though the first was chalked up to suicide.) In truth I think it probably renders the novel useless for adaption; there are too many visual cues that would give the game away in a movie, like costumes (shoulder pads!), car makes/models, etc. So in a sense, the biggest secret of the book is the dual timelines, which I guess means the real person doing the cover up is not one of the characters… but ME.
1. What is the big secret that the Villain is covering up?
Lorna is covering up the fact that, during her visit to Italy, she discovers her Airbnb hostess is actually the mother who abandoned her 37 years ago… and in a moment of passion, Lorna almost pushes her off the bell tower apartment… but stops herself at the last possible moment. Which is when the unthinkable happens: Poppy, Lorna’s little girl, pushes her to her death instead.
2. How many ways can they cover that secret? Those become the mysteries.
Lorna will try to deflect suspicion, first pinning the blame on Franco (Francesca’s surviving son), then on Skye.
Lorna will ensure that no one else can trace her lineage and put together that she is Francesca’s biological daughter.
She will silence Skye, who is trying to solve the mystery, at all costs.3. The first mystery must engage the Hero into solving it.
Mystery 1: Francesca’s death is the mystery that kicks off the book—and Skye is compelled to solve it.*
*Still trying to figure out if I need Skye to be compelled by this mystery for a bigger reason than “he wants to be a famous influencer.” Is it that he actually wants to be a serious journalist or investigator? Or is there something even more personal to him? Did his own grandmother die under mysterious circumstances? Something like that? Or is it something I haven’t thought of?
4. Sequence the mysteries so that each one leads us to the next one. Include ONE Red Herring mystery if you can.
Mystery 1: Who killed Francesca?
Mystery 2: Was it Francesca’s mysterious daughter, Vero?*
Mystery 3: Who was Francesca, really? And who was she to Lorna?
Mystery 4: Did Lorna kill Francesca?
(*red herring mystery)
5. Create a Mystery Chain for each main mystery.
Mystery 1: Who killed Francesca?
✴Did Francesca fall? Or was she pushed?
✴Once we know she was pushed… was it her son? Was he trying to speed along his inheritance of the airbnb, or did he have some other reason?
✴He talks about a mysterious daughter who is apparently no longer a part of the family—which seems suspicious. Is she the one who pushed her mother to her death?
✴The local police seem baffled; everyone loved Francesca, she was a staple of the community, etc. Who would possibly want her dead?
✴When Skye resolves to solve the mystery, he asks: was it one of the guests? That only leaves Lorna, and it couldn’t possibly be the sweet British mum with two little kids!
✴Someone had a motive. Someone is lying. But who is it?
Mystery 2: Was it Francesca’s mysterious daughter, Vero?* (red herring mystery)
✴Vero (short for Veronica Francesca) feels immense guilt, because she tried to get an abortion—and her super-Catholic mother found out.
✴It makes perfect sense that Vero would lash out against her mother Francesca (who the reader is meant to believe is the victim at the top of the novel). F has threatened to throw V out of the house/disown her forever.
✴In the main timeline, present-day, there are many clues thrown out about Francesca’s mysterious daughter who for some reason is not present. We are meant to think this is Vero, when in reality, Vero IS the Francesca who died; she started going by her middle name years ago, after her own mother passed. The “mysterious daughter” is in fact the baby she gave up 37 years ago, after being impregnated by a manipulative British hotel guest, who then took that baby back to England… and named her Lorna.
✴The moment we are ready to bust her is the big twist: we realize that, in the present-day timeline, Vero could not have committed the murder… because she has been dead since the book began.
✴BIG TWIST: Vero isn’t the murderer. She is the victim. And this only works because Vero’s full name is Veronica Francesca, named after her mother, Francesca. She has been going by the name “Francesca” for years, to honor her mother after she died.
✴We now have to rethink everything, when we realize that only 2 of our 3 POV characters are in present day. This whole time, Vero’s chapters have taken place in 1985, whereas Skye and Lorna’s are set in 2022. We have been reading two timelines with 37 years between, assuming the whole time that Vero’s story is leading up to her mother’s murder. (In truth, her mother died of natural causes years ago.)
Mystery 3: Who was Francesca, really? And who was she to Lorna?
✴Even Lorna did not know who Francesca was before she came to Italy—but of course, when the book starts, she has already killed her biological mother, so she knows the truth from the very first page. Of course, WE don’t know she knows. So far this has made it challenging (though a fun challenge) to write her chapters, because Lorna is hiding her biggest secret from us, the reader.
✴Francesca (real name Veronica “Vero” Francesca) was the daughter of Francesca, the innkeeper. And 37 years ago, when Vero told her mother she was pregnant and had tried to abort the baby…her mother cut her off. Because she failed to get an abortion, she had the baby, and the British guest at the inn who got her pregnant took the baby from her. When his wife found out, she jumped to her death at the flower festival… and Lorna was whisked off to England, without ever knowing the true story of her birth. (HELLO, DAYTIME SOAPS!) She has always taken her father’s story at face value, assuming that her biological mother was her father’s British wife, who jumped to her death from postpartum depression. (Or was she, too, pushed…?) The dates don’t quite match up on this, which will be one of the clues that Skye finds—though Lorna found it first. The date on her birth certificate isn’t right, because she was not born before her British mother’s “fall.” She was born six months afterward. That’s how she starts to piece the truth together.
✴This is the harder mystery, because it can only be revealed amidst the twist. And the twist will be tricky to pull off smoothly—though easier in a novel, perhaps, when you actually CAN reveal things in flashbacks/back story.
✴I know this all seems really complicated! But I promise in a 3-POV novel with two interwoven timelines I can make it work.
Mystery 4: Did Lorna kill Francesca?
✴Yes. And no.
✴She was going to. At the moment she makes her discovery, she is overcome with rage and heartbreak at all she endured… all those years with her emotionally and verbally abusive father… the lies she’s been told her entire life… all because her real mother abandoned her. But in the last moment, she stops herself from giving Francesca/Vero that final shove.
✴Turns out, her little girl was watching the whole thing…. and it is Poppy who sends her grandmother crashing to her death.
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Bree’s Villain Has a Nefarious Plan…
What I learned while crafting that nefarious plan was that…this exercise was really helpful! I had a vague sense that Lorna wants/needs to stop Skye, but I didn’t have much in the way of her actual plan, and how to sequence the different parts of it in a way that escalates the urgency and ramps up tension (before this I didn’t really even know the parts at all). This gives me great material for actual scenes.
1. What is the end goal?
Lorna Pudney’s end goal is simple: to get away with murder. She wants to not be caught and to leave Italy forever, saving herself and her daughter—but she knows she can’t leave too soon after the death of her Airbnb host, or it will look suspicious. So she is biding her time, using her wits to deflect and deceive.
2. How can the Villain accomplish that in a devious way?
At every turn, Lorna will need to outwit the hero—Skye—and divert the investigation when it gets too close to the truth. By the end, when Skye is closing in on her, she will need to stop him at whatever cost. First, she imprisons him, aware that he will eventually die, but at least she won’t have to actively kill him. But when it becomes clear that his Flik fans are hip to what is happening, and have been able to trace him to the underground catacombs where she has drugged and hidden him—ah, the power of social media—she realizes she is going to have to kill him before he reveals her. She doesn’t want to do this, mind you. She’s a sweet British mum on holiday! But as it becomes clear that he is going to expose her and what truly happened that fateful night, Lorna has no other choice.
3. How can they cover it up?
I don’t have all of this figured out yet, but some ideas I have about how Lorna will attempt the cover-up and her escape:
✴Devise and share an alternate scene of what happened that night (she heard a noise, saw a suspicious person, etc.)
✴ She will try to stop Skye: leave him a note telling him to stop searching, do something else to scare him, etc.
✴ Maybe she will try to impugn Skye’s name? Or throw shade on his credibility by hurting him on social media? Maybe she accuses him of something, or flags him/tries to get his account taken down.
✴ Once Skye starts uncovering the truth about Lorna’s history—which will of course point to why she’s in Montefiori in the first place, and her real (hidden) relationship with the landlady—her plan will become far more urgent, and she’ll have to take more drastic measures.
✴ She will try to turn the police on Skye eventually. She knows he’s there to “put Montefiori on the map,” so she will try to frame him—say that he murdered their sweet little landlady in an attempt to get more likes and launch himself to social media stardom.
✴ She will try to scare/intimidate Skye—to “mother” him, in a way, by telling him she’s worried for his safety and well-being.
✴ She will imprison him in the catacombs.
✴ She will attempt to silence him for good—by killing him.
4. Sequence it to make it as intriguing as possible:
Okay so let’s try this, in escalating order of severity. Because I think Lorna is a very logical, reasonable person (she’s British!), so she will start small, but then escalate quickly when her tactics don’t work.
✴ Conversations with the police (the alibi)
✴ Conversations with Skye (the alibi with some additional misleading details)
✴ Social media attack/attempt to get him kicked off
✴ A veiled warning to Skye to stop (a message? written in BLOOD mwahaha)
✴ A less veiled warning (something I haven’t thought of yet—a dead animal?)
✴ Try to turn the police on Skye (this one will be harder because it will give up the game—so I think I might have to have the tip be “anonymous,” so Skye doesn’t know who is trying to frame him)
✴Trying to “mother” Skye and tell him she’s concerned (this might need to happen earlier on)
✴ Imprisoning Skye
✴ She will try to kill him
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Bree’s BI and SotL Stacking Suspense
Hi everyone, I’m back after being locked out of the website for a few days and getting nothing but error messages when I tried to sign in. Grr.
If you can believe it, I’d never seen Basic Instinct OR Silence of the Lambs! And I call myself a human on earth. So much to learn from both…
BASIC INSTINCT
What a great example of a movie that ratchets up the suspense (and intrigue. and mystery.) at every turn. It was hard not to get lost in the movie—I didn’t WANT to pause after every scene to do the assignment! But I persevered.
Some stray observations/things I learned:
✴ Everything about Catherine—including that infamous white-dress scene—is a picture-perfect example of Hal’s “Intrigue” theory. You really get the sense from the get-go that she has her own master plan, and by the time she says it out loud (she’s writing a novel about a police detective and using Nick for inspiration), it all clicks into place.
✴ The more Nick falls for her, the more the suspense escalates, because we see him getting sucked into her web.
✴ What is that horrible sweater he wears at the club and why doesn’t it fit him better.
✴ I gotta say: I don’t think there’s really enough evidence to support Beth as the killer. The fact that only Catherine could have known how Nick would find his dead partner in the elevator, which we know from the scene Nick peeps in her novel… that final shot of the ice pick under the bed… I guess I’m a Catherine girl myself. Besides: the director, Sharon Stone, et al. have said that it was absolutely Sharon in that first scene, killing the coked-out rock star.
✴ Also, re: Hal’s theory of Beth being the killer: why would her initial goal have been to put Catherine in prison and have Nick under her total control when Nick has no idea who Catherine is at the beginning of the movie? It’s not like Nick is obsessed with Catherine and Beth feels she has to intervene. If Beth were the killer, then it would in fact be her actions that create the path toward Nick’s obsession with Catherine, by introducing them in the first place. So I couldn’t quite make that fit.
✴ Food for thought: can a woman that sexy be “the fuck of the century” and NOT the killer? I mean, in Hollywood, an atomic blonde is either a Madonna or a whore… and I don’t think she’s a Madonna!
✴ Random aside: Why does every single movie or TV show with cops/detectives have tensions between the different groups of cops (state, city, FBI, etc.)? Is this real life? Because in my mind, thanks to a lifelong diet of film and TV, no investigation has ever had a team of investigators who just, like… get along.
And, you know. I thought the sex scenes were hot. 😉
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
What a great movie! I now see what I’ve been missing! It 100 percent deserved all those Oscar wins.
Stray observations/lessons learned:
✴ I love the opening sequence of Clarice running, alone and determined, through the FBI obstacle course. I read that wasn’t the original scene—it was her and another officer on a drug bust—but that Jodie Foster asked to change it because the drug bust bit was overdone. It’s such a great establishment of the Mystery part of the MIS. What is she running from? Or toward? And why?
✴ Hannibal Lecter is perhaps the best example EVER of Intrigue: he puts his plan into action from the very first unblinking stare. I knew he was getting inside her head, but I didn’t actually know he was doing it to plot his escape.
✴ I found Clarice to be a really compelling hero—and not what I expected. She is scared, green, shaking, crying. It was actually cool to discover a nice complexity to the “strong woman” trope we’ve all seen ad nauseum. Like, she is tough as hell, and sharp as a whip. But she’s also human, and understandably terrified. That final scene, with Buffalo Bill in the night goggles right behind her, was hard to watch. She’s just so vulnerable and open to attack. Just like in the earlier scene where she fucks up the training drill and gets “shot.”
✴ The whole pen sequence felt like a master lesson in suspense. We know from the moment Hannibal eyes that pen he’s going to do something nefarious. And then the ripple effect of what he does with it… you might say it’s clinically insane.
✴ A question I had: Who is our red herring here? It feels like there’s not one in this film—I mean, unless you argue that Buffalo Bill is the red herring, when Hannibal is the true villain. But then again… Buffalo Bill does have a girl in a dungeon well that he is going to skin. So like: hard to call that a herring (though definitely red!).
✴ And lastly: I felt like this was a really interesting example of a thriller where we know from the beginning who the bad guy(s) are. There’s no suspense about finding out WHO the killer/villain is, but how they’re going to be caught… or not.
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(4) What I learned doing this assignment is that the three main characters I’ve already been developing fit perfectly into the hero, villain, and red herring roles! That was very satisfying.
(1) Remind us of your CONCEPT and the Big M.I.S. of your story.
Logline: Skye, a charismatic up-and-coming influencer visiting an isolated Italian town, gets his big shot at fame when his airbnb host is murdered. After live-streaming the body to crowdsource the investigation, Skye attracts the attention of the killer and must race against time before his body is the one trending.
✴ Big Mystery: Who killed Francesca Innocenza, the airbnb host who was pushed to her death from the bell tower of her own apartment? This is the question that Skye, who has come to Montefiori for a social media partnership, is determined to solve.
✴ Big Intrigue: Lorna, the vanilla 30-something British mother of two on holiday in Italy, knows exactly who killed her sweet little 50-something Italian airbnb host… and she will protect that secret at all costs.
✴ Big Suspense: As Skye gets closer to solving the murder, and his posts gets more and more attention on social media as his fans try desperately to crowdsource the investigation, he also attracts the attention of Lorna—who will stop at nothing to silence him.
(2) Tell us the Intriguing World you have selected for this story.
Every year on the Feast of Corpus Christi—nine Sundays after Easter—the tiny Italian town of Montefiori hosts the festival of the Le Infiorate, decorating the streets with intricate tapestries of flowers. The artists are only allowed to use organic flower material, so they spend months creating and fine-tuning elaborate designs, harvesting flowers of every shade and hue from the surrounding hills, drying the petals in cool underground caves, and harboring a growing excitement for the “Night of Flowers.” They can only begin to lay out these elaborate flower murals on Saturday once the sun has set, and so they stay up all night, working furiously, sweating, cursing, laughing, desperately trying to finish. At sunrise, they bask in a blissful hour of enjoying their art, and sharing it—judges come to award prizes, and thousands of tourists throng the streets to gaze upon the majesty of Le Infiorate.
Then, suddenly, it’s over. Exactly one hour after the last petal is arranged, the local bishop strolls through the town, cloaked in his Sunday robes, with a full processional… and walks straight through the tapestries, destroying hours, weeks, months of work.
In my story, on the feast day of Corpus Christi, the floral tapestries are not the only things destroyed. There, in the midst of the flowers, they find the corpse of Francesca, a local innkeeper, her neck snapped.
3. With your top 2 or 3 characters, tell us the role they play and then answer these three questions:
SKYE. Hero. While he may at first blush seem a bit buffoonish—what influencer doesn’t?—Skye is actually quite clever. He certainly understands how to use his charm, and more importantly: how to wield his nascent celebrity. He was invited to Montefiori for a partnership with the city to help put the flower festival “on the map,” so when the body is found, he’s well positioned to do exactly what he was hired to do: by live-streaming the body. By utilizing his “brand,” Skye is able to get access to places, information, and secrets he shouldn’t be allowed to have.
✴ Mystery. Who threw Francesca from the bell tower apartment? Skye doesn’t know—but he’s determined to find out.
✴ Intrigue. Skye has an international following on Flik—which means everyone, including the killer, is watching his every move.
✴ Suspense. As he gets closer to unmasking the killer, the killer gets closer to killing him.
LORNA. Villain. Lorna may seem like an exhausted mother of two, trying to rest and recover on holiday in Italy, but her holiday is not what it seems. In truth, Lorna has come to Montefiori for a very specific reason. There is another murder lurking in Lorna’s past, in this very same hilltop town, and when she discovers who is responsible for it, she will discover that she, too, may be capable of murder.
✴ Mystery. Why has Lorna come to Italy? What is she really doing in the town of Montefiori, and why is she haunted by what happened here?
✴ Intrigue. Lorna has a secret before the story even begins: she knows exactly who killed Francesca.
✴ Suspense. Lorna will stop at nothing to ensure that no one else ever finds out who really pushed Francesca to her death.
VERO. Red Herring. Veronica—Vero for short—is the daughter of the local innkeeper who is murdered. She has a terse, tense relationship with her mother, whom she hates.
✴ Mystery. Did Vero kill her mother Francesca?
✴ Intrigue. Vero is pregnant—she’s been having an affair with one of the married guests at her mother’s inn—and she wants an abortion. Her mother is such a devout Catholic, Vero fears what her mother might do if she discovers Vero’s secret…
✴ Suspense. Vero’s timeline is different than Skye and Lorna’s… her story plays out in the days leading up to the murder, whereas Skye and Lorna’s play out in the days immediately after… so the suspense is really, what happens in those moments before Francesca was thrown from the bell tower? What transpired between Francesca and her daughter?
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Bree Barton’s BIG M.I.S.
LOGLINE:
Skye, a charismatic up-and-coming influencer visiting an isolated Italian town, gets his big shot at fame when his Airbnb host is murdered. After live-streaming the body to crowdsource the investigation, Skye attracts the attention of the killer and must race against time before his body is the one trending.
(3) What I learned doing this assignment is… maybe I’m writing a mystery, not a thriller? Haha. If the Big Intrigue is “the cover, clandestine, underhanded plot that will live under the surface for most of the movie,” I guess my central question is: HOW clandestine can it be? Like do we need to have a sense of who is perpetuating it? Because in my envisioning of this story, that’s sort of the big reveal/twist (or one of them) toward the end. I think of thrillers like Bourne Identity, etc.—or even Kimi which I used for the Day 1 Assignment—and we absolutely are privy to the villain’s POV for a lot of the movie. We know from THEIR side what’s happening, and at least in part what they’re up to. But then I look at thriller books/movies like, say, Gone Girl, and they absolutely do not give the game away until well into the book. Using GG as an example, is it okay that we don’t know till halfway through what the Big Intrigue has been all along?
(1) What are the conventions of your story?
✴ Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Skye Bowman, an influencer on Flik (this world’s equivalent of TikTok). Or at least, an up-and-coming influencer—Skye only has 1.2 million followers, and he’s desperately thirsting for more. Skye has been hired by a tiny Italian town for an endorsement deal: he’ll be documenting their flower festival on social media. But when a woman is murdered the night of the festival, he resolves to solve the mystery—along with the help of his eagle-eyed fans—and become the influencer he is destined to be.
✴ Dangerous villain: This won’t be revealed until near the end (and now I’m wondering if that’s a problem for a thriller?? does that mean I’m really writing a mystery? see existential musings above), because she’s the least likely villain of all: Lorna Pudney, a buttoned-up British tourist, age 38, who’s come to the flower festival with her two kids in tow.
✴ High Stakes: If Skye is successful at revealing the murderer, it isn’t just Lorna’s future on the line… it’s her daughter’s, too. That’s why Lorna will stop at nothing to stop Skye from solving the murder.
✴ Life and death situations: Lorna will kill Skye if she has to. Anything to keep him quiet. Hell hath no fury like a mother protecting her little girl.
✴ This story is thrilling because: Again, I don’t know if this means this story isn’t actually a thriller… if for most of the book Skye is getting veiled threats and warnings, does that make it thrilling enough? Or do we have to SEE the villain, to get their POV directly—whether for a script or a novel—in order to understand the Big Intrigue? I guess my question is: can the Big Intrigue remain covert, unseen to the audience/reader, for the bulk of the story?
(2) Tell us the Big M.I.S. of your story?
✴ Big Mystery: Who killed Francesca Innocenti, the woman who was pushed to her death from the bell tower of her own apartment. (Which by the way is a converted nunnery from the 1600s! Cool!) And then, of course, why did they do it?
✴ Big Intrigue: Why did Lorna murder Francesca? Why would she kill the sweet little 50-something proprietress of the inn where Lorna and her two kids are staying on their Italian vacation? Did Lorna come to this village with the intent to kill Francesca, or did she discover or reveal something that pushed her to a breaking point—and filled her with murderous rage?
✴ Big Suspense: Skye thinks it’s all for likes and funsies when the story begins. But as he genuinely gets closer to solving the murder—and his follower count goes WAY up as he enlists his fans, effectively crowdsourcing a murder investigation—he starts to feel he is being watched. He gets a note under the door telling him to stop. Words of warning are scrawled across his bed. Skye is a bit of a happy-go-lucky Midwesterner (I have to decide how buffoonish to make him, or if that saps the suspense), so he’s a bit slow to realize that, if he doesn’t stop his investigation, he’ll die, too.
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(KIMI) Thriller Conventions
(5) What I learned doing this assignment is that… Steven Soderbergh is a genius? Which I guess I already knew. But as far as the MIS: on my rewatch I was struck by the fact that the movie actually STARTS with the Intrigue! The opening scene features the villain, culminating with his brief, terse phone call tipping us off that something sinister is afoot. Not only is it a great framing device for the film (with some exposition smoothly delivered); it sets up the Intrigue of the Big Bad in a, well, intriguing way.
(2) Note the conventions of *this* story…
- Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: Angela (Zoe Kravitz) is our unwitting hero who works in tech, checking the streams for Amygdala, a giant tech company that has created Kimi (a stand-in for Siri). When the story begins, Angela has no idea she’s going to overhear a violent crime. She also has severe agoraphobia and can’t leave her house… yet she will prove herself to be far more resourceful than either she or we expected. <div>
- Dangerous Villain: Bradley, the CEO of the Amygdala Corporation—and by extension, Amygdala itself, with its seemingly endless resources (and capacity) for evil.
- High stakes: For Angela the stakes are twofold: she has a severe and debilitating mental illness that makes it excruciating (and up to this point, impossible) to leave her apartment. So that’s her first mountain to climb. Then, when she finally *does* leave the house… turns out she was right! The world is dangerous and people are literally trying to kill her.
- Life and death situations: Angela is perhaps slow to realize that, in trying to report what she overheard on the streams, she has all but ensured her own demise. The people who work for Bradley—both the low-level thugs and the tech masterminds—will stop at nothing until she is dead.
- This movie is thrilling because at every point, we are worried for Angela’s safety, terrified that Amygdala is going to catch her and kill her.(3) What is the BIG Mystery, Intrigue, and Suspense of this story?
- Big Mystery: Angela must figure out what really happened on that recording, who is responsible, why they did it… and how to stop them.
- Big Intrigue: Bradley will do everything in his power to silence Angela—and there’s a ticking clock/countdown element that works well, since the IPO for Amygdala is in a few days. For the company, the stakes have never been higher. And for Brad personally, there’s $100 million on the line.
- Big Suspense: Will Angela expose the murder and the cover-up—I.e., the company’s corruption—in time? Or will she, too, be murdered before she gets that far?(4) Anything else I’d like to say about what made this a great thriller… Soderbergh ratchets up the suspense so beautifully in ways big and small, like how during the chase scene, Angela has to throw her phone away so they can’t track her… leaving her even more disconnected and unable to call for help. (SPOILER ALERT if you plan to watch Kimi, which you totally should!): In the end, it is Angela’s agoraphobia that saves her. Because she knows her apartment so well, when the thugs catch her, drug her, and take her home to carry out the murder, she is able to use her own knowledge to derail them—AND she uses Kimi, who funnily enough saves the day! The film also clocks in at a tight 86 minutes. Everything is clean, tight, gorgeously shot—and not a single detail wasted. Even the tiniest reveal has a purpose, and every arc comes to a satisfying close. Classic Soderbergh!
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This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Christopher DeWan.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Christopher DeWan.
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Ciao everyone, I’m Bree! I’m currently in Italy researching my fifth book, so it’s 2:10am local time… but I figured better late than never to say hello. I guess in a roundabout way I just answered the next question: I’ve only written one original script, a dramedy TV pilot (plus a couple of spec scripts a long time ago), because really I’m a novelist. Hopefully Hal and Cheryl won’t kick me out! But my next book is a thriller, and I desperately need help.
I’m really looking forward to learning how to “map” a thriller, especially the MIS piece, because I worry the mystery/intrigue/suspense might be what’s MISsing (harhar) from my current draft. I’m enjoying one of my characters so much—and he’s so funny and buffoonish—that I fear it’s sapping away that tight knot of bone-chilling suspense! Anyway very much looking forward to reading all your work and getting to know you.
Fun fact about me (and just so I stay on theme): when I was a student in Italy many years ago, I worked at a super sketchy bar as a cocktail waitress, and one of the other cocktail waitresses… was murdered a few months later… by one of the other cocktail waitresses. Talk about a thriller waiting to be written! Oy.
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Bree Barton. I agree to the terms of this release form.
As 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.
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Amazing, Ruby! I grew up mostly in Oak Cliff/North Dallas but graduated from McKinney High School. Love to find a fellow DFW metroplex alum here!
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This is such a lovely introduction, David. What a thoughtful and generous human you are. Also, where can I find your novels set in Sicilia?? Would love to read! 😀
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Ah, Sicilia! Beautiful!! I’ve only been to Catania but loved it so much. On this trip I was mostly in Umbria: Spello, Perugia (that’s where I studied 15 years ago), Bagnoregio, and then a day in Milan on either end. Back now—and wishing I wasn’t!
Can’t wait to read your work here. 🙂
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This is good to hear! Thank you so much, Busy! It’s true, if I can tease it out the right way, and keep building suspense, then maybe it will make the villain even more sinister when they are finally relieved…
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HA. I hear you. I wonder how many drafts of short stories/novels I have on my hard drive (and past hard drives)… safe to say a lot. And gotcha, re: your film. I can’t wait to see it! 😀
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All right, look out for a book about a wonderful woman named “Busy”… 🙂 Isn’t that the best part of being writer? It’s ALL fuel for the fire! And yes, the move was rough (so hard to be in a new place during Covid!), but I think it’s finally leveling out. We’re actually in Ithaca, a few hours outside the city… but the leaves this time of year are divine!
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Oooh I loved that movie! God, opening the BOX… I should rewatch it when I’m not a terrified teenager, haha. Thank you for this reminder, ‘cuz I forgot how late Kevin Spacey joins the fray. And then that also made me think of The Usual Suspects, where I think the reveal comes rven later… IS that a thriller, though?
I also realized I forgot to add my logline (whoops) so just put it above. Thanks to you, Dylan, since your message jogged my memory!
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Hey Brian—here’s to a good strong outline and plan. That’s what I’m hoping for, too. We shall rise victorious! …while also staying safe.
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Wow, Dylan: 9 scripts!! This is truly something to aspire to. And congrats on your multi-nommed film! I hope you’ll share more about it with the class as it moves out of post. Looking forward to working with you, too.
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Hi John, I’m hoping to get that exact same boost of energy from this class. Here’s to more of Hal’s magic!
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Here’s to storytelling, Virginia! Can’t wait to tell stories alongside you this month.
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Well, there you go, Karen: I feel like you’ve already written your thriller in two sentences. That nefarious mountain must have its own Big Intrigue! And your poor wrists and tibias. Have you read Ruth Ware’s One by One? Great thriller set in a ski lodge, where one by one the skiiers start to die. Content warning, since there may also be some broken bones… 😉 Looking forward to reading you!
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Happy to see you here, Leybe, and looking forward to learning about thrillers with you!
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Busy, your nickname is so brilliant, I humbly ask for permission to name a character after you someday! I’m sorry about the loss of your parents—that’s a lot to hold. We lost my father-in-law during Covid and moved from LA to NY, which has been quite the culture shock. I’ve never written a thriller either, so I look forward to wading into the deep with you!
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Lesley, “Rewritten them god knows how many times” feels like you are speaking right to my soul. Amen to THAT. Huge congrats on your recent production deals/shopping agreements! Can’t wait to see what magic you cook up in this class.
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Hi Mary, happy to see a fellow bookish writer among our ranks! I’ve been wanting to get more into gardening, and just found your book on Amazon… though I fear I might not be able to apply your wisdom and brilliance from the PNW to my garden beds in Ithaca, NY. I’ll just have to read your thriller instead! 😉
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Hi Jennifer, oooh selfishly I hope we get a little German intrigue in your thriller script—or at least a few German words. I’m in a similar boat: my story idea feels complex, and I’m unsure if it will be a pure thriller, or more of a mystery/thriller(/possibly comedy?) hybrid. Anyway, can’t wait to read more of you!
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Hi Bob, you’re totally right: I found you on IMDB and right away went, I recognize that face! Though weirdly enough I might have recognized you from Oculus more than The Office (I still have nightmares about that movie). Happy to see another novelist here! 🙂
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So nice to meet you, Alfred! What an incredible story. Thanks for sharing it. Just from this introduction I can already tell you’re a gifted storyteller… can’t wait to read more of your work!