James Salter
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[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.
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[PS80] James Salter Dramatic Plots 1
What I learned doing this assignment is there are several different ways to plot scenarios that can move a screenplay forward and bring together using this method without even realizing that you’re doing it.
1. Looking through the 10 plots above, select two that could possibly
work for your story.
The two below I believe would work best for my story:
Revenge & Pursuit
2. Tell the name of the plot selection and write a one paragraph synopsis for each one:
My 1st plot selection is number 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.
A. As Jake finishes his last week of educational training and finally has everything to qualify him to enter the NASA astronaut program he learns that it been terminated, Jake finds that to be unacceptable so he sets out to start his own space exploration program and take revenge against NASA for stopping the program.
The 2nd plot selection is Pursuit:
In this plot, the chase is more important than the people in the chase. The pursuer should have a reasonable chance of catching the pursued. Make sure the chase is highly motivated and there is real danger if the pursued is caught
B. Jake has completed any and everything he has set out to do his whole life and just because NASA decides to stop there program doesn’t mean Jake has to halt his plans of continue space exploration to fulfill his lifelong dream.
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[PS80] James Salter Forum
Character Structure:
I learned the difference between a antagonist and a protagonist and the roles that they play in driving a screenplay forward
1. List your concept:
Jake has completed all kinds training and has 6 different Astro Physiological Degrees in planetary, space and galaxy exploration and is very upset because, NASA/Government has put an end to what Jake had worked his whole life for.
2. Tell us the Character Structure you choose for your story.
Drama — could be a 1, 4, or 5.
3. Give us one sentence on each of your lead characters.
Jake is and unemployed NASA employee who has trained most of his adult life to get into the NASA astronaut program.
William Long the head of the space program for NASA & Senator Paul Jones government is who Jake planned on working for, until last month when they stopped and shut down the entire NASA astronomical program.
4. In one or two paragraphs, tell us how you see the character structure playing out in your story.
Jake becomes angry at the entire system of government and NASA for stopping the space program so he sets out to prove that the world needs a space program if not NASA then he creates his own space exploration.
William is NASA & Paul is the government knows why the program was discontinue, it wasn’t because they wanted to discontinue it.
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James Salter
I agree to the terms that
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What I learned from my first screenwriting teleconference.
a. First and foremost is that have a lot to learn.
b. Is that I’m very excited about moving forward with this class
c. The most important thing is to complete all assignments.
d. A lot of the myths that I’ve heard about screenwriting & hollywood are not true.
e. That I don’t have to be prefect from the start to write a good script.
f. And last but not least if I want to become a good screenwriter I’m in the right class to learn how.
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Hi my name is James and I haven’t written anything pertaining to screenwriting, except for playing around with writing of ideas and thoughts that I’ve had, which in turn caused me to want to take this course. So I’m very interested in learning how to write a screenplay for movie and TV.
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I agree to the terms