[JoAnne A Edwards]

JoAnne’s Character profiles – Part One

What I learned doing this assignment – I will need to do some research on what kind of personalities are sex traffickers. This does help to explore your characters personalities.

Genre: Supernatural Drama

• Role in the story: Protagonist (fighter/dreamer?) – telepathic Empath forced to come out of retirement to pay off her credit cards, which puts her in contact with a disembodied spirit, who needs her help.

• Age range and Description: Late 60’s, physically fit for her age; would rather be doing yoga, writing and hiking, then lifting boxes, stocking, cashiering, etc.

• Internal Journey: She must learn to come to terms with her empathic abilities and not ignore or try to cover them up or soothe them with shopping, etc. Embrace being an Empath.

• External Journey: She goes from not dealing with or understanding her empathic needs, in a healthy way, to dealing with a disembodied spirit, who demands she help stop a human trafficker and use her abilities. She learns she needs to be more spiritually centered, for self protection, and to exude healing energy.

• Motivation: want / need. Want is to get out of credit card debt and to figure out how to stop a human trafficker, so the disembodied spirit can rest in peace and she can know she got some predators stopped. Need is to understand herself better and to feel safe and that she belongs on Earth, for now.

• Wound: Learning to live as an Empath.

• Mission/Agenda: Mission: To stop the human traffickers and learn more about being an Empath.

• Secret: She has had mediumship experiences before but would just try to fit in with everyone else, who didn’t understand what this was like.

• What makes them special? She’s an Empath, that sometimes has telepathic, mediumship experiences and can pick up other’s energy (positive and negative). She has never tried to further develop these abilities, but is forced to use them and come to terms with her energetic needs.

• Role in the story: Antagonist (change agent), disembodied spirit, who needs protagonist’s help.

• Age range and Description: Early 20’s, beautiful immigrant, who has been lured to the USA, with the promise of a job.

• Internal Journey: She’s been physically killed by the Human Traffickers, but determined to stop them from harming others.

• External Journey: She manages to energetically attach to one of the predators and come in contact with the Empath on the Alcohol Aisle of the grocery store. Before she leaves the Physical Plane, she is determined to get the predators stopped.

• Motivation: want / need. Want – to stop the predators. Need – to leave the Earth Plane in peace.

• Wound: She wanted a better life in America and to help her family, but naively fell prey to predators .

• Mission/Agenda: Mission: To stop the human traffickers and leave the Earth Plane, knowing she did what she could to help others.

• Secret: She suspected the job was sketchy, but she desperately wanted a new life.

• What makes them special? She herself was an Empath.

• Role in the story: Antagonist (predator), Human Trafficker

• Age range and Description: Early 30’s, Eastern European male. He works with a network of Human Traffickers, who bring in victims from all over the world for the sex trade.

• Internal Journey: He wanted to belong to a macho group that makes money off others and feels important. He isn’t a total narcissist, so numbs the girls with drugs and cheap alcohol.

• External Journey: He grew up under rough conditions in Eastern Europe (haven’t decided on nationality yet). He wanted money and to belong to a macho group, where he felt he had some power over his existence. But, he did have some feelings for the Empath that died. That’s why she could energetically attach to him.

• Motivation: want / need. Want – Money and to eventually be free on his own. Need – to not be caught by either the US authorities or his sex mafia.

• Wound: He grew up poor, with no hopes for a better life.

• Mission/Agenda: Mission: To make money off the sex trade and build himself a better life with that money.

• Secret: He would like to leave the sex mafia.

• What makes them special? He’s not totally without remorse.

Other characters:

Neighbor to sex mafia stash house, who helps Empath and becomes her friend.

Co-workers in the grocery store

Sex-trade victims

Sex mafia

Yoga class

FBI agent

[JoAnne A Edwards]

JoAnne’s Transformational Journey

What I learned doing this assignment is:

Clarity of the situation and where the character is going to end up, is essential. What motivates the change and what obstacles will be hurled in her path, is the journey. I often started scripts without knowing the ending. Not good. You go down too many rabbit holes. <div>

Logline: An Empath, whose shopping addiction forces her out of Retirement, to work as a grocer, telepathically picks up on a Human Trafficker, who buys cheap booze to sedate his victims. A deceased victim guilt trips her to find help for all concerned, while she must learn to accept and live with her empathic abilities.

Internal Journey: From knowing she is different and often is taken advantage of or chooses the wrong job or people to be around, to embracing having empathic abilities she can use to help others, while learning to protect her own energy and health.

External Journey: From Retired University advisor to Grocer extraordinaire, who helps stop a Human Trafficker and finally comes to terms with her empathic abilities.

Old Ways

Feels bad that none of her relationships have worked out and she lives alone, after taking care of an ailing mother. She often shops to feel better and went overboard in online shopping during COVID. She’s retired from the University but needs more income. The only job she’s able to land is in a Techy new grocery store. She knows she is sensitive, telepathic with some and even had a few mediumship experiences, but she tries to ignore her sensitivities with shopping, withdrawing from people, reading and watching lots of streamers.</div><div>

New Ways

The Techy store really brings to light, that working under fluorescent lighting all evening, jangles her nerves, and having a disembodied spirit show up in the Alcohol Aisle, demanding help, is forcing her to confront how she needs some lifestyle changes to deal with her empathic abilities. She needs to help get this Human Trafficker stopped and she needs to understand her own emotional and energetic needs, so she stops sabotaging herself, financially, physically and emotionally. She needs to learn to be more spiritually centered. Maybe she could visit some sacred sites and see what she can pick up.</div>

[JoAnne A Edwards]

1. Give us your Genre, Title, and Concept.

Genre: Magical Realism/Comedy

Title: Alcohol Aisle

Logline: An Empath, whose shopping addiction forces her out of Retirement, to work as a grocer, telepathically picks up on a Human Trafficker, who buys cheap booze to sedate his victims. A deceased victim guilt trips her to find help for all concerned, including the Empath learning to live with her abilities.

2. In one or two sentences, tell us what you think is most attractive about your story.

Learning more coping skills for Empaths, which represents about 20% of the population.

3. Tell us which you will target FIRST — managers, producers, or actor’s production company — and why you picked that target.

I would target whomever produced Grace & Frankie or The Kominsky Method. The Duffer Brothers might be a possibility, since they did Magical Realism with Stranger Things.

4. Answer the question “What I learned today is…?”

I’m wondering where this assignment was posted? I’m just following what others had posted, as far as the questions go. I learned that exploring what an Empath is would be a good therapeutic exercise for me. I’ll be madly reading a couple books, as I write this. I’ll need to flesh out the Human Trafficker Antagonist and the Deceased Spirit.

[JoAnne A Edwards]

Hi. My name is JoAnne Edwards. I’ve written four+ screenplays. They all need to be rewritten. I’ve been attempting to turn a script I wrote 30 years ago into a Binge Worthy T.V. series. I’ve decided I need more deadlines, so signed up for this class. I can work either on this script or start a new one, and have it be a feature. The genre I tend to write in would be “Magical Realism.” I’ve been calling this present script “Abused Trance Medium” genre, but I realize I need to use industry standard genre terms. I like doing all the research. I just need the push to complete the scripts.

[JoAnne A Edwards]

<div>JoAnne A. Edwards</div>

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GROUP RELEASE FORM

As a member of this group, I agree to the following:

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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.

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[JoAnne A Edwards]

1. JoAnne A. Edwards

2. “I agree to the terms of this release form.”

3. Please leave the entire text below to confirm what you agree to.