[Joseph Eastburn]

What I learned by this assignment: I’m getting worn down by all the processes, but just having the list above each section makes my writing stronger. Here’s the final season and end of the Pitch Bible.

Season 5: “At the Border” Char falls for Romee, double-crosses Henry, contacts Romee and convinces her that she has the money in the family, and could present evidence at court that would cause Henry to go back to jail. But a U.S. hate group kidnaps them, meets up with the Dutch gang, and plans to blow up border holding facilities in Texas and Greece. While they’re trying to escape, they discover the group’s plans, and instead of escaping, find a way to alert U.S. Customs and Border Protection. During this, Char and Romee become lovers and Henry is forever tormented; however, during the operation, Romee secretly contacts Henry, telling him that she had one of his hairs tested—he’s not her father. She says she hasn’t slept with Char yet, but can’t hold her off much longer. She suggests that they kill Char during the border operation, and make it look like an accident, so he will inherit her pension and they can live in sexual bliss. They start to plan, and it all leads up to the killing while the hate group plants the bombs. Henry, it turns out, can’t go through with killing his wife, and has worn a wire and had a sting where Romee and both the Dutch gang and U.S. hate group are arrested. He goes back to Char.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Again, I never thought I could finish these, but the processes carried me through. Very excited!

JOE’S 13 40-Minute Episodes:

Episode 1: Henry gets involved online with a sexy young Dutch woman.

Hook/Intrigue: Henry
gets a friend request from a pretty, scantily clad Dutch girl.
Main
Character journey: We see Henry
talking to neighbors, and one mentions that he saved a kid’s life when she
got a cramp, panicked and looked like she was drowning.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: Henry is sitting
across from his wife, who asks him what’s wrong, why he’s sweating.
Action/Reaction:
Henry puts down
his phone, and reads the NY Times; he finishes the news story and peeks at
the Dutch girl’s profile photos. She is stunning.
Cliffhanger: He
looks at her gorgeous body and his finger moved between the “delete” button
the “accept’ button for her friend request.

Episode 2: Henry starts texting her gift card codes that he buys with money from his wife’s and his joint saving’s accounts.

Hook/Intrigue:
Her name is
Romee; she begins texting him lovey-dovey words and sexy photos, tells him
she has affection for him and sounds sincere; she asks him for money; she
needs medication for her period.
Main
Character journey: Henry responds
that he’s sorry but he can’t send her any money; he wishes her well, but
if that’s what she wants, she should look elsewhere.
Major Challenge/Conflict: Henry
can’t help looking at her photos again and again.
Action/Reaction:
Henry’s son,
Stuart, walks in, catches his father looking at a sexy young woman; Henry
makes light of it. He puts his phone away to charge; walks by the phone,
staring at it, but resists. It looks like he’s overcome his need to look
at her.
Cliffhanger:
Henry goes to the
bank, withdraws the cash, goes to a store, purchases a gift card, and
texts her the code; she rewards him with another photo—he looks down and
opens his mouth.

Episode 3: Romee tells Henry she loves him; Henry is beside himself; they exchange their first sexy chat; she texts lovey-dovey phrases in Dutch.

Hook/Intrigue:
Romee tells him
she loves him and asks him a sexy question.
Main
Character journey: Henry gets
involved with a sexy chat where they discuss having sex, and describing it
in words.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: Norah, his daughter
comes in, and he’s embarrassed when she asks what he’s doing; seems a
little ashamed, a little alarmed, comically flustered.
Action/Reaction:
His daughter
picks up his phone and asks what he’s so engrossed with; he gets very
upset, says it’s private; she’s surprised by his reaction.
Cliffhanger:
Henry looks at
the words “I love you” from Romee and tells her to tell him this in Dutch;
Henry looks down at his phone and slowly reads words in Dutch; he put the
words into Google translator, and seems surprised by the translation, even
blushes.

Episode 4: Romee asks for an Apple watch; he sends it to her and she says her mother took it, demands another; when he finally sends another $200, he asks to see the watch on her wrist in a photo; the one she sends has been digitally inserted, he’s sure.

Hook/Intrigue:
Romee asks Henry
for an Apple watch.
Main
Character journey: Henry sends her a
$200 gift card for the watch, and she texts him a photo of it, draped
across an ottoman with a portion of her naked thigh in the photo.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: The next day he
texts, asking how she’s enjoying the watch, and she says her mother took
it; she demands another one.
Action/Reaction:
Henry is angry
and asks in exasperation why her mother would take her watch; doesn’t she
have her own watch? This goes on for several days.
Cliffhanger:
Finally, Henry
send her another $200 for another Apple watch; when he asks to see a photo
of her wearing the watch, she texts him a photo where clearly.. and we see
a close-up of Henry face, the watch has been digitally inserted! It’s not
real. An image that captures Henry’s doubt that SHE may not be real.

Episode 5: He asks Romee to do an actual on-camera sext but she tells him her parents installed CCTV in her bedroom; this makes no sense.

Hook/Intrigue:
Henry asks Romee
to have some actual on-camera sex with him since he’s send her all this
money, he might as well get something out of it.
Main
Character journey: Romee tells him
her parents installed CCTV in her bedroom to prevent her from fooling
around like that.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: Henry absolutely
doesn’t believe this story. CCTV that they have installed all over Britain
on Masterpiece? Does she expect him to fall for that?
Action/Reaction:
He’s angry.
Another crazy piece of information that doesn’t add up.
Cliffhanger:
Henry puts his
phone in the medicine cabinet and starts to bring himself to orgasm
looking at her; his daughter bangs on the door, asks, “How much longer are
you going to be?” Henry says I’ll be right out. His son now bangs on the
door, says, he’s got to go. Henry says he’ll be right out. He’s just about
to climax, when there’s a big bang on the door, and it’s his wife, Char,
saying his name, “Henry, what are you doing in there?”

Episode 6: The gift cards are stolen; she needs more money; she asks him to send it through Bitcoin; Henry racing around, trying to send her money.

Hook/Intrigue:
The gift cards
are “stolen” or so she claims; he’ll have to send her money through
bitcoin.
Main
Character journey: He refuses, then
he goes to a bitcoin machine and can’t figure it out, purchases a paper
wallet, but he can’t transfer it to her. When he finally does, she claims
she never got it.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: He gores an gets
more money, send it through bitcoin, realizes they take 24%; he’s
outraged, says he’s through sending money.
Action/Reaction:
She begs. A day
goes by, she begs more. He’s so annoyed. She’s still begging.
Cliffhanger:
He’s standing
before a bank teller; her name is “Sayanora.” He asks if she’s ever seen
the movie; she says no, can I help you, sir? He tries to withdraw money
from Secondary account #3. She says, he doesn’t have access to that, only
his wife. He’s hesitating. She asks if he’s spent the money he already
took out earlier. He comes up with a lame excuse; she asks if he’s going
to make a withdrawal. He hesitates… is sweating…

Episode 7: Realizes that Bitcoin takes a crazy percentage; Henry is horrified; all of these scenes are comic.

Hook/Intrigue:
Henry send money
through bitcoin, finds it takes 24% service charge.
Main
Character journey: Henry texts Romee
complaining about the Bitcoin percentage; she says she likes it because
she gets her money fast.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: She keeps asking
for more money.
Action/Reaction:
Henry tells her
to call her mother; refuses to send any more money.
Cliffhanger:
Henry end up in
front of Sayanora again at the bank. He’s just standing there is a daze.
She asks him, “Would you like to make a withdrawal?” He nods, but doesn’t
anything, just stares blankly.

Episode 8: Romee says she’s coming to Vegas to visit a girlfriend, (and see him so they can have sex in person) asks him to pay for the rest of the airline ticket; he does.

Hook/Intrigue:
Henry thinks he’s
going to meet her in person and have sex.
Main
Character journey: His sexual
fantasy is about to become reality.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: But how can he
get the money to support this trip?
Action/Reaction:
He takes more money
from his and Char’s savings’ accounts and feels alternately excited and
let down.
Cliffhanger:
Once again, he’s
standing in line at the bank, but instead of Sayanora, he’s relieved that
it’s another teller. He takes judicious amount from several accounts,
hoping Char won’t notice. As the other teller is counting out his cash, Sayanora
appears by her shoulder, says it’s her break time, offers to take over the
transaction. She does. Henry feels caught; Sayanora looks at like him like
she “caught” him.

Episode 9: She sends him a photo of her airline ticket from Amsterdam to McCarran airport in Las Vegas; Henry can’t figure out why it’s in black and white; more suspicions.

Hook/Intrigue:
The airline
ticket that he helped pay for looks fake.
Main
Character journey: He texts her,
asking why, and she says she made it B&W so it would be sharper and he
would be able to see it.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: He wonders if
this is all a ruse to get money out of him—if she’s really NOT coming to
the States.
Action/Reaction:
Refuses to send
any more money, tells her to have to friend in Vegas help her financially.
Cliffhanger:
He’s passionately
kissing Sayanora at her teller station; a customer comes to her window and
they’re both flustered and embarrassed. Henry wakes from his reverie with
a different teller yelling “Next!” Henry steps forward to the bank window.
Through his peripheral vision, he can see Sayanora staring at him, almost as
if he’s angry he’s with another teller. He tries to wave at her; she pretends
she doesn’t see him.

Episode 10: She checks into the Luxor; needs money; Henry tries to borrow money from his AA sponsor; is roundly dressed down.

Hook/Intrigue:
She checks into
the Luxor! Surprise, she needs more money.
Main
Character journey: Henry
unconditionally refuses to send Romee any more money.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: Char is at the
breakfast table the next day asking (half to herself) “I thought we had more
money in savings.” Henry pretends he doesn’t hear her.
Action/Reaction:
Henry asks his AA
sponsor to lend him $1000. His sponsor says no, and suggests Henry think what
will happen next. Says some disparaging things about her perhaps
being a man, or having a man with her who is in the on the grift.
Cliffhanger:
Henry standing at
Sayanora’s teller window. She’s crisply counting out money on her counter;
she looks at Henry, rises out of her chair and places her wide-open lips
on the thick plexiglass between them. She leaves her wide-open lips there,
waiting for him. He rises up on tip-toe and places his lips on hers on the
other side of the plexiglass. Henry comes out of his fantasy. Sayanora
counting money, looks up and see Henry kissing the plexiglass, stares at
him like he’s crazy. Henry realizes he’s been dreaming, returns to a
neutral position. She points, says, “Sign.” He does, leaves.

Episode 11: Henry goes through paroxysms trying to arrange a motel room using cash from his wife’s and his savings accounts; when she’s finally coming, he cancels; he can’t go through with it.

Hook/Intrigue:
Henry trying to
make a reservation in cash a motel nearby.
Main
Character journey: While he’s making
the reservation, the hotelier says, “Why don’t you just pay tomorrow? I’ll
save it for you.” Henry decides to just pay for the room, (it’s around
July 4^th, so motels are booked?) So, he’ll have it.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: He’s convinced
she’s not only not coming but isn’t even in the U.S., knows he’s been
taken; quietly angry.
Action/Reaction: The next morning, thinking about her
getting on a bus from Vegas, picking her up at the bus station, going back
to the room and having hot sex; he can’t go through with it. He texts her
not to come, but can’t send the text.
Cliffhanger:
His finger hovers
over the arrow to send the text, but he can’t push it.

Episode 12: His sponsor says he has to block her; he does; She shows up on his street (haunting image); he somehow gets a motel room, says he’s going to get up to come have sex in the middle of the night; oversleeps. She’s mad.

Hook/Intrigue:
His sponsor says
he has to block her. He finds the text from last night, and sends it. In
response, she seems disappointed, say she wanted “his cock inside her.” He
goes onto explain that he doesn’t want to lose his marriage, his family, his
kids, his home, etc.
Main
Character journey: He seems sad
throughout the day. In the afternoon, he looks out the window and sees Romee
standing quietly across the street with an overnight bag on the ground,
just looking at his house. It’s haunting. He frantically looks around to
see if his wife or kids see this, grabs his wallet, rushes outside, motions
for her to follow him, fast-walks around the corner, so his family won’t
see. She seems chastened, but a little hurt that he won’t kiss her. They
walk, and walk, and come around another way to the main drag without being
seen, and arrive at a motel. Romee stands behind the coke machine. He
tries to pay with cash, but the clerk asks for a credit card. He finally
convinces her he doesn’t have any, gets the key gives it to her and whispers
that he’ll come by tonight.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: Long, overwrought
sequence where he wakes himself up in the middle of the night, gets
dressed, sneaks out of the house, walks around the main drag, passes
unseen into the motel parking lot, knocks on the door, but there’s no
answer. He texts her and she texts a sexy pic of her in sexy underwear,
says she waiting. He knocks. There’s still no answer. He texts her and
asks her if she switched rooms; she says no. He texts and asks her to just
open her motel room door. Long pause. He’s breathlessly waiting
Action/Reaction:
Across the
parking lot, in the dark, he hears a door open. He rushes across the
parking lot, scares some older man going to ice machine half to death.
Cliffhanger:
Henry standing at
the front desk asking about the cash deposit he put down on a room today.
Did they move the room he paid for? The clerk says they don’t accept cash.
He gets angry and says he paid, and has a receipt, and starts looking
through his pockets, but realizes he has no pockets. The clerk leans over
and see Henry standing in pocketless pajamas. “Sir, do you realize you’re
in your pajamas?” Henry says, “Of course. Wearing these is perfectly
acceptable these days.” He walks back, sneaks into his house sits in the
living room. Looks at his phone, can’t find the sexy pic. Has he
hallucinated this whole thing?

Episode 13: Char finds the texts; asks him to come into her office and looks down at her computer; Henry does; on his face… (cliffhanger).

Hook/Intrigue:
Henry asleep in
the living room chair, wakes with a start and there is Char sitting across
from him on the couch. She holding his phone.
Main
Character journey: She holds it up,
shows him the texts, and sexy photos and reads aloud one of their sex
chats, looking hurt and furious, her voice shaking.
Major
Challenge/Conflict: Henry wakes up with
a start, no Char, and can’t find his phone. He calls his wife’s name, walks
around the house, walks outside in the yard, finally comes back in, finds
her alone, looking small and frail sitting along on a couch in the office.
Action/Reaction:
She’s holding his
phone in her hand. She asks him to come over and sit down next to her so
she can show him something…
Cliffhanger:
Henry sits down
next to her and she swipes his phone and holds up the screen, we hold on
Henry’s face… (Season 1 CLIFFHANGER).

[Joseph Eastburn]

What I learned from this assignment is that fill-in-the-blanks work when I wanted to stop. Amazing.

Joe’s CHEAT SHEET and EPISODES

1. Beginning……………………………………………………………………….Season End/Cliffhanger

Question
A: What is the Beginning of the
season and the End of the season? Henry in his ordinary world, married, bored, but respected
father, husband, neighbor, friend—he gets a FB request from a young Dutch woman
who has a spectacular body; he’s surprised, hesitates but says yes, and
enters an alternate universe of sexting…… …………………………………….. His wife finds
the texts.
Question
B: What possible cliffhanger could
be in that last scene of the season, thus demanding that we watch the next
season? Henry has a cover
story: she’s a model who he’s going to interview for an article he’s
writing on young women in other countries contacting older men in the U.S.
Char walks him into her office, asks him to look down at the computer
screen. Henry looks down, is shocked, we only see his face…

2. Season 1 Mystery Set up…………………………………..………………Season 1 Mystery Solved

Question
A: What is the mystery? It turns out that Romee is actually Henry’s
daughter.
Question
B: How could the mystery be
set up? What parts will be left out that must be solved? First, Henry gets kicked out of the house, then
to get money for her, commits crimes and ends up in jail. Later, when he
gets out, and he and Char reconcile, they travel to Amsterdam to rekindle
their marriage, and find out 25 years ago, Henry got a woman pregnant when
Char fell asleep at a pot party; they have a daughter. It’s Romee.
Question
C: What it the ultimate solution
that the characters must work to discover? When Char invites Romee to come live with them, and becomes her
lover, Henry is everlastingly tormented.

3. Journey begins……………………………………………………….Journey peaks, but continues.

Question
A: Where does the Lead
Character journey begin and end for this season? It begins when he gets that FB friend request
from Romee, looks at her sexy body and says “Yes.”
Question
B: Think about where this
character goes in future seasons. That might give you an idea also. Romee is involved with a Dutch gang that
steals Nazi memorabilia, and using her for sexting and luring marks is
part of what she does; then she is kidnapped and trafficked and Henry
wants to go after her. And Henry is brought in to help them steal Nazi
memorabilia, and finds he’s scary good at it.

4. ……Layer….…Layer………Layer………Layer………Layer………Layer………Layer……Layer

Question
A: What layers have you already
discovered in your BW Framework? Is Romee a man? No, she a woman who’s been trafficked. No,
she’s Henry’s daughter. Wait, Char knew about what Henry was doing from
the beginning. And she went along with it because… she wants Romee
for herself.
Question
B: Are there any other layers
that you could think of? Romee works for the CIA, and she was after Henry for his
involvement with X? Romee IS a man, and Henry meets the man who wrote the
love letters, and they have an uncomfortable cup of coffee.

5. Make a list of the Major Story Lines.

Question
A: What main characters have story
lines that affect everyone else? Henry, married man, gets involved in a sexting relationship
with a young girl online; the young girl is actually a man; no, she a
woman who’s involved with a Dutch gang that steals Nazi memorabilia; Char
knew all along.
Question
B: What are the most important
story lines of this show? Henry, married man, gets involved in a sexting relationship
with a young girl online.

EPISODES

Episode
1: (One sentence explanation) Henry gets involved online with a sexy young Dutch woman.
Episode 2:
(One sentence explanation) Henry starts texting her gift card codes that he buys with
money from his wife’s and his joint saving’s accounts.
Episode
3: (One sentence explanation) Romee tells Henry she loves him; Henry is beside himself; they
exchange their first sexy chat; she texts lovey-dovey phrases in Dutch.
Episode
4: (One sentence explanation) Romee asks for an Apple watch; he sends it to her and she says
her mother took it, demands another; when he finally sends another $200,
he asks to see the watch on her wrist in a photo; the one she sends has
been digitally inserted, he’s sure.
Episode 5:
(One sentence explanation) He asks Romee to do an actual on-camera sext but she tells him
her parents installed CCTV in her bedroom; this makes no sense.
Episode
6: (One sentence explanation) The gift cards are stolen; she needs more money; she asks him
to send it through Bitcoin; Henry racing around, trying to send her money.
Episode
7: (One sentence explanation) Realizes that Bitcoin takes a crazy percentage; Henry is
horrified; all of these scenes are comic.
Episode 8:
(One sentence explanation) Romee says she’s coming to Vegas to visit a girlfriend, (and
see him so they can have sex in person) asks him to pay for the rest of
the airline ticket; he does.

Episode
9: (One sentence explanation) She sends him a photo of her airline ticket from Amsterdam to
McCarran airport in Las Vegas; Henry can’t figure out why it’s in black
and white; more suspicions.
Episode
10: (One sentence explanation) She checks into the Luxor; needs money; Henry tries to borrow
money from his AA sponsor; is roundly dressed down.
Episode
11: (One sentence explanation) Henry goes through paroxysms trying to arrange a motel room
using cash from his wife’s and his savings accounts; when she’s finally
coming, he cancels; he can’t go through with it.
Episode
12: (One sentence explanation) His sponsor says he has to block her; he does; She shows up on
his street (haunting image); he somehow gets a motel room, says he’s going
to get up to come have sex in the middle of the night; oversleeps. She’s
mad.
Episode
13: (One sentence explanation) Char finds the texts; asks him to come into her office and
looks down at her computer; Henry does; on his face… (cliffhanger).

[Joseph Eastburn]

<div>Joe’s SECOND STORY Character Descriptions</div>

What I learned doing this assignment is My main characters have surprised me today. They’re capable of much more, and I realized a comic element in the plot that I didn’t see before.

Who is the character? Role in the show? Henry Seymour, a mild-mannered, polite older man, who was a neighborhood hero
when he saved a local kid from drowning.
Noteworthy traits He is strong, but
vulnerable, possibly a book-worm, tends to have slight memory problems, is
funny, maybe a little absent-minded, but when crossed, has a surprising temper.
Intriguing history: Could never settle
down; went to the police academy; was an adjunct professor, a poor salesman,
worked in advertising, but never lasted long. He’s a daydreaming loser,
but an interesting one; he constantly surprises everyone.
Intrigue? Mystery? Had a suicide
attempt in the last year.
How do they support or drive
the conflict with others? He has sex-addiction, freely admits it; goes to sex-addicts
anonymous. He’s very unpredictable; no one’s sure what he’s going to do
next.
Irony — Opposites or paradoxes
that exist with the character: He seems benign, like an
absent-minded old man, but has a fire in his belly when crossed, and like
a dog with a bone, won’t let go.
Opposing agendas/etc. that
naturally causes conflict with other characters: He’s completely
unrealistic, a dreamer, but when pushed, can be obstinate, and won’t give
in.
Unpredictable? He constantly
surprises everyone around him, partly because he’s always lived a secret
life, has always sneaked around and shoplifted, and has a wild part of him
that no one sees—until it comes roaring out.
Intriguing relationship with
one or more characters He has a lovey-dovey relationship with Romee, and
is perhaps gullible, but believes it when she tells him she loves him. She
touches him, and he can’t help loving her.

· START: Present the character as someone we can relate to. An older man who seems harmless and benign, gullible, like every horny guy on the planet who has never experienced much sex, certainly not love; we’re afraid he’s going to be fleeced.

· MIDDLE: Conflict, intrigue, and issues. When pressed, he expresses surprising skills that no one thought he possessed. He’s unpredictable, and has the ability to go a little crazy when crossed.

· ENDING: A final punchline that hooks us and sends us into the future of the story. When he’s lost everything, he becomes a Kamikaze, and goes farther than anyone thought possible.

3. Organize the answers and choose which you are going to use in your description of that character.

4. Sequence the info and write a START, MIDDLE, and END. Write a ROUGH DRAFT of the character description.

5. Continue steps 2 – 4 for each main character.

Who is the character? Role in
the show? Romee Daal, the Dutch girl,
who is 25.
Noteworthy traits – Intriguing
history Beautiful, sexy Dutch woman who is expert at posting sexy photos
online and expressing deep, emotional feelings of love for Henry, while
constantly asking him to send more money. Her father died when she was
young. A modern-day Heidi with a spectacular body.
Intrigue and Mystery? Certain things don’t
add up, like when she says her parents have CCTV installed in the house; like
when she never posts the photo when she says she’s in Vegas, who’s taking
these sexy, posed photos of her? Is she working with someone? Is it a man?
Is she a man? Is she a sociopath?
How do they support or drive
the conflict with others? She is relentless in the rhythm with which she
smooths Henry’s ruffled feathers and then posts another jaw-dropping photo
and gets him to send her more money.
Irony — Opposites or paradoxes
that exist with the character She seems really slutty, and a
sociopath, but expresses such seemingly true expressions of love to Henry
and really seems to mean it.
Opposing agendas/etc. that
naturally causes conflict with other characters: Appears out to
fleece Henry and maybe even get his wife’s pension. Is relentless in
getting money over the internet, will not stop asking for what she wants
and succeeds.
Unpredictable? Does she turn
against the violent people she’s in the scam with? Is she finally willing
to make love to Henry, and they get caught or stopped, and it increases
the audience’s hope that they will have sex.
Intriguing relationship with
one or more characters Her relationship with Henry, and words of love
appear to be authentic, and when she turns out to be his daughter; Henry
is tormented all over again, and Romee is willing, since she’s a hustler, to
have sex with Char, and wants Henry to watch.

· START: Present the character as someone we can relate to. A spectacularly beautiful, sexy woman who speaks in broken English, who we’re a little in love with ourselves; although, we’re afraid that she’s going to fleece Henry.

· MIDDLE: Conflict, intrigue, and issues. All the various strategies she used to get money out of Henry; when the plot is revealed; she turns and her behavior is surprising. She turns out to be more authentic than we thought—she’s not a sociopath, after all, just a lonely, desperate woman using the internet to make her way.

· ENDING: A final punchline that hooks us and sends us into the future of the story. Romee is searching for love, wants sex and a father, not necessarily in that order!

Who is the character? Role in
the show? Charlotte ‘Char’ Seymour, Henry’s wife.
Noteworthy traits – Intriguing
history She put herself through law school and worked hard for 20 years,
became a partner, supported Henry and the family, and retired with a nice pension.
Intrigue and Mystery? She’s not the shrinking
violet that people think she is. She is very possessive of Henry, very
cost-conscious, and is more wily than people think she is. She has a
secret in her past that would surprise a lot of the people who underestimate
her.
How do they support or drive
the conflict with others? She is very stubborn and persistent, and wants to
be right. It’s the principal of the thing. And she’ll fight for her point
of view to the end.
Irony — Opposites or paradoxes
that exist with the character She feels like she’s not pretty
enough, nor sexy enough, but is very smart, and will figure a way to beat
Henry at his little game and best him and get what she wants.
Opposing agendas/etc. that
naturally causes conflict with other characters She’s quietly argumentative,
and never forgives or forgets, and will ultimately go to the mat to win,
and in the end, does win.
Unpredictable? Again, in her own
quiet way, she breaks all the rules and gets things done, and takes risks
that no one thought she would take.
Intriguing relationship with
one or more characters She outwits Henry at his own game, and finds a way
to do what Henry was doing—take care of a sexy young woman, but get what she
wants, rather than what Henry wants. She ends up Romee’s lover, much
to Henry’s torment.

· START: Present the character as someone we can relate to. A seemingly loyal, boring, conventional wife who’s getting cuckolded by her husband, but outsmarts everyone at the finish.

· MIDDLE: Conflict, intrigue, and issues. Is fiercely possessive of Henry and her marriage and family; outwits even some gangsters, and shows Henry her amazing willingness to fight for his love..

· ENDING: A final punchline that hooks us and sends us into the future of the story. But in the end gets Henry’s love and his torment, which is just a cherry on top.

[Joseph Eastburn]

(STORY #2)

JOE’S INTRIGUING CONCEPT AND WORLDS

What I learned doing this assignment is… As I started looking at the unique sub-worlds and what
was previously unexplored in TV, I found some interesting aspects of the story
to focus on that haven’t been seen before.

1. A. Engaging and highly
proactive hero… Henry Seymour, a mild-mannered, polite older man, who
was a neighborhood hero when he saved a local kid from drowning.
B. …up against a major
conflict… falls for an online girl who sends him sexy photos and
professes her love to wheedle money out of him.
C. …goes on unique
transformational journey… The only problem is that he doesn’t have money of his
own, so he goes through contortions and lies to get out of the house,
drive or bike to the bank, and steal money from his wife’s and his joint
savings account.
D. …Into an intriguing world…
Falling in love with an online image through photos and
the odd poetry of texting where she always needs more money, and he’s
always trying to get it.

2. Tell us the World of this show.

Unique Sub-World: The slightly alien, cutthroat
world of online sexting when he doesn’t know if she is real, a girl, or
perhaps even a man.
Previously unexplored: The inner world of an older man’s sexual imagination, and how
it upends his life, when all he has to go on are sexy photos and pretty
words. His gullibility.
The unknown: Where is this
experience going to lead him? Will it destroy his 28-year-old marriage,
his relationship with his children, his friends, his neighbors?
The unseen: The strange online
sexting world (who’s really behind these photos and chats?)
Unheard of Dangers: Unseen criminal element
that may use sexting to cheat seniors and hook them into a larger network
of dangers where he or his family could be robbed or killed.
Reason to explore it: It’s going on in the
real world; it’s every older man’s preoccupation; it’s easy to fall prey
to; men and women will be able to relate to this hapless man’s
story.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Joe’s Five Seasons

What I learned doing this assignment is… I had no idea how to create the 5 seasons, but I used the “fill in the blanks” process, and it worked. Amazed..

2. Brainstorm the Stair Step version. REWRITE AS ONE SENTENCE

Season
1: Ruby Kane, female
detective, haunted by her dead father, hunts a rapist who preys on older
women in a small town, decides to deliver her own brand of justice.
Season
2: The history of the town
as a hunting ground revealed, and who’s behind it.
Season
3: The ghost world
beneath it revealed; Ruby stops killing, and puts rapists behind bars
instead, so she won’t contribute to what the ghost world wants.
Season
4: The ghost world and
human world prepare for war across the life/death line.

Season 5: The war commences; Ruby has to stop rapist ghosts, protect her mother and has to unite with her father; as the they work together, fight, then turn on each other, still fighting between life and death, a fatal blow is delivered. (Cliffhanger!)

3. For each season, brainstorm the Building Blocks.

Season 1: (Venom)

A.
High Concept or major hook of the season. Someone is preying on older women in a small Gold Rush town.
B.
Big Picture Arc/Journey: When powerful people in town get him off, a female detective
takes justice into her own hands.
C.
Main Conflict: Chasing down the
rapist; fighting with the powers that be in the town.
D.
Mystery/Open Loops: Why do they rape older
women? Why does Ruby inject the rapists with insect venom? What is the
dark history of the town?
E.
Cliffhanger: Does she kill the rapist?

Season 2: (Hunting Ground)

A.
High Concept or major hook of the season. The doctor who has a cultlike following is actually experimenting
on older ladies, and in treatment, they get temporary memory loss and don’t
remember being raped.
B.
Big Picture Arc/Journey: The marketing aspect of the town, bringing in “fit” older women
with financial assets; Ruby begins to research and finds out many of them
became victims and were fleeced.
C.
Main Conflict: Ruby against the
underground network of the town spills into the open; Rebecca, Ruby’s
daughter, hanging with druggies to get treatment that’s not available for
her mental illness ends up becoming addicted to drugs.
D.
Mystery/Open Loops: Certain characters we’ve
bonded with are found to be involved in the scheme, including Rodion and
Lula Kane.
E.
Cliffhanger: Have Rodion’s
flashbacks actually been hauntings by a real ghost?

Season 3: (The Contract)

A.
High Concept or major hook of the season. There’s a ghost world underneath the town because of a major “Donner
Party” tragedy; a supernatural contract was entered.
B.
Big Picture Arc/Journey: Ruby stops killing, puts the rapists in jail to stop feeding
the new species with dead men.
C.
Main Conflict: Ruby and her team
turning their attention to what’s beneath.
D.
Mystery/Open Loops: Are their ghosts
among them? Ruby encounters one of the men she killed as a ghost. He tries
to get back at her by raping his first human.
E.
Cliffhanger: When he overpowers
Ruby, does he rape her, or does she fight him off?

Season 4: (Ghost World)

A. High Concept or major hook of the season. The ghost world and human world prepare for war across the life/death line.

B.
Big Picture Arc/Journey: Ruby, Rebecca and Lula are being torn apart. People in the town
are find out what’s really happening underneath.
C.
Main Conflict: Ruby marshalling the
forces for the living; personal stories of people in extremis; ghosts
appearing inside households.
D.
Mystery/Open Loops: There is reconnaissance
across the life/death line; Ruby is able to apply the tradecraft of Rodion’s
lessons; do they have a scene where she finally knows he’s ghost and he’s
warning her,
E.
Cliffhanger: Is this is how Rodion
makes amends for what happened with Ruby?

Season 5: (Beetle Brains)

A.
High Concept or major hook of the season. Ruby has to stop ghosts from raping humans; somehow, her work
with insects helps her solve some riddle.
B.
Big Picture Arc/Journey: She unites with her father.
C.
Main Conflict: Ruby mobilizing the
ladies of the town to fight back
D.
Mystery/Open Loops: Ruby and Rodion work
together; they realize a certain aspect of the rain beetle allows them an
advantage, then, in the heat of the battle, they turn on each other, fight
between life/ death line.
E.
Cliffhanger: A fatal blow is
delivered; who died?

[Joseph Eastburn]

Joe’s Character Descriptions

What I learned doing this assignment is by writing character descriptions, events, history and plot begin to take shape. A magical process!

START: Present the character as someone we can relate to. Ruby Kane, Lead Detective in a small-town police department; is beset with a cheating husband, haunted in flashback by her dead father’s constant ruminations about the dark history of the town; has a bipolar daughter, an eccentric mother, and a colorful team at work.

MIDDLE: Conflict, intrigue, and issues. She has an unknown rapist preying on older women in the town; when she researches past offenses, she finds out there were nine other older women raped in the town, all of it hushed up. When through good detective work, she and her partner, Curtis, find the suspect they think is guilty, she is told by her husband and a cadre of important figures in the town that the suspect cannot be arrested but detained at home; she arrests him anyway, and with a team of lawyers, he gets off, and is relocated to a nearby town.

ENDING: A final punchline that hooks us and sends us into the future of the story. Ruby follows him and realizes he’s still offending; she stops a rape, and assures the victim that she’s taking him into custody, but takes him to the mountains, injects him with insect venom, sprays him with lemon pledge, and leaves him to die. When she finds out the history of the town as a hunting ground, she decides to deliver her own vigilante justice.

START: Present the character as someone we can relate to. Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter, Police Chief in a small-town police department; handsome, he cheats on his wife, has sponsored a pool to see who can seduce the most hot girls working in the department; appears to take orders from the elders of the town.

MIDDLE: Conflict, intrigue, and issues. When his wife catches who appears to be the prime suspect in a rape of an older woman, he’s infuriating when he directs her to follow orders and put him on house arrest, but Ruby charges him anyway. Later when he’s killed, and more rapists are killed, his department comes under pressure to find the vigilante killer of the rapists.

ENDING: A final punchline that hooks us and sends us into the future of the story. Becomes the poster boy for incompetence when he can’t find the killer of the rapists; the elders of the town are pressuring him to stop the killings. Is having sexual confusion.

START: Present the character as someone we can relate to. Rodion Kane (Komarov); Deceased father of Ruby, haunting presence, always hunting rain beetles, something happened with his daughter, is trying to make amends, coach her.

MIDDLE: Conflict, intrigue, and issues. He’s a seemingly paranoid purveyor of the dark history of the town, constantly teaching Ruby spy tradecraft while they’re hunting rain beetles; he’s in conflict with Lula, his wife; knows the history of the town.

ENDING: A final punchline that hooks us and sends us into the future of the story. In flashback, tries to convince Ruby that there’s a ghost work underlying the warped history of the town as a hunting ground that stemmed from a “Donner Party” like tragedy that befell the founders of the town.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Joe’s Intriguing Concept and World

What I learned doing this assignment is… Choosing aspects that we might never have seen on TV makes my show unique.

1. Present your Concept.

A.
Engaging and highly proactive hero…

Ruby Kane, a female detective in small “Gold Rush” town, is haunted by flashbacks of her dead entomologist father who warns her the town has a dark history;

B.
…up against a major conflict…

she catches men who rape older women, who get off through the help of friends, are moved but keep offending,

C.
…goes on unique transformational journey…

so, she follows them, and punishes them herself by injecting them with insect venom,

…Into an intriguing world.

and when she finds out the town was created as a hunting ground, her mission is to stop the ongoing evil.

2. Tell us the World of this show.

Unique
Sub-World:

A town where men prey on and rape older women

Previously
unexplored:

A town created as hunting ground where rapists go

The
unknown:

How it was created, who funded it, why it was able to come into being?

The
unseen:

Ruby’s father spoke of a ghost world underneath the actual world of the town

Unheard
of Dangers:

A tragedy on the order of ‘The Donner Party’ may have struck the early inhabitants

Reason
to explore it:

In a time when every day rape allegation come to light, this is an American town that was created for and by rapists who lure older women so they can hunt them

[Joseph Eastburn]

Joe has (FINALLY) created the BW Framework!

Title: <i style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>THE BEETLES

Format/Genre TV Series: Realistic Crime Drama/Ghost story underneath/ or, is main character going insane?

By: Joseph Eastburn

[Joseph Eastburn]

What I learned from this assignment is that you can keep drilling down, through different genres of stories until it’s almost a history of a civilization and evil one that will be created in the future.

Assignment 2

On the lowest level—something never seen before: It’s not really a crime story; it’s a ghost story.

Something terrible happened to the town on the order of the Donner Party, and everyone and their descendants became so traumatized [and wounded psychically and physically] that they were forced to come up with different rules, “a charter of the unthinkable,” based on panic, or bad decisions, or flawed reasoning, or fear, but they thought it was war, it was pestilence, it was famine, it was the end of life, so they made a bargain with this supernatural force, whatever it was, to become a ghost race, so they had to kill men because they needed male ghosts because the whole culture was punished for their original sin [which we’ll find out later] and not allowed to procreate. Women were struck barren and they were dying off as a race. And whoever or whatever this supernatural force was, it chose to create a new race of white, misogynistic, racist, narcissistic real and financial rapists. They went after older women because of simple math. There were more older women than younger women, so there could be more rapes, and more men killed, and therefore more male ghosts to become the seeds of a new society. (Bring in the corporate too.) So, they’re not just rapists, they’re rich rapists, a culture of elites that prey on working people, literally using them up, pulling all their financial assets, all their life-experience out of them, so their just like insect husks left after they’ve been devoured. That’s why Rodion was interested—his love of insects.

And what if when these men raped these older women, they also rob them psychically as well. What if they’re able to rob them of all they’ve even been, and ever thought, and felt and experienced, and when these men are killed for their sacrifice for the evil cause then all these victim’s experiences and thoughts and wisdom are sucked out them and in death all those positive qualities are harvested and transmuted into something incredibly evil, a new elite, rich, evil culture that takes everything for themselves and lives off all the others.

The descendants of this tragedy ended up in a deserted Gothic mansion in the mountains that was a hospital, but some supernatural event took place which imposed a spell or curse or a demonic contract on the town in which they had to kill men to create a new a better race.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Assignment 1:

The Americans

1.) Elizabeth and Phillip actually love each other, but in trying to bind up the wounds in their marriage, it drives them further apart.

2.) Elizabeth comes to thank Phillip at the motel, hoping to bring him back home, but he’s already gotten an apartment.

3.) Stan wants to stop seeing Nina to save his marriage, but that makes her more alluring, and he breaks his resolve.

4.) Nina now has more responsibility now that she’s become a mole, working against her country.

5.) Elizabeth wants to kill Paterson, the person responsible for Zhukov’s assassination more than anything, but she can’t.

6.) Stan is surprised to see his son coming home from the Rocky Horror Picture Show wearing make-up, but he isn’t gay.

7.) By separating temporarily, Elizabeth and Phillip’s need for each other has grown stronger.

8.) They want to send Gregory to Moscow when his cover is blown, but he’s a black man and the irony jumps off the screen.

9.) A central irony of the show is that Stan and Phillip become friends, as do their wives, Elizabeth and Sandra; in fact, now they help each other out emotionally at their toughest moments—but Stan and Sandra don’t know their neighbors are spies.

10.) Elizabeth hates her boss because of the power she wields over her, and insults her, yet this almost ensures that Claudia will get her back in some way.

11.) The central conflict of the show is the power struggle between the U.S. and U.S.S.R., yet the attention they give each other almost amounts to love.

12.) Amador was talking about his escapades with women while Stan was trying to be loyal to his wife.

13.) A central irony of the show is that two stars are not only ruthless spies who will kill as part of their job, they’re also trying to be good parents, discipline their children and set a good example.

14.) Martha is so in love with Phillip that she brings her parents to meet him, and doesn’t even know he’s married.

15.) In episode 1, Phillip is ready to defect from the country he serves.

[Joseph Eastburn]

ASSIGNMENT 2

Joe’s Plot and Character Layers

What I learned doing this assignment is by putting plot layers and character layers under the story, everything gets more interesting and more powerful. This is an amazing way to create plot from inside the character out!

Plot Surface: THE BEETLES

Layer 1: Ruby and Thor are the beautiful couple in
town; he is the police chief and she is the lead detective. An older woman
is raped, but doesn’t remember anything about the attack. Then another
older woman is raped, but they get a break; maybe they get a fleck of DNA,
or a witness statement, or something that leads them to a suspect while
her husband tries to dissuade her from pursuing this particular suspect (maybe
he embarrasses her in front of the team)—this makes Ruby suspicious. Ruby
and Curtis put the character under 24-hour surveillance and find out other
evidence that leads her charge him. She’s approached by a powerful person
on the city council telling her she can’t charge this man, and there must
be no publicity of any kind; he is a respected citizen of the town. But
she charges him anyway, for which Ruby catches flak. The suspect gets a
high-priced lawyer and gets off, and moves to another mountain town. Ruby
follows him in her off-hours and sees that he keeps offending. <div>

Layer 2: Does this suspect disappear? And everyone
in town assumes someone, perhaps a relative of one of the women he
attacked killed him? Ruby closes the file.
It turns out that
her father, Rodion Kane [real name: Komarov], is a former Russian
operative was a huge nut for insects, in particular, beetles. One of the main
reasons he came to the Sierra Nevada mountains was the study and pursue
the Rain Beetle. And Ruby, as part of her grief process, as a teenager
(when she thought she killed him) was to get deeply into his entomology
hobby. But she gave it up when she turned 20. She thought she killed him
when he sexually assaulted her while she was still a teenager. But it
turns out Lula, Ruby’s mother, saved Rodion’s life and made it look like
he had died by cyanide capsule, (they had to have a body) but had revived him
and helped him go underground in a Northern California City, perhaps San
Francisco, where no one would think to look for him because they knew he
hated cities and loved the Sierras and his rain beetles. But Ruby,
thinking she killed him, finds out he’s alive and finds his ps 2 Russian
pistol, and his work manual and tells him she going to find a way to get
him convicted for the personal crime of rape he inflicted on her as a
teenager, and also decides to use his spy techniques if she needs them to
pursue justice.

Layer 3: What if Ruby’s parents were aware of the
founding of the town, in the same way Nazi’s were spirted out of Germany?
What if Rodion defected, and wanted to hide in the mountains because he loved
rain beetles, and he needed to have a low profile, but found out about
this town that was set up, in part, to lure older people, particularly
women, because there was a group of men, all of whom lost their mothers at
an early age and were raised by their aunts or neighbors or godmothers. They
wanted to start a town that would be attractive to older women, but ‘hot’
older women, active older women, so all the brochures emphasized hiking, jogging,
yoga, bicycling, mountain climbing, skating, cross-country skiing, skiing,
snow-boarding, etc. And it worked. Many couples, and many single women or
widows, many with money, moved to the town. And the men started preying on
them. After the first victim is attacked, Ruby researches and find out it’s
the town’s nasty little secret: it’s the 9^th such attack, none
of the crimes have been solved. Some people believe the town is cursed;
some people believe the women were witches, and there are many conspiracy
theories which keep the whole town distracted from what’s going on.

Layer 4: Does Ruby realize there’s a doctor in
town who specializes in female patients who has a beautiful mountain-top
office/retreat/spa, where all the town’s older women in town go because it’s
almost like a social club. When Ruby goes there, does she get the feeling
of it being like a cult? Does she later find out the doctor’s actually
experimenting on these older women, giving them dementia, so they can’t
remember anything when they’ve been raped.

Layer 5: But then we see what really happened at
the end of the pilot: the suspect that Ruby and Curtis and Jody identify
as raping the first victim, a pillar of the town who gets a shark lawyer
to gets him off, denies everything, leaves town, goes to another community.
Does Ruby follow him to another town and finds out he’s still offending?
She watches him follow older women; finally, he attacks one, and Ruby
stops the attack, and hand-cuffs him. The victim has dementia, and is not
sure what just happened. Ruby assures her she’s taking this man back to
her jurisdiction to be punished for what he did to her, but the woman
doesn’t retain any of this; does Ruby go back into the house to tell her
something, and the woman has no memory of her or the man or the incident
that just happened. Does Ruby check her medication and see the Doctor’s
name [had she gotten a little suspicious of the doctor when she saw his
cult of women earlier?] Ruby makes a decision and drives into the
mountains, makes him dig own grave, shoots insect venom into his neck. He’s
in pain but it doesn’t kill him. She can’t shoot him with her service
pistol, so she gets a knife out of the back of her police SUV, breaks a branch
off a tree and whittles the end to a sharp point and as the pilot goes
black, does she raise the branch to impale him like a vampire. And she
will continue throughout the series to hunt down these rapists and kill
them by injecting them with insect venom and impaling them.

Character Surface: Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter

Layer 1: Ruby’s husband, Thor is the handsome
police chief, who’s a bit of a rake, and charms all the ladies in town and
around the department; Ruby is painfully aware that he cheats on her, but
decides not to divorce him but throws herself into her work.

Layer 2: Thor has a secret pool in the office to
see who can fuck the younger women in the town and in the office, and
whoever beds the hottest woman, wins the pool. He knows about the town’s
founding as a hunting ground filled with older women, so he figures he’ll
hunt the younger species.

Layer 3: Does Ruby find out he’s been suppressing or
destroying evidence of his philandering with younger women; even when
evidence emerges that proves what he doing, he destroys it. This is when
she gets close to Jody the criminalist who uncovers the destroyed
evidence.

Layer 4: Does a private equity company decide to invest
in the idea of the town as a hunting ground, literally sponsor the rape of
older women, and they use their power and money in the town to pay for ads
for Thor to become Sheriff. Do they eventually intend to make him mayor so
her can protect them politically and give them cover and keep them from
getting convicted?

</div>

[Joseph Eastburn]

ASSIGNMENT 1: Example Show

The Americans

PLOT LAYERS – Story beneath the story.

Major scheme revealed –
Elizabeth and Phillip are Russian spies living in plain sight in suburban
Washington D.C.
Mystery revealed – Tomochev,
the man who was trying to defect, while training Elizabeth, raped her.
Thought the story was one
thing, but it is another – You get the impression Elizabeth and Phillip
have a cold marriage of convenience, but they actually love each other and
are having problems.
Major shift in Meaning – Gregory
and Elizabeth had a sexual relationship.
Hidden history – Elizabeth and
Phillip’s training in Russia.
Hidden plan – Nina becoming a
double agent
Major betrayal – Phillip kills
Amador

CHARACTER LAYERS – identity beneath the identity.

Secret identity – Nina starts
to spy for the FBI
Character Intrigue – She starts
an affair with Stan, her handler
Hidden relationships and
conspiracies – She sets up Vasili, who is sent back to Russia
Hidden Character history – Nina
was close friends with the KGB agent that Stan assassinates and she asks
him to personally find his killer.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Joe’s Big Picture Open Loops

What I learned doing this assignment is… literally digging down into these open loops, I’m creating my plot. It’s happening effortlessly. It’s a very effective means of creating obsession.

1. Use this list to brainstorm big picture open loops for your first season that you will use to keep the audience captivated.

GOALS:

New goals? Is Viva Komarov actually still alive? [and
is he still a part-time operative? Still involved in hiding the creation
of the town as a hunting ground?]
Goals related to the big
picture? Will Ruby be able
to keep everyone mesmerized and keep killing men in the creepy insect way?
Does she find out about the history of the town in the pilot (but we, the
audience, don’t find out, but we know she is awe-struck about some history
that upsets her, and that comes before her decision to kill.) Does Jody
want to make Ruby her lover and ally?
Crushed goals? Was Myra’s career crushed before Ruby
recommended her to the editor; so, Myra is in debt to Ruby.
Competition / conflict around
goals? Thor is in
competition with other cops to fuck younger women and the secret pool at
the department (that they have to hide). He’s in competition with his wife
who seems to be ruining his life; will he find out that she’s the
murderer?

CONSEQUENCES:

Are they going to be caught? Ruby. Thor. Myra. Curtis. Lula. Viva.
Rebecca. Jody. ALL ARE AFRAID OF BEING CAUGHT.
What problems can
be created from past actions? Will
Ruby be caught, not only as the killer, but posing as the strong police
detective, when in fact, she’s a sham? Will Curtis’s past murder be
uncovered? Will Jody be found out to be born a man?
Good plans gone wrong? Will Ruby’s attempt to plant evidence
cause her murders to be uncovered by Jody, who agrees to hide her crimes if
Ruby will become her lover? Does this create and endless open loop between
them, where Ruby seems to flirt with her, but the actual consummation of
their relationship is left open (indefinitely?)

SOLVING PROBLEMS:

What is the major problem for
this character? Ruby was sexually
abused as a child, and maybe brainwashed by both parents (were they in on
the ground floor of the conspiracy to make the town a secret hunting
ground? Rebecca’s mental illness; will her parents and her teachers find
she’s faking and manipulating aspects of her treatment and symptoms?
What are they trying to solve? Will Curtis, Ruby’s partner, find out
that she’s the murderer? Will he expose her? Or, perhaps, we she co-opt him,
and give him a promotion, perhaps stepping back to give him for exposure, (and
give herself less?) is Viva still trying to get back at the architects of
the town who convinced him to get involved, demanding that they admit what
they did? Will the entomologist discover an important clue that points to
Ruby?
Major change imposed on
character? Will Char see
through Ruby’s stories? Will Granger, the hit man, kill Ruby? Will she
figure a way (along with Jody) to switch evidence in such a way that it
points to someone else—who Granger then kills?
Previous solutions cause new
problems? Will Ruby’s acquiescence
to Jody’s desire cause her emotional trouble and pain? Will Ruby’s realization
that her father is not dead, but in fact, alive, and his involvement with
the creation of the town become an earthquake in her psyche, her
relationship with her mother and her position in the town?

RELATIONSHIPS:

Relationships in peril? Will Ruby be able to continue functioning
as a detective and also stay the killer? Will Thor find out what she’s up
to? Will Curtis catch her in the act and blackmail her?
New relationships forming? Her budding faux-romance with Jody, her
partnership with Curtis; will they survive or become toxic?
Conflict inside relationships? Ruby’s relationship with Thor; will he
catch her? Her relationship with her mother; will she turn on her? With Jody;
will she give into Jody’s demands for sex? Will Tavis, the entomologist
brought in to study the insect evidence at the crime scene begin to
suspect Jody?
Relationships changing? Will Char demand the truth; will Ruby
spill it all to her friend? Does Ruby find out Thor is fucking Rarity, his
secretary? She indeed is a rarity in that she can fall into the ranks of
the older women in town being hunted, and at the same time fall in with
the daughters of those women, and other young women who the cops are
trying to fuck.

DANGER / SURVIVAL / RISKS:

Can they survive X? Can Ruby survive her murders of the
hunters of older women that she’s killing in incredibly creepy ways?
Putting themselves in danger /
making dangerous decisions? Does Ruby fall in love with one of the rapists and spare
him at the last moment, and make love to him instead? Is that one more
relationship she has to keep secret? Does Jody get jealous of him and kill
him, and is she now a murderer too, forcing Ruby into her arms, or she’ll
give Ruby away, and threaten to kill more?
Who else is pulled into their
danger? Are Ruby’s
mother, her father, her daughter, Thor, Jody, Curtis, Myra and other
pulled into Ruby’s dangers?
Internal dangers (drug
addiction, need for medicine, inner demons)? Is Rebecca pretending to be a drug
addict, then inadvertently, discover she likes drugs and become
one? Are they all drinking too much and using too many drugs?

2. Tell us your top 5-8 Big Picture Open Loops that could be in your pilot.

a.) Will Ruby be able to keep killing men in the creepy insect way?

b.) Does Ruby find out about the history of the town in the pilot (but we, the audience, don’t find out), but we know she is awe-struck about some history that upsets her, and that comes before her decision to kill?

c.) Thor is in competition with his wife who seems to be ruining his life; will he find out that she’s the murderer?

d.) Will Ruby’s attempt to plant evidence cause her murders to be uncovered by Jody, the criminalist, who agrees to cover up those crimes if Ruby will become her lover? Does this create and endless open loop between them, where Ruby seems to flirt with her, but the actual consummation of their relationship is left open (indefinitely?)

e.) Will Tavis, the entomologist brought in to study the insect evidence at the crime scene begin to suspect Ruby?

f.) Does Ruby find out Thor is fucking Rarity, his secretary? She indeed is a “rarity” in that she can fall into the ranks of the older women in town being hunted, and at the same time fall in with the daughters of those women, and other young women who the cops are trying to fuck;, so she’s like a rare female species appealing to all and in danger from both groups.

g.) Is Rebecca pretending to be a drug addict to get treatment, then inadvertently, while on the street, discover she likes drugs and actually become an addict?

h.) Does Ruby fall in love with one of the rapists and spare him at the last moment, and make love to him instead? Is that one more relationship she has to keep secret? Does Jody get jealous of him and kill him, and is she now a murderer too, forcing Ruby into her arms, or she’ll give Ruby away, and threaten to kill more?

[Joseph Eastburn]

ASSIGNMENT 1

1. Think about your Example Show. Make a list of the Big Picture open loops that were established early in the season.

The Americans

Episode 1: Will they defect to America? Elizabeth covers up for Phillip with her superior; will she keep covering up for him, or will she get fed up? Was Stan placed across the street on purpose?

Episode 2: Will Viola Johnson’s son die? Will Casper Weinburger’s office realize the clock has a listening device in it?

Episode 3: Will Elizabeth continue her relationship with Gregory? If Elizabeth and Phillip divorce, with their children be taken back to Russia like Rob and Joyce’s child? Can Claudia be trusted?

Episode 4: Will Elizabeth and Phillip continue to be able to decern whether Moscow is over-reacting, or will they be sucked in, and help make a bad situation worse?

Episode 5: Will Nina get romantically involved with Stan? Is Nina the mole that Claudia has identified?

Episode 6: Will Elizabeth be able to continue working with Claudia after beating her up? There’s the moment when Elizabeth tells their captors that Phillip likes it in America too much; will Elizabeth and Phillip betray each other?

Episode 7: Will Phillip’s son that he had with Irina reenter the picture in the future?

Episode 8: Elizabeth finds out about Irina and tells Phillip she wants nothing to do with him anymore. Will they break up?

Episode 9: Will Stan find out that Phillip killed his partner, Amador? Will Martha be caught for passing information to Phillip? Will Phillip and Elizabeth get a divorce?

2. Watch the next episode and see how those open loops are being used to create the need to see future episodes.

[Joseph Eastburn]

“What I learned doing this assignment is…” I finally used the brainstorm 10 bad ideas to get one good idea and 1 of the 10 worked. I’m excited.

ASSIGNMENT 2:

Create two mysteries for your show — one that shows up strong in the Pilot and the other that is revealed over time.

1. Create your Shocking Event Mystery and tell us the WWWWW and H, along with the part withheld.

A. Shocking Event: Someone starts raping older women in the town. Everyone is horrified and upset. Ruby makes a promise at a town hall meeting that she will find the rapist.

B. Secret: The entire town has a secret underground network to get serial killers and rapists up to the gold country, so they can disappear (kind of like priests being reassigned and offending again). Does one of those men start assaulting and raping older women?

C. Investigation: Ruby identifies the rapist. Is he a man from this underground network? Concurrently, she’s also aware of her husband’s cheating and it’s starting to bother her, really bother her. We see her tracking the rapist. We see her tracking her husband and he cheats in his car.

WHAT: She overhears a conversation that she follows up on, and finds herself following a well-known person in the town. She and her partner, Curtis, conduct surveillance on him and catch him in the act; he gets away, but they save the woman from being raped. WHEN: Late one night.

WHERE: In a really safe, chic part of town. Missing before final episodes:

WHY: It’s where he lives, so he thought that might provide cover.

WHO: A pillar of the town, maybe a person on the city council.

HOW: He brings in a high-priced lawyer, and gets out on bail, and then disappears to another gold country town. But Ruby follows him, and realizes, he’s not going to rape older women any more when he’s so hot, but he starts contacting younger women supposedly for sex, but then he violently rapes them. Finally, his body is found injected with insect venom, and shot with an untraceable cartridge that no one has ever seen before. Law enforcement assumes one of his victims killed him during a rape. Part Withheld: Ruby is the person who injected him with venom, and then shot him with her father’s PS2, a Russian operative’s weapon that no one’s ever heard of. She gets away with it.

2. Create the Over Time Mystery and tell us the WWWWW and H, along with the part withheld.

A. Cover up: Ruby continues to investigate the murder of the rapist, and it’s a real investigation using manpower and resources, but every time her partner gets close, she gets him off the scent. Finally, he’s getting too close, and she digs into his background and finds out he murdered someone by accident. She threatens to reveal that publicly through Myra, the blogger, and gets him to lay off.

B. Secret: Ruby murdered the rapist, but has now decided she’s going to kill men cheating on their wives. She has a hundred rounds for her father’s PS2, and she figures that will get rid of a lot of cheaters, and scare the rest of the men from cheating! The stories she feeds Myra suggest it’s a vigilante woman, which is kind of is, except she a cop! And the chief’s philandering with other women in town is what is fueling it.

C. Reveals: Slowly, Ruby can’t keep all the plates spinning and her husband and others in the department suspect her; she’s frantically trying to keep her murders of cheating husbands a secret revenge, but it’s getting a lot of unwanted attention, and she has to step up her investigation into the murders.

WHAT: Ruby covers up that she’s murdering the cheating husbands.

WHEN: Late at night, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes in the morning.

WHERE: All over their small city. Missing before final episodes:

WHY: Because she’s enraged by her husband’s cheating.

WHO: Her husband, Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter, the handsome and popular police Chief.

HOW: She injects them with insect venom and if that doesn’t kill them, she shoots them with her father’s (who raped her using the same weapon) gun. Very symbolic. Part Withheld: The investigator is the murderer.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Assignment 1

The Americans – the mysteries in the show

There are several mysteries in the show. Why is Keri Russell seducing an FBI bureaucrat, posing as a sex worker?

The first big shocking event mystery is why have they kidnapped this man, Timoshev, who suddenly runs away from them—why do they bind him and put him in their trunk?

Why can’t they take the wounded man, Rob, to the hospital—why do they just drop him off? Will he survive his wounds?

Why are they switching license plates in the alley?

We find out Timoshev is a defector; then, we realize they’re spies. The ship that is pulling away, were they supposed to put him on that ship back to Russia?

So, the next mystery is why were these two people recruited as spies to live as a married couple in suburban Washington, DC?

When we meet their children, we wonder, do the children know their parents are spies? And in later episodes we find out their children DO NOT know their parents are spies, so we are left to wonder—will they find out? WHEN will they find out? This is a mystery we wonder about over time.

Next, we meet Stan Beeman, the FBI agent who moved in next door. We have to wonder, was he a plant? Isn’t it a coincidence that an FBI agent moved in next door? This is another mystery we wonder about over time.

When they have the confrontation over Timoshev in the garage and Phillip wants to defect, why is Elizabeth resolute, refusing to defect? And why is he NOT resolute and willing to defect?

When we realize they have an arranged marriage, and they make love in the car after killing Timoshev, we wonder, are they going to actually fall in love?

Later:

We wonder if Stan is going to get involved with Nina, his mole. When he does, and we see his marriage is in trouble, we wonder, is he going to fall in love with her. He seems so unhappy.

We wonder if Stan’s wife can win him back? Their distance seems irreconcilable.

When Elizabeth and Phillip have a falling out over Phillip having sexual relations with his old flame, Irina—and she truly says their real marriage is over—will they fall back in love?

Will their falling out affect their ability to perform their jobs?

[Joseph Eastburn]

What I learned doing this assignment is…There’s so much more under the surface of every character.

CHEATERS

A.
Undeserved misfortune: Rebecca getting bipolar disorder; Ruby being
molested by her father;
B.
External Character conflicts: Ruby with her husband, Thor; Ruby with her
mother; Ruby with her daughter; Ruby with her partner, Curtis.
C.
Plot intruding on life: Ruby’s father being a spy, a rapist; Lula married
to an operative when she didn’t know; Curtis killing someone by accident;
D.
Moral dilemmas: Ruby dilemma of killing the men; Thor’s dilemma of
sleeping with younger women, feeling like a woman inside; Jody’s dilemma
of not owning up to being trans; Myra, not owning up to faking news
sources
E.
Forced decisions they’d never make: Ruby was a child and had her father’s
sexual attentions forced on her; the men she murdered never had a choice.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Hidden Agenda

Ruby Kane, Detective in a small-town police department: Under pressure from many different sides, when Ruby’s husband cheats on her, she decided she’s going to get him back using a hidden agenda. She’s going to murder cheating husbands in their small city and the murders will haunt him because of his behavior.

Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter, her husband and the Police Chief. His hidden agenda is to escape the pain of his daughter’s illness and other problems by cheating on his wife with younger women.

Rebecca Kane, their daughter, who suffers from bipolar daughter who also has mild autism and auditory hallucinations. She has a hidden agenda to kill herself so she can end her pain. She also wants to get out of the house and be free, which means she ends up on the street.

Lula Kane, Ruby’s eccentric mother. She has a hidden agenda to find out what her daughter is doing; when she finds out, she has to help her, which makes her an accessory to murder.

Curtis, Ruby’s Police partner: he has a hidden agenda to investigate the murders secretly so that Ruby won’t know what he’s investigating; because he suspects her.

Myra, the lead reporter: her husband is also cheating on her, so she loves it when Ruby feeds her information about Thor’s cheating, which she hints at obliquely, then blatantly in her blog.

Jody, the senior criminalist: her hidden agenda is to make Ruby her lover, and do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Competition

Ruby Kane: she’s obviously in secret competition with her husband, and her mother over their family secrets.

Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter: he’s in competition with all the other men in the office to see who can fuck the prettiest girls in town, and inside the department; in fact, they have financial pool to vote who is the most fuckable in the department, and whoever fucks her wins. (Like the New Orleans Saints who had a bounty on injuring other players).

Rebecca Kane: she in competition with her parent over not taking her meds, about not having to go see a therapist; with the therapist over what her illnesses really are. (Is there a therapist who sees the problem and gives Rebecca free sessions but wants something and Ruby can’t figure out what it is—endlessly intriguing; does it turn out he wants sex with Ruby?

Lula Kane: is she in competition with her daughter, the way they were in competition for her husband’s affections? Is she in competition now trying to control the other?

Curtis, Ruby’s Police partner: is he in competition with other detectives to keep Ruby his partner because he suspects her; he’s in competition with Ruby because he thinks she’s a murderess.

Myra, the lead reporter: she’s in competition with her husband for cheating on her and she’s going to use an indirect way to shame him into coming back to her for sex.

Jody, the senior criminalist: she’s in competition with all the other women in the office because she wants to be the most desirable to Ruby.

Conspiracies:

Ruby Kane: she has a conspiracy to avenge her sexual anger by killing cheating men, and as lead detective on the case, covering it up and distracting everyone by creating other possibilities.

Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter: he has a conspiracy to fuck younger women and not lose his marriage.

Rebecca Kane: she has a conspiracy not to get treatment for her problems, and heal herself through other new-age methods.

Lula Kane: she has a conspiracy to hide her husband’s and Ruby’s father’s history as a spy from the world.

Curtis, Ruby’s Police partner: he has a conspiracy going to investigate his partner completely off the record because he sees her husband’s behavior, and he suspects her of committing murder to get back at him.

Myra, the lead reporter/blogger: her husband is cheating on her too, so she has a conspiracy with Ruby to expose them in her blog.

Jody, the senior criminalist: she has a conspiracy to turn Ruby gay, have her leave her husband and move in with her.

Secrets

Ruby Kane: that her father molested her, that he was a Russian spy, and his former life kept intruding on his family; that Viva didn’t die or a cyanide capsule, but Ruby killed her father when he was trying again to sexually assault her, and she administered the capsule so it looked like he took his life as part of his former job.

Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter: That he started a pool to bed hot women in the department; that he seduces and beds younger women in town. That he has trouble getting it up.

Rebecca Kane: That she’s not taking her medication. That she’s trying to use alternative means to medicate herself.

Lula Kane: That she’s in love with a younger man in town.

Curtis, Ruby’s Police partner: That he’s also murdered someone, which no one knows about, and which he got away with.

Myra, the lead reporter/blogger: That she has faked sources in the past, and desperately wants to try to get away with it again.

Jody, the senior criminalist: Is she a trans woman, but nobody knows?

Deception:

Ruby Kane: she has the biggest reason to use deception; she’s murdering the victims who’s murders she’s also investigating. (But is this all part of an elaborate deception where she’s using her father’s spy skills to kill men opposed to a corporate facility?)

Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter: he’s afraid he’s gay, so he’s on a campaign to prove he’s a ladies man.

Rebecca Kane: she pretends she’s been hurt climbing when she in fact is cutting herself.

Lula Kane: she pretends to be much older that she is while being sharp as a tack and aware of everyone’s moves

Curtis, Ruby’s Police partner: he continues to make sure his murder goes unsolved; whenever anything about it resurfaces, he rushes to put out the fire.

Myra, the lead reporter/blogger: she has to continue hiding that she once faked sources.

Jody, the senior criminalist: Acting like a gay woman when she’s a trans woman (or, maybe that’s what they all do).

Wound:

Ruby Kane: that he father sexually assaulted her and she killed him during one of the assaults.

Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter: That he’s afraid he might be gay.

Rebecca Kane: That’s she bipolar, and will never have a normal mind.

Lula Kane: that she allowed her husband to molest her daughter because she was more focused on competing with her daughter for his affections and as a result did not notice.

Curtis, Ruby’s Police partner: That he’s a murderer and no one knows.

Myra, the lead reporter/blogger: That her character is not what she presents; she’s also a kind of cheater

Jody, the senior criminalist: That she has to hide who she really is.

Secret identity:

Ruby Kane: she’s actually an industrial spy posing as a cop and using murder as a distraction from getting a gigantic warehouse fulfillment center up here in gold country where no one wants it, for which she’ll get a percentage worth billions of dollars.

Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter: He pretends he’s a woman during sex; he imagines himself to being a cheerleader getting raped in a locker room.

Rebecca Kane: she pretends to have a substance abuse problem so she can get treatment, because they IS no mental health treatment.

Lula Kane: she was the wife of a spy and now has to act like that never happened.

Curtis, Ruby’s Police partner: he’s a secret murderer

Myra, the lead reporter/blogger: a secret cheater

Jody, the senior criminalist: a secret sexual identity

[Joseph Eastburn]

The Americans

A.
Undeserved misfortune: The kids Paige and Henry getting left at the
Mall. And the guy who picked them up was a creep who looked like he might
sexually assault Paige. Vasili being set up and sent back to Russia.
Elizabeth and Phillip getting kidnapped and beaten up and interrogated to
make sure they didn’t give information to the FBI.

B.
External Character conflicts: Elizabeth and Phillip are angry with
each other over her telling her captors in the interrogation that Phillip “liked”
it here too much. Stan in conflict with his wife. Nina in conflict with Stan
for being the mole, and with herself for sleeping with Vasili. Henry
hitting the creep over the head with a bottle of beer in the park to
protect his sister. Elizabeth losing her temper and beating up Claudia.

C.
Plot intruding on life: Elizabeth and Phillip getting kidnapped; having
to wreck their car on the way home to explain the bruises on their bodies
to their kids. Nina, this beautiful young Russian woman having to sleep
with and old man to get information.

D.
Moral dilemmas: Phillip having to give jewelry to and kiss Martha
Hanson to get information. Elizabeth having to shoot the contractor, and
the cop who wanted to inspect their van.

E.
Forced decisions they’d never make: Nina giving blow jobs to an old
man. The black guy in the tea shop planting diamonds in Vasili’s tea.
Phillip choking the hostage to death in their garage.

[Joseph Eastburn]

What I learned doing this assignment is… the more I dig into character relationships, the more I understand the story.

CHEATERS

Surface:

Ruby Kane, Detective and Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter, Husband and Police Chief. They are husband and wife, and she is a lead Detective in the small-town police department that her husband is the chief of. They are kind of known as a golden couple, but all is not what it seems.

Ruby Kane, Lula Kane, her mother. They are mother and daughter. Her mother still lives in the town, and Ruby goes to visit her often.

Ruby Kane, Aviv Karnofsky, her father. Her father was a spy for the Russians during the cold war, and retired to Northern California, but his past kept intruding.

Brian Vinter, Ruby Kane. Husband and wife. He promoted his wife to Detective because she is good, and he wanted to give her more work so he could cheat.

Brian Vinter, Lula Kane, Ruby’s mother. He tolerates Lula, his mother-in-law, and frankly thinks she’s weird.

Brian Vinter, Aviv Karnofsky, Ruby’s dead father. Brian, is curious about Aviv’s history, but doesn’t know he was a spy, and questions why he has a different name than his wife and daughter.

Lula Kane, Ruby Kane. Mother and daughter. They are close.

Lula Kane, Brian Vinter. Mother-in-law and Son in law. They are slightly estranged, but polite to each other at social events.

Lula Kane, Aviv Karnofsky. Wife and diseased husband who keeps all his secrets.

Common Ground:

Ruby Kane, Brian Vinter: They share a home, have a reputation as a beautiful couple, share a workplace; when the case gets out of control, they begin to feel an odd empathy for each other.

Ruby Kane, Lula Kane: They have family in common, so family secrets, and have both been cheated on or raped by her father.

Ruby Kane, Aviv Karnofsky: They both carry guns, work in clandestine ways, she has a secret life like he did when he was a spy. They had their shared history of sexual abuse.

Brian Vinter, Ruby Kane: He is her husband as well as boss. They have the same friends. They share a deep respect for law-enforcement, but in her case, the trappings of it protect her.

Brian Vinter, Lula Kane: They spend holiday dinners together. He sometimes confides in her that his wife doesn’t love him anymore.

Brian Vinter, Aviv Karnofsky: He’s always digging around, trying to find out more about her father.

Lula Kane, Ruby Kane: When Ruby comes to visit her, she feels like a spider who has drawn her daughter back into her web. Is she going to threaten to double-cross her daughter with Brian to have more power over her?

Lula Kane, Brian Vinter: She doesn’t give away how much she knows about their relationship. But she understands him in a way, and kind of likes him.

Lula Kane, Aviv Karnofsky. They have in common, years of marriage, and a daughter, and their history and secrets, which are powerful.

Conflict:

Ruby Kane, Brian Vinter: Their big conflict are his secret affairs, but she can’t let him know she knows—that will give away her game.

Ruby Kane, Lula Kane: She’s constantly worried that her mother is trying to control things, the way she tried to control things when her husband was a spy.

Ruby Kane, Aviv Karnofsky: Her father began to molest her when she was a teenager, and when she found out he was a spy, in the middle of a sexual assault, she knocked her father out and placed a cyanide capsule in his mouth, so it looked like he was ordered to kill himself as part of his job.

Brian Vinter, Ruby Kane: He’s angry at her that she can’t solve the murders. He’s going to bring in an FBI specialist to assist and give them deniability.

Brian Vinter, Lula Kane: He tries to find out more about his wife through Lula, needs to get information out of her.

Brian Vinter, Aviv Karnofsky: He’s curious and wants to know more about her father. When he finds out he assaulted her, he’s angry at him.

Lula Kane, Ruby Kane: She’s worried about the way her daughter is behaving. She wants to know more about the night her husband took the capsule.

Lula Kane, Brian Vinter: She’s thinking of making him an ally, as a way of controlling her daughter.

Lula Kane, Aviv Karnofsky. She’s enraged that he cheated on her with other women. When she finds out he molested their daughter, her rage knows no bounds.

History:

Ruby Kane, Brian Vinter: He cheats on her, like her first husband did. That was a betrayal and it makes something snap in her.

Ruby Kane, Lula Kane: She needs her mother as a sounding board and support, but is wary of her controlling ways.

Ruby Kane, Aviv Karnofsky: Their history of sexual assault and she murdered him because of it.

Brian Vinter, Ruby Kane: He’s used to being the boss, and she has to get back at him in underhanded ways, techniques she intuited from her father’s occupation.

Brian Vinter, Lula Kane: Don’t have much of a history, but there’s something he can sense that he’s curious about.

Brian Vinter, Aviv Karnofsky: Wants to know his wife’s father’s history and begins to dig.

Lula Kane, Ruby Kane: Still wants to be the mother and control her daughter’s life.

Lula Kane, Brian Vinter: he tries to figure his wife out by analyzing her mother.

Lula Kane, Aviv Karnofsky: They have a whole history of their life together. When he retired to Northern California, she watched as his spy work started infecting their family life.

Subtext:

Ruby Kane, Brian Vinter: She hates him for cheating on her and is determined to bring him down.

Ruby Kane, Lula Kane: She doesn’t trust her mother, and thinks her mother is withholding family secrets from her.

Ruby Kane, Aviv Karnofsky: She hated him for abusing her, and vowed to kill him if she got the chance, and she did.

Brian Vinter, Ruby Kane: He’s determined to figure out what his wife is up to.

Brian Vinter, Lula Kane: He begins to ask realize she might betray her daughter.

Brian Vinter, Aviv Karnofsky: He starts to research what no one knows about Ruby’s dad.

Lula Kane, Ruby Kane: Her mother is worried about her, and feels she didn’t protect her and was therefore a bad mother.

Lula Kane, Brian Vinter: She’s going to help bring him down when she finds out her daughter’s plan.

Lula Kane, Aviv Karnofsky. She’s not willing to hide his secret life any longer.

Relationship Arc:

Ruby Kane, Brian Vinter: Golden couple that everyone admires, to sworn life and death enemies.

Ruby Kane, Lula Kane: From family secrets to completely confiding her crimes to her mother who (like a good spy’s wife) becomes her ally.

Ruby Kane, Aviv Karnofsky: From hate and murder to respect for what he taught her and how that knowledge helped her survive.

Brian Vinter, Ruby Kane: He’s her boss and in control to she pulling the strings so he’s losing.

Brian Vinter, Lula Kane: From estranged to Brian trying to make her his ally. Does Lula double-cross him?

Brian Vinter, Aviv Karnofsky: From not knowing his history to finding out her was a Russian spy.

Lula Kane, Ruby Kane: From secrets to becoming full allies.

Lula Kane, Brian Vinter: From estranged to becoming a possible ally, then betraying him to help her daughter.

Lula Kane, Aviv Karnofsky: From holding his life as a spy at a distance to finding out more so she can help her daughter win.

[Joseph Eastburn]

The Americans

Surface:

Elizabeth Jennings (Kerry Russell) and Phillip Jennings (Matthew Rhys). They are husband and wife, (arranged marriage for the purpose of espionage).

Elizabeth Jennings and Paige Jennings. They are mother and daughter (for real, her biological daughter with Phillip).

Elizabeth Jennings and Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich). They are neighbors and sworn international enemies.

Common Ground:

Elizabeth Jennings and Phillip Jennings. They are both spies for Russia, and totally committed to their jobs. They have the same training, the same beliefs, the same indoctrination.

Elizabeth Jennings and Paige Jennings. They are both women, both have a strong family bond, both are strong, and as mother and daughter, they understand each other on a very deep level.

Elizabeth Jennings and Stan Beeman. They are both in the intelligence business, both fighting for their country. They both have families and children. Both live in suburban Washington, D.C.

Conflict:

Elizabeth Jennings and Phillip Jennings. He likes America more than her, in fact, in the pilot, he’s ready to defect. She a Russian loyalist. He’s skeptical of Russian decision-making; she’s not, in fact, she’s more of a true believer. They have conflict of sexual partners outside their marriage. They are in conflict about how they interpret orders and intelligence. They are on “the ground,” so they may know more that their bosses know about the situation.

Elizabeth Jennings and Paige Jennings. Paige wants to buy her own sexy bra alone at the mall with her girlfriends. Her mother wants to be involved in her introduction to sexual relations. Her mother has an old-world upbringing, full of suspicion, whereas Paige has been brought up with American mores.

Elizabeth Jennings and Stan Beeman. They’re sworn enemies, also they’re the opposite, which adds a charge. They’re in secret competition in their jobs while pretending to be neighborly.

History:

Elizabeth Jennings and Phillip Jennings. They have an arranged marriage to be spies living in America. When they moved in together, they had still not had sex. Then they get involved with others outside their marriage, then they start to have a love relationship. They have competition with each other as operatives.

Elizabeth Jennings and Paige Jennings. She’s Paige’s mother, so she knows her intimately, and since she raised her, she understands the way she thinks on a very deep level. And Paige has the same understanding of her mother. They’ve developed their relationship over many years.

Elizabeth Jennings and Stan Beeman. They history is brief. They’ve only been neighbors for a short time, but it’s charged because of the secret dealings.

Subtext:

Elizabeth Jennings and Phillip Jennings. They are sexually jealous of their spouse’s attraction to others in the course of their undercover work. They have different ideological approaches to intelligence gathering and interpreting. The secret that may have been present the whole time is that even though their marriage has been arranged, they are in love with each other.

Elizabeth Jennings and Paige Jennings. They are in competition about how Paige should be raised, like in the old country, or by new American values. Paige wants to know secrets that they keep from their kids. Elizabeth says, “None of your business.”

Elizabeth Jennings and Stan Beeman. What’s hidden is that they are spies, and as an FBI agent assigned to a special task force, he’s looking for spies like them. She may resent him when Phillip was going to defect to him and turn in the injured Russian in episode 1.

Relationship Arc:

Elizabeth Jennings and Phillip Jennings. From not knowing each other that well, to working hard in life and death situations to falling in love with each other.

Elizabeth Jennings and Paige Jennings. From Paige obeying her mother in an unquestioning way, to thinking for herself, and perhaps becoming suspicious of what her parents are doing.

Elizabeth Jennings and Stan Beeman. From being sworn enemies to trusting him in the context of being neighbors and even getting intelligence from without him realizing it.

[Joseph Eastburn]

What I learned doing this assignment is that by watching my example shows, and working with characters, I can expand the plot.

Ruby Kane

A.
Situational: Hope – That she can force these cheating men to face
terrifying consequences and get away with it. / Fear – That she’ll be caught,
and there’s only so much she can do to hide the evidence.
B.
Motivation: Want – She wants to finally strike back at the sexual power
men have used against her and other women. / Need – Approval. And power.
C.
Mask: Base Negative Emotion – She is an incest survivor who was cheated on
twice, and still feels like a victim / Public Mask – Competent,
professional Detective.
D.
Weaknesses – She feels she can’t keep all the swirling details straight in
her mind.
E.
Triggers – When some man’s phone light up or vibrates, she feels victimized
all over again.
F.
Coping Mechanism – She lies, schemes, misdirects, covers up.

Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter

A.
Situational: Hope – That he can continue his marriage and bed younger
women. / Fear – That’ he’s going to get caught, cause a scandal, and lose
his job and status.
B.
Motivation: Want – To find this brazen killer / Need – To stop the humiliation
that his department is experiencing.
C.
Mask: Base Negative Emotion – Afraid, and he’s never been afraid / Public
Mask – ‘Thor,’ the handsome, charming super-hero police chief.
D.
Weaknesses – He’s not really a super-hero; it’s a cover-up for inadequacy.
E.
Triggers – Whenever an attractive woman walks by, he flinches; he’s afraid
he’s handsome but empty, without substance; just a pretty face.
F.
Coping Mechanism – He does something in secret.

Granger, the hit man

A.
Situational: Hope – That he can blend into the town, so no one will know
he’s a professional killer. / Fear – That everyone is looking at him and
can tell he’s not only a drug addict, but a hit-man.
B.
Motivation: Want – To finish the job, get enough money to get away. / Need
– To pay Thor back for saving his life when they were cops together.
C.
Mask: Base Negative Emotion – Scared, desperate man willing to do
desperate things / Public Mask – Nice guy who works in the hardware store.
D.
Weaknesses: He’s an addict with a violent history.
E.
Triggers: When people in town try to get to know him; a young woman wants
to date him.
F.
Coping Mechanism: He acts cool, but he’s on fire inside.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Mare of Easttown

Mare Profile

A. Hope: Catch the killer, be a good cop. / Fear: That she’ll screw up Siobhan too.

B. Want: To be Lady Hawke for real. / Fear: That she’ll be found to be a failure.

C. Base Negative Emotion: Tender, hurt / Public Mask: Tough lady cop.

D. Weaknesses: She’s angry, vindictive, defensive.

E. Triggers: That people say her son committed suicide because she was a bad mother.

F. Coping Mechanism: Drinking, shutting down, staring people down.

Lori Profile

A. Hope: That her son/husband won’t be found out. / Fear: That she’ll lose her family

B. Want: For none of this to have happened. / Fear: That Mare will solve the case.

C. Base Negative Emotion: Wounded by her husband’s affairs. / Public Mask: Warm, together mom with no worries.

D. Weaknesses: She’s hurt, hides her emotions

E. Triggers: Being lied to by her husband

F. Coping Mechanism: Pretending everything is fine.

Colin Zable Profile

A. Hope: That he’ll help Mare solve the case. / Fear: That he’ll be found out to be a fraud on the case he solved in Upper Darby.

B. Want: To be a good cop; have a relationship with Mare. / Fear: That she’ll reject him, and he’ll continue to live with her mother.

C. Base Negative Emotion: Scared, lonely / Public Mask: Competent, professional.

D. Weaknesses: Vulnerable.

E. Triggers: When he sees Mare bully a witness or senses that every witness or suspect is her family or friend.

Coping Mechanism: He hides
his emotions.

[Joseph Eastburn]

What I learned by this assignment is these intriguing layer are definitely underneath all the characters. For instance, secret identity seemed like it wouldn’t work except in a spy thriller, but it was under so many characters here.

Assignment 1:

Mare of Easttown

1.) Mare, lead detective of the town, has a wound: when her son, Kevin committed suicide; it absolutely haunts her to the core. Mare is competitive with her boss, in fact all males: her ex, Frank, Zable: she has to be as tough as a male. Mare has big secret: that she feels she wasn’t a good mother, and may feel responsible for her son’s suicide. Her hidden agenda: she feels defeated, even says that she’s never going to find Katie, the kidnapped girl. Deception: She doesn’t use much deception; what you see is what you get. Secret identity: she feels she’s not worthy of being “Lady Hawke.” And is embarrassed and guilty about it.

Helen, Mare’s mother: has a wound that she messed up as a mother with Mare. She competitive with Mare all the time. Her big secret was having an affair with a townsperson. Her hidden agenda: she’s not against Frank, Mare’s ex, and while being supportive, she’s critical of Mare’s behavior. She uses deception by sneaking ice cream. Her secret identity, is wanting to be a drunk, maybe have wild sex, or a power ranger when she’s gaming!

2.) In Episode 4, it’s intriguing that Mare has been crying (for being suspended) for such a tough lady cop.

She uses deception by not telling her family. In scene with Lori, she identifies Mare’s wound that she’s not talking and holding everything inside; you wonder if she might alienate her loyal friend, then she puts her head on Lori’s shoulder.

Zable has a secret that he can’t utter: he hates Hauser, the older cop that replaces Mare.

The writers create intrigue by having the Chief report that neither Dylan or Frank are Erin’s baby’s father. When Dylan finds out he’s not the father, he orders his parents and the baby out of his hospital room.

Dawn gets a call that her daughter’s alive, and to come up with 5K. We’re intrigued to find out.

Mare calls a family meeting and admits that she was suspended. Her mother chews her out. Their competition comes to the surface. She gets a bottle of booze; a secret might be that she’s an alcoholic.

When Mare shows up, with the police psychologist, she doesn’t want her to get discouraged; it’s almost like she’s got a hidden agenda that she won’t allow her therapy to work.

Zable confront Deacon Mark about the circumstances of his transfer (that a parent said he was having a sexual relationship with a 14 year old girl). We’re intrigued to find out if his secret identity is the killer.

With Richard, Mare admits the secret that her talk with Carrie was a car wreck.

Dawn counting $ in the convenience store. We wonder if her hidden agenda is to steal from her employer.

Dawn heard that Mare had a breakdown of some kind. This is an artful dodge that other characters in the community don’t know about her deception stealing drugs and planting them on Carrie.

Carrie bringing Drew to the new apartment, and you can feel the wound in her that she won’t be a good mother.

Mare looking at a video of Erin, who said she wrote everything down in a journal. We want to know if Mare will find them. When Mare goes back to find out where the journals are, Jesse lies. She uses deception to mislead Mare.

Baby screaming in Dylan’s hospital room. He’s losing it, bring a pillow toward the playpen like he’s going to suffocate it, them picks it up. His mother observes this: it this his secret identity?

Zable’s mother clearly has a competition with Mare, and that comes out when she says, “She was a little over her head.”

We find out Erin’s hidden agenda when Jesse admits that she created a sexy page for Erin to work as a prostitute temporarily to raise money for her baby’s ear surgery.

Deacon Dan thinks Deacon Mark is using deception when he won’t talk about what happened with the 14 year old girl.

Siobhan using deception to hide her new relationship with black DJ.

The two girls are in deception Siobhan’s affection.

Helen using deception to hide her ice cream in a frozen veggie bag.

Lori and John watching the news of the missing girl, when Ryan walks in and he looks troubled, but there’s something eerie about him, as if he has a secret identity.

Dawn uses deception to put fake money in her purse, so when the kidnapper jumps her, he steals cut-up paper. We (and Dawn) see it’s Freddie, Bethy’s drug addict brother. His secret identity was the kidnapper in this episode.

When Dawn comes back with her face bloodied, she tells Bethy that she took a spill outside the store. This is a deception.

The man who begins to choke the prostitute’s neck has a secret identity since we can’t see him, and hidden agenda when he drags into a room over a bar, and a big wound of the entire series is unearthed when the girl hears a voice and it’s the missing girl Katie Bailey.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by  Joseph Eastburn.

[Joseph Eastburn]

ASSIGNMENT 2:

“What I learned doing this assignment is… once again, by doing these specific character exercises, the plot (which I consider my weak point) is being created organically and it feels right. It’s magic.

1. Tell us the journey of your show.

After a female police detective’s husband, the Chief in a small town, cheats on her, she secretly lures cheating husbands on social media and kills them with insect venom—she’s also the lead investigator on these cases that torment her husband as they go unsolved.

2. Who are the main characters that will sell your show?

Ruby Kane

Brian Vinter

3. Answer these questions for each of those characters.

A. Role in the show:

Ruby Kane, Lead Detective, in a small-town police department

Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter, her handsome, blond husband and Police Chief

B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:

Ruby: Punish cheating husbands, making them face real consequences in a chilling way that reflects her husband’s behavior smack-back at him.

Brian: Be unable to catch whoever is killing the cheating husbands, even as he continues to cheat, so feels guilty inside and impotent in his job.

C. Intrigue: What is secret
beneath the surface?

Ruby: She’s the actual killer who is also investigating the crimes, so she uses clandestine official moves, covert activity while committing the crimes and covering them up, underhanded dealing when interviewing suspects and while writing reports; she schemes to mislead and point the guilt elsewhere, uses outright lies, has secrets about how she commits the crimes and covers them up, a complex mystery of why she’s doing this that continues to haunt, and a professional cover up, as well as a personal cover up at home with husband.

Brian: The secret is that he’s one of those cheaters like the victims who are being killed, so he worries that he might be targeted, and feels guilty about his behavior, and that his department (and he personally) is the face of a failed investigation. He pressures Ruby, but she’s adept at disguising her coverup and coming up with legitimate suspects, who are then found innocent.

D. Moral Issue: What moral
boundaries are they crossing?

Ruby: She crosses the moral boundary of committing murder, which deeply troubles her and this creates an even bigger moral dilemma because she’s a sworn officer; her souls is also being corrupted and she knows it. The possible moral ramifications of her actions reverberate everywhere into the environment and inside her. Taking them to an extreme, she may have to kill to cover up her killings. With each murder, the stakes of her crossing moral boundaries get higher and higher, and she may be forced to take more desperate and violent actions.

Brian: His depression and fear at not being able to have his department solve the murders causes him to take more risks and have more and more dangerous and thus exciting and risky liaisons, moving on to women working in his own department.

E. Unpredictable: What will
they do next?

Ruby: She does crazy, unpredictable things because she is stepping into new territory. She’s never killed anyone before so she’s dealing with the physical and emotional issues she’s never dealt with before. She’ll make mistakes, react emotionally, get confused, and sometimes do outrageous, brilliant things that we never thought of before. Other times, she starts to black out, so she won’t even know what she did until later, so she has to come up with a system to document her actions, but not leave a trail that can get her caught.

FIND THE DIAMOND: Unexpected behavior. Unexpected external force or situation that causes them to react. When another investigator is brought in, and he gets close, she has to get treacherous to defeat him and keep everyone thinking she’s innocent.

Brian: He brings in an outside agency like the FBI to consult on the crimes, and partly to deflect blame from his own department personnel, including himself, but ends up in a way shielding his wife also.

F. Empathetic: Why do we care?

Ruby: She suffered misfortune when both her first husband and current husband cheated on her.

FIND THE DIAMOND: We need to care. What unique or unfortunate or ironic things will cause us to care?

We find out Ruby’s father, Aviv Karnofsky, (he changed his family surname to “Kane”) also cheated on her mother, and even more shocking, was a Russian Asset who was caught by the Americans and had to chew his cyanide capsule and so committed suicide in the line of duty. He leaves behind his training materials and his untraceable Russian-made PSS-2 silent pistol and 100 rounds of ammunition in her mother’s garage, which Ruby takes and begins to use as the murders escalate.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Example Show: Mare of Easttown – Engaging Character Model: Mare

A. Role in the show – Lead, the show is her journey. She is the lead Detective Sergeant in Easttown during when a series of girls go missing and one is murdered.

Unique Purpose / Expertise: her purpose is solve crimes
in a close-knit town where every suspect is a relative or friend. She’s
tough, but we see her vulnerability. She’s a good cop, but her character
flaws get in her way.

C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface? The secret just beneath the surface is that she is haunted by her son’s death, feels responsible, thinks she’s a failure, and has trouble controlling her anger.

Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
When she’s willing to plant drugs on the Drew’s mother, Carrie, she gets
put on leave, loses her badge and gun, and sets back her own case to get
custody of Drew. <div>

Unpredictable: What will they do next? When Mare barges
into Frank’s house and accuses him in front of family and friends of
sleeping with the dead girl. When she erases Betty’s surveillance video.
When she has sex with Richard.

F. Empathetic: Why do we care? She lost her father, a cop, when she was 13. Her son committed suicide. She lost her marriage. She’s embittered about being called “Lady Hawke,” the basketball hero of the town. Maybe she feels undeserving of the praise, or annoyed that they keep bringing up the past.

Example Show: Mare of Easttown – Engaging Character Model: Mare’s daughter, Siobhan

A. Role in the show – She’s the daughter of lead, she reflects and conflicts with her mother.

B. Unique Purpose / Expertise: she’s got to be a good kid, support her mom and grandma, help take care of Drew, get good grades. She brings back her dead brother through her project.

C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface? Her brother’s suicide, trying to make sense of it, being gay in a small town, that she’s doing a journalistic project on her brother’s suicide, which brings the issue front and center for everyone.

D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing? When she decides to take her Dad’s side in the choice of his fiancée, (helping plan the party) and when she decides to accept the overture of the black DJ and dumps her old girlfriend.

E. Unpredictable: What will they do next? When she makes a secret pact with her new girlfriend to apply to Berkeley (and leave town).

F. Empathetic: Why do we care? Because she lost her brother. Because she’s sweet, strong, beautiful and helpful at home, and ambitious with her project, school and her band.

</div>

[Joseph Eastburn]

What I learned from this assignment is that when you figure out the circles of characters, plot and concept come into focus.

CHEATERS

Three
Circles of Characters in my Show

A. Main Character Circle: Ruby Kane, a detective in a small town; Brian ‘Thor’ Vinter, her handsome and Police Chief; Lula Kane, her eccentric mother; Rebecca Kane, Ruby’s disabled daughter by her first marriage; her police partner, Curtis; Ruby’s best friend, Charlene ‘Char’.

B. Connected Circle: her diseased father (real name: Karnofsky); Hannah, the senior criminalist, the Chief’s secretary; the first male victim; first victim’s wife; evangelical minister; bartender; owner of the restaurant; other brothers, sisters, wives, parents.

C. Environmental Circle: another attractive woman from opening anniversary party; witnesses that Ruby interviews; criminalist Supervisor; other cops in the station; specialists brought in to investigate; entomologists; her daughter’s friends’ teachers; therapists; neighbors, relatives, towns people.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Assignment #1

The Show: Mare of Easttown

A. Main Characters Circle:

Detective Sergeant Mare Sheehan; Mare’s daughter, Siobhan; Mare’s mother, Helen; Mare’s best friend, Lori; Mare’s diseased son Kevin’s son, Drew.

B. Connected Circle:

The writer, Richard; Mare’s ex-husband, Frank’ Detective Colin Zable; Erin (murdered girl); Erin’s father, Kenny; Kenny’s cousins: John, Billy; Chief Carter; Lori’s son, Ryan, and daughter, Moira; Erin’s baby; Dylan; Dylan’s girlfriend, Brianna; Erin’s best friend, Jesse; Missing girl, Katie Bailey; Missing girl’s mother, Dawn Bailey; diseased son’s wife, Carrie; Mare’s diseased son, Kevin.

C. Environmental Circle:

Frank’s fiancé, Faye; Black Lady cop; Deacon Mark; Deacon Dan; Jesse’s mother, Trish; Siobhan’s girlfriend, 5-6 girls and 3 guys who saw Erin in the forest; Pediatrician; Briana’s father, Tony; Tony’s wife, Patty; town’s people; cops in the station and at crime scenes; restaurant workers and patrons; people at the book reading; people on the street.

[Joseph Eastburn]

What I learned doing this assignment was:

The Americans

1. Big Picture Hooks: Soviet Spies living in Suburban Washington DC, next door to an FBI agent. They have a top Soviet agent imprisoned in the trunk of their car when the fed moves in next door. The husband is ready to defect and the wife is a patriot. A lot of life and death conflict right off the bat.

2. Amazing and Intriguing Character: Both the husband and the wife are intriguing because you see them as real parents with kids, and you see them perform operationally, taking the spy hostage, having sex with an enemy, chasing people through an alley, changing license plates. They are operatives in plain sight, posing as working dad, and homemaker mom. Different.

3. Empathy / Distress: The incredible stress that is on them creates empathy. Any moment they can be caught or found out by their kids, who don’t know! Or, by the Reagan anti-spy task force. They are in the open. And they have to use subterfuge even with their own kids. Every truth of their middle-class existence is a lie.

4. Layers / Open Loops: Will they defect? Will they be caught? Will their kids find out that they are Soviet spies? Will the next-door FBI Agent figure them out? Will the wife leave the husband? He seems to love her more than she loves him. Will they have to kill the FBI agent? Will their kids get killed?

5. Inviting Obsession: You want to know what happens to them. You want to see if they can pull it off. You want them to get captured, and you want them to succeed—at the same time. It’s obsessing.

Mare of Easttown

(to also choose a more recent show that is in my genre)

1. Big Picture Hooks: Mare is a very flawed character, but there’s something about her that you empathize with. When I watched the first episode a second time, I realized every person who played basketball with her in High School is involved somehow in the crimes that are happening in this small town.

2. Amazing and Intriguing Character: They are just so REAL. Having come from the East coast, I feel like I know these characters, like they’re my own neighbors. And all of them seem to have flaws and secrets, just like Mare.

3. Empathy / Distress: you feel empathy for Mare from moment one. At the same time, you kind of think she’s a jerk, but you still like her and feel empathy for her. You feel distress for her when she sprains her ankle chasing a suspect, when she finds out her ex has invited everyone to a party to celebrate his second marriage, but not Mare. Sometimes her anger is scary. But you’re still on her side. And you respect her doggedness.

4. Layers / Open Loops: Who killed Katie? Is Mare going to solve the crime? Is she going to have a relationship with this writer? Is the missing girl going to be found? Are the two crimes connected? Did the mean girlfriend who his her in the woods do it? Is Mare an alcoholic? Is she a bit of a bad person?

5. Inviting Obsession: I want to watch every episode because these people feel are so real that I care about them. Not only do I want to know who committed the crimes, I want to know what’s going to happen to all the stories they’ve launched.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Hi folks,

I’m Joe

A little late to the party, but I’ve written seven scripts.

Very excited to be here. I took PS 26 and the Rewrite Class twice.

Something unique about me is that my parents met onstage in New York City in 1941, so I come from a somewhat crazy theatrical family.

Looking forward to watching our class succeed.

Kind regards,

Joe

[Joseph Eastburn]

Joseph Eastburn

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 Binge Worthy TV class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, teaching a class, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the Binge Worthy TV 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 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. The easiest solution if you have similar ideas is to either not look at each other’s work or to agree to take your shows in different directions.

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.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Joseph Eastburn

I agree to the terms of this release form.

[Joseph Eastburn]

Hi Renee,

Do you have a partner yet for exchanging Pitch Bibles and giving feedback? Please keep me in mind.

Thanks!

Joe Eastburn

[Joseph Eastburn]

Hi Jane! Sorry, I just saw this notification. Good on you for reading someone else’s work! Wow, I haven’t been able to find the time, but now that you’ve messaged me, I’ll check out your next! Good luck, Joe (Just posted Assignment 1 of Lesson 11).

[Joseph Eastburn]

Congratulations for placing in the QFs, Barbara! Very cool.