[Julie Nichols]

Julie Nichols’ Character Interviews

What I learned doing this assignment is that details of the story emerged from the character profiles. I don’t usually work from character first, story second, so this is illuminating. Also, the antagonist’s character took off during this process.

Protagonist Rose Dunn

My name is Rose Elizabeth Dunn. My birthday is September 5th. I was born in 1878 and am the baby of the family. I’m 15 now. I’ve been attending the All Hallows Academy in Wichita since I was 12. I live there most of the time, but get to come home for the summer and Christmas.

I loved living on the ranch. My brothers taught me to ride and rope and shoot. I’ve never felt so free, so powerful, as when I’d gallop by horse, Daisy, down by the Cimarron River. But after Mama married the Doctor, everything changed. He hated that I spent so much time with the boys, especially after I started to bleed. I couldn’t stand being in the house all the time, trying to learn sew and cooking, cooking, cooking all day long. The Doctor paid for me to go to the convent school and Mama let him send me away. Maybe because I didn’t have all my dreams and love of action beaten out of me when I was little when Mama was just trying to keep us all fed, I didn’t accept that my fate was to live a quiet life of servitude to men. Being sent away was a huge betrayal and it left me with a hole in my heart just waiting to be filled by true love.

I’ve always looked up to my oldest brother, Bill. He was the head of the family after Papa died. I couldn’t really blame him for the cattle rustling since there were times that was the only way we could keep ourselves fed. Mama went without food many a night when there was only a potato for each of us ten kids. But when I turned twelve, he started looking at me differently, particularly when he’d been hitting the bottle. What makes this so hard is that I love him still.

I’m going to have to disappoint my mother, my step-father, and Sister Mary Veronica by leaving school behind. Bill will be angry, too. He’s strange with other men come around. I’m going to have to play a double game if I stay at home, never letting them know about Bitter Creek and me.

I’ve always been truthful with Mama and the boys. I never wanted to be a problem for Mama because she had too many. But now she has the Doctor. I’m going to have to let go of thinking of myself as an obedient child and become a woman who knows who and what she wants.

As the youngest, I’ve always felt like I was an imposition. Mama never had much time for me, always working in the garden, cooking, or ordering the boys around, I’m afraid of disappointing her. I’m insecure about my skinny, tall frame. I’m not as curvy and sexy as the women the boys frequent in town. I’ve been so lonely at school.

I’m a crack shot and I ride really well. I’m smart and was the lookout from my brothers when they were rustling cattle from the time I was big enough to ride. I understand what it takes to be an outlaw. I’ve assisted my father-in-law the doctor in his surgery and know how to try to keep someone wounded alive.

I don’t want them to know about Bitter Creek and me. Bill would kill him if he knew. He will do anything for money. Sometimes, when he doesn’t know I’m looking, his face is so cold and blank. At those times, I’m afraid of him.

When I was fifteen and home for the summer, Bill and the boys brought a couple of their friends home with them: Bitter Creek Newcomb and Charley Pierce of the Wild Bunch. Bill and my brothers were totally in awe of them as they were famous, big time outlaws. Bitter Creek was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. He read all the time and was very respectful to me. I knew he was an outlaw, but so were Bill and my brothers. He started courting me and I began seeing him on the sly. I was waiting for him in a hotel in Ingalls so we could run away when he was wounded by US Marshalls. I fired on the US Marshalls to get him away. I couldn’t go back home after that, and I stayed with him and Charley to nurse them back to health. Bill found me and begged me to come back home to tell Mama I was alright. I was taking Bitter Creek and Charley back to the ranch to let Mama know that Bitter Creek and I were going to be married when Bill and the boys jumped us. They killed Bitter Creek and Charley in the yard in front of our ranch for the bounty on their heads. We were traveling with Bitter Creek and Charley’s share of the Wild Bunch loot. I took their horses and bags and road away.

I think Bitter Creek was the first person who truly loved me in my entire life.

Antagonist Bill Dunn

My name is Bill Dunn. I’m a cattleman, sometimes a lawman. I look after my Mama, my eight younger brothers and little sister.

I’m tough, I’ve had to be. The rich landowners around here have it made and my family goes hungry half the time. I’m damned good at faro and I know how to take risks. My weakness is women, the younger the better. Particularly when I’ve got a snout on, my control ain’t good.

I know this is bad to say but I’ve been in love with Rosey since she first started to show some curves. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen even, if she is my sister. I could bear the idea that someday she’d marry some city swell when she went off to that fancy convent school. But I can’t bear the idea of her being with someone like Bitter Creek, an outlaw no better ‘an me. I can’t sleep thinking about his hands on her. I’ll kill him before I let him have her.

Rosey will come home to the ranch and help Mama the way she ought to. Someday she’ll come to love me and we’ll run away.

I love Rosey. I wake up in a cold sweat dreaming about being inside her. I admire her toughness which is so like my own. We are soul mates. That Bitter Creek has her is a desecration.

Mama and her new swell of a husband can’t know. The younger brothers can’t know. I can’t let Rose know until I can have her. I don’t let anyone know about that girl I killed in Wichita. I don’t feel anything about that. In fact, I don’t feel any guilt about anything I’ve done that was illegal or hurt someone else. I have to pretend to have those sorts of qualms. If people knew that I was like this instead of the charming guy they know, they’d hate me. They might even kill me.

I’m completely remorseless and ruthless. This gives me great power. I will do anything, hurt anyone to get what I want.

I’ve always loved Rose, though I know you’re not supposed to feel that way about your own sister. Plenty of people have done it on the ranches around here so it’s really nothing special. She’s ten years younger than me. I hardly spent any time with her growing up, never really looked at her like my sister. One of the reasons I turned bounty hunter, to be something more than just a cattle rustler, was so that Rose would think I was respectable. So she’d want me. But instead she fell for that train robbin’ gangster, Bitter Creek, even older than I am. When the Marshalls put a $5,000 reward ($167,350 today) on his head, I saw the perfect solution. Kill Bitter Creek and Rose would return to the ranch—and me.

[Julie Nichols]

Julie Nichols’ Character Profile Part 2

What I learned doing this assignment is that I don’t have to build characters all at once. It was great to break up the character profiles into two parts. My principal characters already have more depth from thinking about them between the days.

Protagonist Rose Dunn

Rose’s Profile

Role in the story: A fearless young woman whose difficult relationship with her step-father makes her hungry for love, passion, and adventure.

Age range and description: In her teens, Rose is renowned for her beauty. An accomplished horsewoman, she rides often beside the Cimarron River.

Internal Journey: Rose begins as a wild young woman who is taught to ride and shoot by her nine brothers. When a new step-father arrives on the scene, he convinces her weak and dependent mother to send Rose to study at a local convent school where she becomes emotionally repressed and withdrawn. During one of her visits home, she meets and falls for Bitter Creek, her emotions become liberated even as she fixates on her lover. After his death at her the hands of her brother, Bill, she leaves her family, emotionally mature beyond her years, a strong, self-sufficient woman free to love again on her own terms.

External Journey: Rose meets Bitter Creek when visiting her family home on vacation from the convent school. She travels with him, buying supplies for him in town, and nursing him back to health after he’s wounded during the Battle of Ingalls. After Bitter Creek’s murder, she moves away from her family.

Motivation: To experience a man’s love.

Wound: Feelings of abandonment when her mother allows her stepfather to send her to the convent school, far from her brothers and her beloved Cimarron River.

Mission/Agenda: To save Bitter Creek.

Secret: She is secretly lovers with Bitter Creek.

What makes her special? Her fearlessness and courage, her lust for life.

What draws us to this character? Rose is vivacious and alive. A force to be reckoned with. She holds nothing back.

Traits: Courageous, passionate, loving, naïve

Subtext: Prevaricates with all the authority figures in her life, especially the Reverend Mother and her own mother. Rose is excellent at redirecting their attention away from the truth while not actually lying.

Flaw: For all her grit and strength, Rose is still a teenager. She is innocent, trusting, and easily swayed.

Values: Rose values romantic love above all.

Irony: Rose is a deeply caring and ethical person. It is this caring that causes her to nurse and defend the outlaw Bitter Creek.

What makes this the right character for the role? There is no quit in Rose. She demonstrates the fearless disregard of death that only the very young experience. Open and vulnerable, she loves Bitter Creek, a man who does not deserve her, with her whole heart.

Antagonist Bill Dunn

Role in the story: A ruthless leader of his gang of brothers, Bill has an unnatural attraction to his sister, the teenage Rose.

Age range and description: Bill is in his mid-twenties, the eldest of eight brothers and one sister, Rose. He is attractive, an alpha male, though his mannerisms are a little—off.

Internal Journey: Bill begins as Rose’s mentor, teaching her to ride and shoot, until he realizes she’s matured into a woman. He lusts after her and rejects her when she is sent away to the convent school. When Rose falls for Bitter Creek – an outlaw that he brought to the family home when she is there—he becomes jealous. He punishes her by killing Bitter Creek for the bounty.

External Journey: Bill transitions from ranch hand on his mother’s land to cattle rustler to bounty hunter during the film.

Motivation: To punish Rose.

Wound: Ten years older than Rose, he feels no brotherly feelings for her. He is hurt by her perceive choice of Bitter Creek over him.

Mission/Agenda: To get Rose away from the outlaws so he can have her.

Secret: He’s a psychopath who hides his lack of empathy.

What makes him special? Her fearlessness and courage, her lust for life.

What draws us to this character? Bill is handsome and charismatic. He is a natural leader who leads his brothers into a life rustling cattle without remorse.

Traits: Charming, intelligent, ruthless, a killer.

Subtext: A master manipulator, Bill doesn’t even know when he’s lying.

Flaw: Hubris. He thinks he’s invincible and untouchable by the law.

Values: Money. The respect of his brothers.

Irony: Bill loves Rose though he expresses that love in truly disturbing ways.

[Julie Nichols]

Julie Nichols’ Character Profiles Part 1

What I learned doing this assignment is the importance of picking a specific antagonist from the very beginning.

Rose is a fighter. She defies her parents, the sisters in the convent, and most importantly, her oldest brother Bill, to defend her outlaw lover, Bitter Creek. When Bitter Creek is pinned down and wounded in Battle of Ingalls, she runs into the street and fires on US Marshals while passing two belts on ammo to him, allowing him to escape.

Rose’s brother Bill is the antagonist. Brilliant, a born leader, and twisted to the very marrow of his bones, Bill Dunn is a dangerous predator. Unhealthily fixated on Rose, Bill leads his dirt poor brothers into a double life of cattle rustling and bounty hunting.

Supporting characters include Charley Pierce who with Bitter Creek was nursed back to health by Rose. The other members of the Wild Bunch may be supporting as well including Bill Doolin and William Marion “Bill” Dalton, William “Tulsa Jack” Blake, Dan “Dynamite Dick” Clifton, Roy Daugherty (a.k.a. “Arkansas Tom Jones”), William F. “Little Bill” Raidler, George “Red Buck” Waightman, Richard “Little Dick” West, and Oliver “Ol” Yantis.

Minor roles will include Rose’s mother and step-father, the mother superior of the convent, the 13 US Marshals that tried to capture the Wild Bunch in Ingalls including Jim Masterson, Bat’s little brother, and Charles Noble, a politician whom she would marry.

Background characters will include Murray, the owner of the saloon where the gang is drinking before the battle.

Genre: Drama

Rose’s Profile

Role in the story: A fearless young woman whose cold and sterile upbringing makes her hungry for love, passion and adventure.

Age range and Description: In her late teens, Rose is renowned for her beauty. An accomplished horsewoman, she rides often beside the Cimarron River.

Internal Journey: Rose begins as a shy and repressed convent schoolgirl. When she meets and fall for Bitter Creek, her vivacious and fearless lust for life is released though her attention is fixed on her lover. After his death at the hands of her brother, Bill, she leaves her family behind having integrated the Rose of act one with the Rose of act two to become the Rose of act three, a strong, self-sufficient woman free to love again on her own terms.

External Journey: Rose meets Bitter Creek when visiting her family home on vacation from the convent school. She travels with him, buying supplies for him in town, and nursing him back to health after he’s wounded in the leg during the Battle in Ingalls. After Bitter Creek’s murder, she moves away from her family living in a little house by herself.

Motivation: To be loved.

Wound: Feelings of abandonment when her mother sends here to the convent school.

Mission/Agenda: To save Bitter Creek.

Secret: She is secretly lovers with Bitter Creek.

What makes them special? Her fearlessness and courage, her lust for life.

[Julie Nichols]

Julie Nichols’ Transformational Journey

What I learned doing this assignment is to not overthink my creative work. Working from the beginning with a powerful overarching character arc is very freeing.

My hero is Rose Dunn, the Rose of Cimarron. A sheltered, convent-educated young woman, Rose battled US Marshals and her bounty hunter brothers to defend of her notorious outlaw lover in 1890s Oklahoma. Based on the true story of Rose’s love affair with Bitter Creek Newcomb, a member of the Wild Bunch.

Internal Journey: From craving
love above all else to strength and independence on her own.
External Journey: From shy and
repressed convent schoolgirl to the belle of Oklahoma politics.<div>

<div>

Rose’s Old Ways

1. Naïve and shy </div><div>

2. Craves love and attention,
particularly from men

3. Rebellious and defiant; willing
to do anything for her lover

Rose’s New Ways

1. Mature and outgoing </div><div>

2. Warm and self-confident; commands
respect

3. Independent with the hard-won
confidence of someone who has lived on the edge—and survived

</div></div>

[Julie Nichols]

Julie Nichols

I agree to the terms of this release form.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This completes the Group Release Form for the class.

[Julie Nichols]

Hi, I’m Julie Nichols. I’ve completed three scripts but took a break to work on a novel for a couple of years. I hope this class will help me get back into writing screenplays. I would like to write a commercially viable spec that can both stand on its own and do double duty as a writing sample for another project. I wrote my first book-to-stage adaptation when I was sixteen, and it’s one of my greatest dreams to see one my adaptations produced. Looking forward to the class! Julie

[Julie Nichols]

Thank you!

[Julie Nichols]

Hi, Arial! Thanks for asking. I’m still work on the novel and plan to self-publish. I’ve really enjoyed learning about the self-publication process while cranking out the novel. Hopefully I’ll have it finished and out by the end of this year.

Happy writing to you, too!

Julie