[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris Misdirects . . . when appropriate! (Assignment 13)

What I learned is: This is a good time during the Thriller Map creation to think about misdirection, which I started brainstorming about when I was working on the previous assignment about clues.

Misdirection woven into the thriller map:

OPENING (p. 1): Leyla is at a café hidden away on a backstreet in Erbil, Iraq. She is drinking tea and talking with an Iraqi man, Amir. REVEAL 1: Mystery–Who is the Lebanese man on his phone across the street? Intrigue—Why did he just hand his phone to another man and walk toward the café? TWIST: A bomb goes off inside the café. TRUST/DISTRUST: The Lebanese man, Haasim, rescues Leyla. DISTRUST (and CLUE that Haasim targeted Linguist Leyla to procure for him, under false pretenses, highly classified info—the names of U.S. informants): How convenient that a knight in shining armor happens to be there to rescue her. Leyla sees Amir escape uninjured. Leyla and Haasim exchange numbers.

♦ Back at the base, Leyla is translating a document from Arabic into English at a computer in the linguists’ office when Haasim texts her (on Signal) to see how she’s doing. They text back and forth.

♦ Lead Linguist, AJ, comes in with a document. Leyla quickly slips her phone into a desk drawer. AJ hands the page to Vivienne (“Viv”– Leyla’s friend and fellow linguist) and tells her “Need your speed on this one.”

♦ Leyla and Vivienne are at lunch in the DFAC on base. REVEAL 2: Intrigue—Why is Vivienne flirting with several guys who pass by? Is she sleeping with them? Reveal later to Leyla that she wants to enjoy life while she can in case her ovarian cancer, for which she underwent chemo a year ago before her latest deployment, doesn’t stay in remission.

♦ Haasim texts to ask Leyla to join him for dinner in town. Vivienne sees Leyla’s sudden smile and asks her if she’s making up with her daughter. Leyla tells her no. Vivienne asks what’s up. Leyla plays coy, gives Vivienne sparse details about Haasim.

♦ Leyla texts Haasim how difficult it is to get permission to leave the base for non-work-related reasons.

♦ TRUST: Her friend, Vivienne tells Leyla how good it would be for her to start dating, have a little fun, find “your person” amid the chaos, good for the soul. DISTRUST: Viv obviously practices what she preaches, but will this get Leyla into trouble—after all, she just met this Lebanese guy (who she knows nothing about) during an explosion at a café while talking with perhaps a local informant.

INCITING INCIDENT (p. 11): TWIST: Haasim is persistent and flirty, so Leyla decides to go to her onsite manager for permission.

♦ She gets a plate of cookies from the DFAC (dining facility).

♦ Leyla takes the cookies to her onsite manager, Kain, who is drinking from a thermos of coffee and whiskey and cleaning his favorite firearm. Jinx, his dog, is asleep under a desk covered in disorganized paperwork. Leyla sets the plate down on the desk.

♦ TWIST: Kain’s gun goes off, fortunately it’s aimed at the ceiling.

♦ DISTRUST & RED HERRING CHARACTER: Kain curses, takes another drink, notices the cookies, and samples one.

♦ He hasn’t really noticed Leyla, but she asks him for permission to leave the base. He tells her she can go, but for only two hours after shift.

♦ At a restaurant off-base for dinner, with Haasim’s bodyguards keeping watch from across the room. Leyla and Haasim are enjoying dessert. TWIST/TRUST & CLUE that Haasim is trying to win over Leyla just to get top secret info: Haasim tells Leyla how beautiful she is and he’s never met anyone like her. DISTRUST: Leyla is both flattered and unsure of whether he just wants to sleep with her.

♦ Next, in another TWIST: Haasim asks Leyla to get him the names and contact info for certain U.S. human assets/informants. TRUST OR DISTRUST: He tells her he wants to hire these skilled people and pay them 3 or 4 times what they’re probably trying to survive on now. He tells her that she must keep this entire dinner conversation top secret. REVEAL 3: Mystery—Is this really why he wants the names? Intrigue—what if he wants the names for evil reasons? Mystery—Will Leyla do this for him? Revealed for certain later.

♦ On return to the base, Vivienne asks Leyla how dinner was, and Leyla confides in Vivienne only the part about Haasim complimenting her. Vivienne tells Leyla that Haasim is only speaking the truth.

♦ TWIST: a vehicle suddenly lurches out of the darkness and swerves at them. Vivienne and Leyla have to leap out of the way. DISTRUST: They catch a glimpse of their boss, Kain, at the wheel, and his dog riding shotgun. MISDIRECTION/RED HERRING CHARACTER Kain.

♦ Later, Leyla FaceTimes her daughter. The conversation is strained as always.

TURNING POINT 1/BREAK INTO 2 (p. 25): Leyla asks Lead Linguist, AJ, to transfer her to the quieter graveyard shift. TRUST/DISTRUST: When Vivienne asks her why she wants the graveyard shift that everyone hates, [CLUE] Leyla says she needs a quiet office with fewer distractions so she can get more translation work accomplished. REVEAL: Mystery—uh oh, did she decide to get the names for Haasim? Revealed for certain later.

♦ Leyla translates a classified document and communicates with an asset named “Rick.”

♦ Leyla starts baking treats for the team leader and lead linguist and hanging around the office, even when her shift is over and returning before the next shift begins.

♦ Leyla confides in Viv that she (Leyla) does not want to grow old alone, and maybe she is enjoying her texts with Haasim and starting to imagine a future with him.

♦ Leyla accesses highly classified details about an asset known as “Jimmy” and writes it on a paper she pockets. After shift, she texts the details to Haasim, then slips the note under her mattress.

♦ DISTRUST: Vivienne begins to suspect that Leyla is up to something.

♦ TRUST: Vivienne cannot get in touch with one of their local assets, Amir (with whom Leyla was talking when the café was hit), and asks Leyla whether she has been in touch with him, but Leyla has not.

♦ At shift change, Vivienne sees a message come through on Leyla’s phone. DISTRUST: Vivienne sees that it’s from Haasim and he’s asking for Amir’s location.

♦ TWIST: Base is hit by a drone.

♦ Afterwards, Vivienne talks to Leyla about the text message from Haasim, but Leyla assures her that Haasim is doing this for a good purpose. REVEAL: Mystery–Viv asks how Leyla can know this. Intrigue–Leyla tells Viv she has to trust her gut, but Viv is unconvinced that Leyla can be objective about this man.

♦ DISTRUST: Vivienne goes to talk to Kain about her concerns.

♦ Bonfire on base with lots of alcohol and partying. I want a MISDIRECTION here so that Leyla jumps to conclusions or misunderstands an action Viv takes and mistakenly believes that she cannot trust Viv anymore.

MIDPOINT (p. 55): TRUST: Kain assigns Leyla and Vivienne to a mission off-base to take down insurgents. DISTRUST & REVEAL: Intrigue–Vivienne expresses a smidge of concern to Leyla about the skills of the local interpreter Kain sent with them. Mystery—Leyla asks her why. Suspense—Viv tells Leyla that the local interpreter’s Kurdish (Leyla speaks only Arabic and Viv speaks both Arabic and Kurdish) is off.

♦ Later, Vivienne is killed by mortar fire right in front of Leyla.

♦ DISTRUST & REVEAL: Mystery–Back at the base, Leyla has a heated exchange with Kain. Is he responsible? Intrigue–She blames him for his choice of a local interpreter who mistranslated radio chatter that probably got Vivienne killed. Mystery—who got Vivienne killed? Was it the local interpreter, was it actually Kain, was it just another unfortunate death in the field, or could it have been Haasim (because Viv was trying to caution Leyla and trying to warn Kain)?

♦ TWIST & REVEAL: Mystery–Kain is furious with her for accusing him of responsibility for Viv’s death, but is he responsible? Suspense–Kain threatens to reassign her to Afghanistan.

♦ Leyla must persuade Kain not to send her to Afghanistan. She does not want to lose Haasim.

♦ Kain tells her he needs someone to procure women and alcohol for a party, and Leyla tells him she’ll take care of it.

♦ Leyla recruits AJ who has connections in town, to help her. AJ wants to be in good stead with Kain because he likes going off base as often as possible, so he’s pleased to help Leyla with this project.

♦ TWIST: As AJ drives them from his cousin’s liquor store to a nightclub where prostitutes hang out, he suspects they’re being followed, so makes some crazy maneuvers and loses the tail.

♦ CLUE: Inside the nightclub, Leyla thinks she recognizes one of Haasim’s bodyguards from the restaurant lurking in the shadows. If Haasim finds out that she’s hiring prostitutes, he might call off their marriage, which Leyla couldn’t bear.

♦ She goes to talk to him, but he has disappeared. She runs into the parking lot and sees him jump into a car and drive off.

TURNING POINT 2/BREAK INTO 3 (p. 85): On the way back to the base, they stop at a market so Leyla can bake for Kain and AJ and some of the others.

♦ TWIST: An Iraqi woman comes up to Leyla and asks her if she knows anything about her husband, Amir, whom she hasn’t seen in two days. CLUE and REVEAL for later: Leyla hasn’t seen him since the café incident, but was sure he’d gotten away unscathed.

♦ DISTRUST: Leyla begins to suspect that Haasim is not using the details about these assets for peaceful purposes at all. Two of the assets have vanished, and Vivienne, who tried to warn her, is dead.

♦ TRUST/DISTRUST: Haasim tells Leyla he will marry her and give a life of wealth and comfort, and she will never be alone again.

♦ Much more to come as I flesh out Act 3.

CLIMAX: Leyla is arrested, and the FBI finds the note in Arabic hidden under her mattress.

DENOUEMENT (p. 108): Leyla is escorted to her prison cell. Meets her cell mate, Jolene. When Jolene asks her how long she’s in for, Leyla tells her 23 years.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris Gives Great Clues (Assignment 12)

What I learned is: This is a good time during the Thriller Map creation to think about clues.

Clues woven into the thriller map:

OPENING (p. 1): Leyla is at a café hidden away on a backstreet in Erbil, Iraq. She is drinking tea and talking with an Iraqi man, Amir. REVEAL 1: Mystery–Who is the Lebanese man on his phone across the street? Intrigue—Why did he just hand his phone to another man and walk toward the café? TWIST: A bomb goes off inside the café. TRUST/DISTRUST: The Lebanese man, Haasim, rescues Leyla. DISTRUST (and CLUE that Haasim targeted Linguist Leyla to procure for him, under false pretenses, highly classified info—the names of U.S. informants): How convenient that a knight in shining armor happens to be there to rescue her. Leyla sees Amir escape uninjured. Leyla and Haasim exchange numbers.

♦ Back at the base, Leyla is translating a document from Arabic into English at a computer in the linguists’ office when Haasim texts her (on Signal) to see how she’s doing. They text back and forth.

♦ Lead Linguist, AJ, comes in with a document. Leyla quickly slips her phone into a desk drawer. AJ hands the page to Vivienne (“Viv”– Leyla’s friend and fellow linguist) and tells her “Need your speed on this one.”

♦ Leyla and Vivienne are at lunch in the DFAC on base. REVEAL 2: Intrigue—Why is Vivienne flirting with several guys who pass by? Is she sleeping with them? Reveal later to Leyla that she wants to enjoy life while she can in case her ovarian cancer, for which she underwent chemo a year ago before her latest deployment, doesn’t stay in remission.

♦ Haasim texts to ask Leyla to join him for dinner in town. Vivienne sees Leyla’s sudden smile and asks her if she’s making up with her daughter. Leyla tells her no. Vivienne asks what’s up. Leyla plays coy, gives Vivienne sparse details about Haasim.

♦ Leyla texts Haasim how difficult it is to get permission to leave the base for non-work-related reasons.

♦ TRUST: Her friend, Vivienne tells Leyla how good it would be for her to start dating, have a little fun, find “your person” amid the chaos, good for the soul. DISTRUST: Viv obviously practices what she preaches, but will this get Leyla into trouble—after all, she just met this Lebanese guy (who she knows nothing about) during an explosion at a café while talking with perhaps a local informant.

INCITING INCIDENT (p. 11): TWIST: Haasim is persistent and flirty, so Leyla decides to go to her onsite manager for permission.

♦ She gets a plate of cookies from the DFAC (dining facility).

♦ Leyla takes the cookies to her onsite manager, Kain, who is drinking from a thermos of coffee and whiskey and cleaning his favorite firearm. Jinx, his dog, is asleep under a desk covered in disorganized paperwork. Leyla sets the plate down on the desk.

♦ TWIST: Kain’s gun goes off, fortunately it’s aimed at the ceiling.

♦ DISTRUST: Kain curses, takes another drink, notices the cookies, and samples one.

♦ He hasn’t really noticed Leyla, but she asks him for permission to leave the base. He tells her she can go, but for only two hours after shift.

♦ At a restaurant off-base for dinner, with Haasim’s bodyguards keeping watch from across the room. Leyla and Haasim are enjoying dessert. TWIST/TRUST & CLUE that Haasim is trying to win over Leyla just to get top secret info: Haasim tells Leyla how beautiful she is and he’s never met anyone like her. DISTRUST: Leyla is both flattered and unsure of whether he just wants to sleep with her.

♦ Next, in another TWIST: Haasim asks Leyla to get him the names and contact info for certain U.S. human assets/informants. TRUST OR DISTRUST: He tells her he wants to hire these skilled people and pay them 3 or 4 times what they’re probably trying to survive on now. He tells her that she must keep this entire dinner conversation top secret. REVEAL 3: Mystery—Is this really why he wants the names? Intrigue—what if he wants the names for evil reasons? Mystery—Will Leyla do this for him? Revealed for certain later.

♦ On return to the base, Vivienne asks Leyla how dinner was, and Leyla confides in Vivienne only the part about Haasim complimenting her. Vivienne tells Leyla that Haasim is only speaking the truth.

♦ TWIST: a vehicle suddenly lurches out of the darkness and swerves at them. Vivienne and Leyla have to leap out of the way. DISTRUST: They catch a glimpse of their boss, Kain, at the wheel, and his dog riding shotgun.

♦ Later, Leyla FaceTimes her daughter. The conversation is strained as always.

TURNING POINT 1/BREAK INTO 2 (p. 25): Leyla asks Lead Linguist, AJ, to transfer her to the quieter graveyard shift. TRUST/DISTRUST: When Vivienne asks her why she wants the graveyard shift that everyone hates, [CLUE] Leyla says she needs a quiet office with fewer distractions so she can get more translation work accomplished. REVEAL: Mystery—uh oh, did she decide to get the names for Haasim? Revealed for certain later.

♦ Leyla translates a classified document and communicates with an asset named “Rick.”

♦ Leyla starts baking treats for the team leader and lead linguist and hanging around the office, even when her shift is over and returning before the next shift begins.

♦ Leyla confides in Viv that she (Leyla) does not want to grow old alone, and maybe she is enjoying her texts with Haasim and starting to imagine a future with him.

♦ Leyla accesses highly classified details about an asset known as “Jimmy” and writes it on a paper she pockets. After shift, she texts the details to Haasim, then slips the note under her mattress.

♦ DISTRUST: Vivienne begins to suspect that Leyla is up to something.

♦ TRUST: Vivienne cannot get in touch with one of their local assets, Amir (with whom Leyla was talking when the café was hit), and asks Leyla whether she has been in touch with him, but Leyla has not.

♦ At shift change, Vivienne sees a message come through on Leyla’s phone. DISTRUST: Vivienne sees that it’s from Haasim and he’s asking for Amir’s location.

♦ TWIST: Base is hit by a drone.

♦ Afterwards, Vivienne talks to Leyla about the text message from Haasim, but Leyla assures her that Haasim is doing this for a good purpose. REVEAL: Mystery–Viv asks how Leyla can know this. Intrigue–Leyla tells Viv she has to trust her gut, but Viv is unconvinced that Leyla can be objective about this man.

♦ DISTRUST: Vivienne goes to talk to Kain about her concerns.

MIDPOINT (p. 55): TRUST: Kain assigns Leyla and Vivienne to a mission off-base to take down insurgents. DISTRUST & REVEAL: Intrigue–Vivienne expresses a smidge of concern to Leyla about the skills of the local interpreter Kain sent with them. Mystery—Leyla asks her why. Suspense—Viv tells Leyla that the local interpreter’s Kurdish (Leyla speaks only Arabic and Viv speaks both Arabic and Kurdish) is off.

♦ Later, Vivienne is killed by mortar fire right in front of Leyla.

♦ DISTRUST & REVEAL: Mystery–Back at the base, Leyla has a heated exchange with Kain. Is he responsible? Intrigue–She blames him for his choice of a local interpreter who mistranslated radio chatter that probably got Vivienne killed. Mystery—who got Vivienne killed? Was it the local interpreter, was it actually Kain, was it just another unfortunate death in the field, or could it have been Haasim (because Viv was trying to caution Leyla and trying to warn Kain)?

♦ TWIST & REVEAL: Mystery–Kain is furious with her for accusing him of responsibility for Viv’s death, but is he responsible? Suspense–Kain threatens to reassign her to Afghanistan.

♦ Leyla must persuade Kain not to send her to Afghanistan. She does not want to lose Haasim.

♦ Kain tells her he needs someone to procure women and alcohol for a party, and Leyla tells him she’ll take care of it.

♦ Leyla recruits AJ who has connections in town, to help her. AJ wants to be in good stead with Kain because he likes going off base as often as possible, so he’s pleased to help Leyla with this project.

♦ TWIST: As AJ drives them from his cousin’s liquor store to a nightclub where prostitutes hang out, he suspects they’re being followed, so makes some crazy maneuvers and loses the tail.

♦ CLUE: Inside the nightclub, Leyla thinks she recognizes one of Haasim’s bodyguards from the restaurant lurking in the shadows. If Haasim finds out that she’s hiring prostitutes, he might call off their marriage, which Leyla couldn’t bear.

♦ She goes to talk to him, but he has disappeared. She runs into the parking lot and sees him jump into a car and drive off.

TURNING POINT 2/BREAK INTO 3 (p. 85): On the way back to the base, they stop at a market so Leyla can bake for Kain and AJ and some of the others.

♦ TWIST: An Iraqi woman comes up to Leyla and asks her if she knows anything about her husband, Amir, whom she hasn’t seen in two days. CLUE and REVEAL for later: Leyla hasn’t seen him since the café incident, but was sure he’d gotten away unscathed.

♦ DISTRUST: Leyla begins to suspect that Haasim is not using the details about these assets for peaceful purposes at all. Two of the assets have vanished, and Vivienne, who tried to warn her, is dead.

♦ TRUST/DISTRUST: Haasim tells Leyla he will marry her and give a life of wealth and comfort, and she will never be alone again.

♦ Much more to come as I flesh out Act 3.

CLIMAX: Leyla is arrested, and the FBI finds the note in Arabic hidden under her mattress.

DENOUEMENT (p. 108): Leyla is escorted to her prison cell. Meets her cell mate, Jolene. When Jolene asks her how long she’s in for, Leyla tells her 23 years.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s Dramatic Reveals (Assignment 11)

What I learned is: This exercise helped me to see where I could create cover up situations to create intrigue & mystery so the audience will be ready for the reveal later after they’ve tried to figure out the red flags. Some of my TWISTS became TRUST/DISTRUST issues and some of those morphed into DRAMATIC REVEALS.

Dramatic Reveals woven into the thriller map:

OPENING (p. 1): Leyla is at a café hidden away on a backstreet in Erbil, Iraq. She is drinking tea and talking with an Iraqi man, Amir. REVEAL 1: Mystery–Who is the Lebanese man on his phone across the street? Intrigue—Why did he just hand his phone to another man and walk toward the café? TWIST: A bomb goes off inside the café. TRUST/DISTRUST: The Lebanese man, Haasim, rescues Leyla. DISTRUST: How convenient that a knight in shining armor happens to be there to rescue her. Leyla sees Amir escape uninjured. Leyla and Haasim exchange numbers.

♦ Back at the base, Leyla is translating a document from Arabic into English at a computer in the linguists’ office when Haasim texts her (on Signal) to see how she’s doing. They text back and forth.

♦ Lead Linguist, AJ, comes in with a document. Leyla quickly slips her phone into a desk drawer. AJ hands the page to Vivienne (“Viv”– Leyla’s friend and fellow linguist) and tells her “Need your speed on this one.”

♦ Leyla and Vivienne are at lunch in the DFAC on base. REVEAL 2: Intrigue—Why is Vivienne flirting with several guys who pass by? Is she sleeping with them? Reveal later to Leyla that she wants to enjoy life while she can in case her ovarian cancer, for which she underwent chemo a year ago before her latest deployment, doesn’t stay in remission.

♦ Haasim texts to ask Leyla to join him for dinner in town. Vivienne sees Leyla’s sudden smile and asks her if she’s making up with her daughter. Leyla tells her no. Vivienne asks what’s up. Leyla plays coy, gives Vivienne sparse details about Haasim.

♦ Leyla texts Haasim how difficult it is to get permission to leave the base for non-work-related reasons.

♦ TRUST: Her friend, Vivienne tells Leyla how good it would be for her to start dating, have a little fun, find “your person” amid the chaos, good for the soul. DISTRUST: Viv obviously practices what she preaches, but will this get Leyla into trouble—after all, she just met this Lebanese guy (who she knows nothing about) during an explosion at a café while talking with perhaps a local informant.

INCITING INCIDENT (p. 11): TWIST: Haasim is persistent and flirty, so Leyla decides to go to her onsite manager for permission.

♦ She gets a plate of cookies from the DFAC (dining facility).

♦ Leyla takes the cookies to her onsite manager, Kain, who is drinking from a thermos of coffee and whiskey and cleaning his favorite firearm. Jinx, his dog, is asleep under a desk covered in disorganized paperwork. Leyla sets the plate down on the desk.

♦ TWIST: Kain’s gun goes off, fortunately it’s aimed at the ceiling.

♦ DISTRUST: Kain curses, takes another drink, notices the cookies, and samples one.

♦ He hasn’t really noticed Leyla, but she asks him for permission to leave the base. He tells her she can go, but for only two hours after shift.

♦ At a restaurant off-base for dinner, with Haasim’s bodyguards keeping watch from across the room. Leyla and Haasim are enjoying dessert. TWIST/TRUST: Haasim tells Leyla how beautiful she is and he’s never met anyone like her. DISTRUST: Leyla is both flattered and unsure of whether he just wants to sleep with her.

♦ Next, in another TWIST: Haasim asks Leyla to get him the names and contact info for certain U.S. human assets/informants. TRUST OR DISTRUST: He tells her he wants to hire these skilled people and pay them 3 or 4 times what they’re probably trying to survive on now. He tells her that she must keep this entire dinner conversation top secret. REVEAL 3: Mystery—Is this really why he wants the names? Intrigue—what if he wants the names for evil reasons? Mystery—Will Leyla do this for him? Revealed for certain later.

♦ On return to the base, Vivienne asks Leyla how dinner was, and Leyla confides in Vivienne only the part about Haasim complimenting her. Vivienne tells Leyla that Haasim is only speaking the truth.

♦ TWIST: a vehicle suddenly lurches out of the darkness and swerves at them. Vivienne and Leyla have to leap out of the way. DISTRUST: They catch a glimpse of their boss, Kain, at the wheel, and his dog riding shotgun.

♦ Later, Leyla FaceTimes her daughter. The conversation is strained as always.

TURNING POINT 1/BREAK INTO 2 (p. 25): Leyla asks Lead Linguist, AJ, to transfer her to the quieter graveyard shift. TRUST/DISTRUST: When Vivienne asks her why she wants the graveyard shift that everyone hates, Leyla says she needs a quiet office with fewer distractions so she can get more translation work accomplished. REVEAL: Mystery—uh oh, did she decide to get the names for Haasim? Revealed for certain later.

♦ Leyla translates a classified document and communicates with an asset named “Rick.”

♦ Leyla starts baking treats for the team leader and lead linguist and hanging around the office, even when her shift is over and returning before the next shift begins.

♦ Leyla accesses highly classified details about an asset known as “Jimmy” and writes it on a paper she pockets. After shift, she texts the details to Haasim, then slips the note under her mattress.

♦ DISTRUST: Vivienne begins to suspect that Leyla is up to something.

♦ TRUST: Vivienne cannot get in touch with one of their local assets, Amir (with whom Leyla was talking when the café was hit), and asks Leyla whether she has been in touch with him, but Leyla has not.

♦ At shift change, Vivienne sees a message come through on Leyla’s phone. DISTRUST: Vivienne sees that it’s from Haasim and he’s asking for Amir’s location.

♦ TWIST: Base is hit by a drone.

♦ Afterwards, Vivienne talks to Leyla about the text message from Haasim, but Leyla assures her that Haasim is doing this for a good purpose. REVEAL: Mystery–Viv asks how Leyla can know this. Intrigue–Leyla tells Viv she has to trust her gut, but Viv is unconvinced that Leyla can be objective about this man.

♦ DISTRUST: Vivienne goes to talk to Kain about her concerns.

MIDPOINT (p. 55): TRUST: Kain assigns Leyla and Vivienne to a mission off-base to take down insurgents. DISTRUST & REVEAL: Intrigue–Vivienne expresses a smidge of concern to Leyla about the skills of the local interpreter Kain sent with them. Mystery—Leyla asks her why. Suspense—Viv tells Leyla that the local interpreter’s Kurdish (Leyla speaks only Arabic and Viv speaks both Arabic and Kurdish) is off.

♦ Later, Vivienne is killed by mortar fire right in front of Leyla.

♦ DISTRUST & REVEAL: Mystery–Back at the base, Leyla has a heated exchange with Kain. Is he responsible? Intrigue–She blames him for his choice of a local interpreter who mistranslated radio chatter that probably got Vivienne killed.

♦ TWIST & REVEAL: Mystery–Kain is furious with her for accusing him of responsibility for Viv’s death, but is he responsible? Suspense–Kain threatens to reassign her to Afghanistan.

♦ Leyla must persuade Kain not to send her to Afghanistan. She does not want to lose Haasim.

♦ Kain tells her he needs someone to procure women and alcohol for a party, and Leyla tells him she’ll take care of it.

♦ Leyla recruits AJ who has connections in town, to help her. AJ wants to be in good stead with Kain because he likes going off base as often as possible, so he’s pleased to help Leyla with this project.

♦ TWIST: As AJ drives them from his cousin’s liquor store to a nightclub where prostitutes hang out, he suspects they’re being followed, so makes some crazy maneuvers and loses the tail.

♦ Inside the nightclub, Leyla thinks she recognizes one of Haasim’s bodyguards from the restaurant lurking in the shadows. If Haasim finds out that she’s hiring prostitutes, he might call off their marriage, which Leyla couldn’t bear.

♦ She goes to talk to him, but he has disappeared. She runs into the parking lot and sees him jump into a car and drive off.

TURNING POINT 2/BREAK INTO 3 (p. 85): On the way back to the base, they stop at a market so Leyla can bake for Kain and AJ and some of the others.

♦ TWIST: An Iraqi woman comes up to Leyla and asks her if she knows anything about her husband, Amir, whom she hasn’t seen in two days. Leyla hasn’t seen him since the café incident, but was sure he’d gotten away unscathed.

♦ DISTRUST: Leyla begins to suspect that Haasim is not using the details about these assets for peaceful purposes at all. Two of the assets have vanished, and Vivienne, who tried to warn her, is dead.

♦ Much more to come as I flesh out Act 3.

CLIMAX: Leyla is arrested, and the FBI finds the note in Arabic hidden under her mattress.

DENOUEMENT (p. 108): Leyla is escorted to her prison cell. Meets her cell mate, Jolene. When Jolene asks her how long she’s in for, Leyla tells her 23 years.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s Trust Relationships (Assignment 10)

What I learned is: Gotta keep the audience wondering, “can the hero really trust this person?”

Trust/Distrust relationships between characters woven into the thriller map:

OPENING (p. 1): Leyla is at a café hidden away on a backstreet in Erbil, Iraq. She is drinking tea and talking with an Iraqi man, Amir. TWIST: A bomb goes off inside the café. TRUST: A Lebanese man, Haasim, rescues Leyla. DISTRUST: How convenient that a knight in shining armor happens to be there to rescue her. Leyla sees Amir escape uninjured. Leyla and Haasim exchange numbers.

♦ Back at the base, Leyla is translating a document from Arabic into English at a computer in the linguists’ office when Haasim texts her (on Signal) to see how she’s doing. They text back and forth.

♦ Lead Linguist, AJ, comes in with a document. Leyla quickly slips her phone into a desk drawer. AJ hands the page to Vivienne (“Viv”– Leyla’s friend and fellow linguist) and tells her “Need your speed on this one.”

♦ Leyla and Vivienne are at lunch in the DFAC on base. Vivienne flirts with several guys who pass by. Haasim texts to ask Leyla to join him for dinner in town. Vivienne sees Leyla’s sudden smile and asks her if she’s making up with her daughter. Leyla tells her no. Vivienne asks what’s up. Leyla plays coy, gives Vivienne sparse details about Haasim.

♦ Leyla texts Haasim how difficult it is to get permission to leave the base for non-work-related reasons.

♦ TRUST: Her friend, Vivienne tells Leyla how good it would be for her to start dating, have a little fun, find “your person” amid the chaos, good for the soul. DISTRUST: Viv obviously practices what she preaches, but will this get Leyla into trouble—after all, she just met this Lebanese guy (who she knows nothing about) during an explosion at a café while talking with perhaps a local informant.

INCITING INCIDENT (p. 11): TWIST: Haasim is persistent and flirty, so Leyla decides to go to her onsite manager for permission.

♦ She gets a plate of cookies from the DFAC (dining facility).

♦ Leyla takes the cookies to her onsite manager, Kain, who is drinking from a thermos of coffee and whiskey and cleaning his favorite firearm. Jinx, his dog, is asleep under a desk covered in disorganized paperwork. Leyla sets the plate down on the desk.

♦ TWIST: Kain’s gun goes off, fortunately it’s aimed at the ceiling.

♦ DISTRUST: Kain curses, takes another drink, notices the cookies, and samples one.

♦ He hasn’t really noticed Leyla, but she asks him for permission to leave the base. He tells her she can go, but for only two hours after shift.

♦ At a restaurant off-base for dinner, with Haasim’s bodyguards keeping watch from across the room. Leyla and Haasim are enjoying dessert. TWIST/TRUST: Haasim tells Leyla how beautiful she is and he’s never met anyone like her. DISTRUST: Leyla is both flattered and unsure of whether he just wants to sleep with her.

♦ Next, in another TWIST: Haasim asks Leyla to get him the names and contact info for certain U.S. human assets/informants. TRUST OR DISTRUST: He tells her he wants to hire these skilled people and pay them 3 or 4 times what they’re probably trying to survive on now. He tells her that she must keep this entire dinner conversation top secret.

♦ On return to the base, Vivienne asks Leyla how dinner was, and Leyla confides in Vivienne only the part about Haasim complimenting her. Vivienne tells Leyla that Haasim is only speaking the truth.

♦ TWIST: a vehicle suddenly lurches out of the darkness and swerves at them. Vivienne and Leyla have to leap out of the way. DISTRUST: They catch a glimpse of their boss, Kain, at the wheel, and his dog riding shotgun.

♦ Later, Leyla FaceTimes her daughter. The conversation is strained as always.

TURNING POINT 1/BREAK INTO 2 (p. 25): Leyla asks Lead Linguist, AJ, to transfer her to the quieter graveyard shift. TRUST/DISTRUST: When Vivienne asks her why she wants the graveyard shift that everyone hates, Leyla says she needs a quiet office with fewer distractions so she can get more translation work accomplished.

♦ Leyla translates a classified document and communicates with an asset named “Rick.”

♦ Leyla starts baking treats for the team leader and lead linguist and hanging around the office, even when her shift is over and returning before the next shift begins.

♦ Leyla accesses highly classified details about an asset known as “Jimmy” and writes it on a paper she pockets. After shift, she texts the details to Haasim, then slips the note under her mattress.

♦ DISTRUST: Vivienne begins to suspect that Leyla is up to something.

♦ TRUST: Vivienne cannot get in touch with one of their local assets, Amir (with whom Leyla was talking when the café was hit), and asks Leyla whether she has been in touch with him, but Leyla has not.

♦ At shift change, Vivienne sees a message come through on Leyla’s phone. DISTRUST: Vivienne sees that it’s from Haasim and he’s asking for Amir’s location.

♦ TWIST: Base is hit by a drone.

♦ Afterwards, Vivienne talks to Leyla about the text message from Haasim, but Leyla assures her that Haasim is doing this for a good purpose.

♦ DISTRUST: Vivienne goes to talk to Kain about her concerns.

MIDPOINT (p. 55): TRUST: Kain assigns Leyla and Vivienne to a mission off-base to take down insurgents. DISTRUST: Vivienne expresses a smidge of concern to Leyla about the skills of the local interpreter Kain sent with them.

♦ Vivienne is killed by mortar fire right in front of Leyla.

♦ DISTRUST: Leyla has a heated exchange with Kain. She blames him for his choice of a local interpreter who mistranslated radio chatter that probably got Vivienne killed.

♦ TWIST: Kain is furious with her and threatens to reassign her to Afghanistan.

♦ Leyla must persuade Kain not to send her to Afghanistan. She does not want to lose Haasim.

♦ Kain tells her he needs someone to procure women and alcohol for a party, and Leyla tells him she’ll take care of it.

♦ Leyla recruits AJ who has connections in town, to help her. AJ wants to be in good stead with Kain because he likes going off base as often as possible, so he’s pleased to help Leyla with this project.

♦ TWIST: As AJ drives them from his cousin’s liquor store to a nightclub where prostitutes hang out, he suspects they’re being followed, so makes some crazy maneuvers and loses the tail.

♦ Inside the nightclub, Leyla thinks she recognizes one of Haasim’s bodyguards from the restaurant lurking in the shadows. If Haasim finds out that she’s hiring prostitutes, he might call off their marriage, which Leyla couldn’t bear.

♦ She goes to talk to him, but he has disappeared. She runs into the parking lot and sees him jump into a car and drive off.

TURNING POINT 2/BREAK INTO 3 (p. 85): On the way back to the base, they stop at a market so Leyla can bake for Kain and AJ and some of the others.

♦ TWIST: An Iraqi woman comes up to Leyla and asks her if she knows anything about her husband, Amir, whom she hasn’t seen in two days. Leyla hasn’t seen him since the café incident, but was sure he’d gotten away unscathed.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s Twists and Turns (Assignment 9)

What I learned is: a twist is simply an unexpected shift in another direction and is what keeps the audience captivated and gives them the emotionally wild ride they crave.

Structure listed & Life Threatening situations, Mysteries, and Villain’s Plan woven into the gaps:

OPENING (p. 1): Leyla is at a café hidden away on a backstreet in Erbil, Iraq. She is drinking tea and talking with an Iraqi man, Amir. TWIST: A bomb goes off. A Lebanese man, Haasim, rescues Leyla. Leyla sees Amir escape uninjured.

♦ Back at the base, Leyla is translating something at a computer in the linguists’ office when Haasim texts her (on a secure app) to see how she’s doing. They go back and forth. Some of the linguists, working at their computers, glance over at her.

♦ Haasim asks her out. Leyla’s best friend and fellow linguist, Eva, notices Leyla’s sudden smile and wants the tea. Leyla makes up something.

♦ Leyla texts Haasim how difficult it is to get permission to leave the base for non-business reasons.

♦ Lead Linguist, AJ, comes in with a document. Leyla slips her phone into a desk drawer. AJ hands the page to Eva and tells her “Need your speed on this one.”

INCITING INCIDENT (p. 11): He’s persistent and flirty, so she agrees to go to her onsite manager for permission.

♦ She gets a plate of cookies from the DFAC (dining facility). Eva bumps into her and asks her who the cookies are for, and Leyla confides in her about Haasim. Eva warns her to be careful.

♦ Leyla takes the cookies to her onsite manager, Kain, a man drinking from a thermos of coffee and whiskey and cleaning his favorite firearm. Jinx, his dog, is asleep under a desk covered in disorganized paperwork. Leyla sets the plate down on the desk.

♦ TWIST: Kain’s gun goes off, fortunately it’s aimed at the ceiling.

♦ Kain curses, takes another drink, notices the cookies, and samples one.

♦ He hasn’t really noticed Leyla, but she asks him for permission to leave the base. He tells her she can go, but for only two hours.

♦ At a restaurant off-base for dinner, with Haasim’s bodyguards keeping watch from across the room. Leyla and Haasim are enjoying dessert. TWIST: Haasim tells Leyla he’d like to marry her and give her the life of wealth she deserves.

♦ Next, in another TWIST: Haasim asks Leyla to get him the names and contact info for certain U.S. human assets/informants. He tells her he wants to hire these skilled people and pay them 3 or 4 times what they’re probably trying to survive on now. He tells her that she must keep this entire dinner conversation top secret.

♦ On return to the base, Eva asks Leyla how dinner was, and Leyla confides in Eva only the part about Haasim wanting to marry her. Eva looks thoroughly skeptical and concerned, and she voices that to Leyla.

♦ TWIST: a vehicle suddenly lurches out of the darkness and swerves at them. Eva and Leyla have to leap out of the way. They don’t have a chance to see who was driving.

♦ Later, Leyla FaceTimes her daughter. The conversation is strained as always.

TURNING POINT 1/BREAK INTO 2 (p. 25): Leyla asks the Lead Linguist, AJ, to transfer her to the quieter graveyard shift. When Eva asks her why she wants the graveyard shift that everyone hates, Leyla says she needs a quiet office with fewer distractions so she can get more translation work accomplished.

♦ Leyla translates a classified document and communicates with an asset named “Rick.”

♦ Leyla starts baking treats for the team leader and lead linguist and hanging around the office, even when her shift is over and returning before the next shift begins.

♦ Leyla accesses highly classified details about an asset known as “Jimmy” and writes it on a paper she pockets. After shift, she texts the details to Haasim, then slips the note under her mattress.

♦ Eva begins to suspect that Leyla is up to something.

♦ Eva cannot get in touch with one of their local assets, Amir (with whom Leyla was talking when the café was hit), and asks Leyla whether she has been in touch with him, but Leyla has not.

♦ At shift change, Eva sees a message come through on Leyla’s phone. It’s from Haasim and he’s asking for Amir’s location.

♦ TWIST: Base is hit by a drone.

♦ Afterwards, Eva talks to Leyla about this, but Leyla assures her that Haasim is doing this for a good purpose.

♦ Eva goes to talk to Kain about her concerns.

MIDPOINT (p. 55): Kain assigns Leyla and Eva to a mission off-base where Eva is killed by mortar fire right in front of Leyla.

♦ Leyla has a heated exchange with Kain. She blames him for his choice of a local interpreter who mistranslated radio chatter that may have gotten Eva killed.

♦ TWIST: Kain is furious with her and threatens to reassign her to Afghanistan.

♦ Leyla must persuade Kain not to send her to Afghanistan. She does not want to lose Haasim.

♦ Kain tells her he needs someone to procure women and alcohol for a party, and Leyla tells him she’ll take care of it.

♦ Leyla recruits AJ who has connections in town, to help her. AJ wants to be in good stead with Kain because he likes going off base as often as possible, so he’s pleased to help Leyla with this project.

♦ TWIST: As AJ drives them from his cousin’s liquor store to a nightclub where prostitutes hang out, he suspects they’re being followed, so makes some crazy maneuvers and loses the tail.

♦ Inside the nightclub, Leyla thinks she recognizes one of Haasim’s bodyguards from the restaurant lurking in the shadows. If Haasim finds out that she’s hiring prostitutes, he might call off their marriage, which Leyla couldn’t bear.

♦ She goes to talk to him, but he has disappeared. She runs into the parking lot and sees him jump into a car and drive off.

TURNING POINT 2/BREAK INTO 3 (p. 85): On the way back to the base, they stop at a market so Leyla can bake for Kain and AJ and some of the others.

♦ TWIST: An Iraqi woman comes up to Leyla and asks her if she knows anything about her husband, Amir, whom she hasn’t seen in two days. Leyla hasn’t seen him since the café incident, but was sure he’d gotten away unscathed.

♦ Leyla begins to suspect that Haasim is not using the details about these assets for peaceful purposes at all. Two of the assets have vanished, and Eva, who tried to warn her, is dead.

♦ Much more to come as I flesh out Act 3.

CLIMAX: Leyla is arrested, and the FBI finds the note in Arabic hidden under her mattress.

DENOUEMENT (p. 108): Leyla is escorted to her prison cell. Meets her cell mate, Jolene. When Jolene asks her how long she’s in for, Leyla tells her 23 years.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s Thriller Plot! (Assignment 8)

What I learned is: this is where I can write my beats within the basic (3-Act) structure by weaving in the mystery sequences (Mystery), life threatening situations (Suspense), and Villain’s plan (Intrigue) to build the thriller plot. Genius!

Structure listed & Life Threatening situations, Mysteries, and Villain’s Plan woven into the gaps:

OPENING (p. 1): Leyla is at a café hidden away on a backstreet in Erbil, Iraq. She is talking with local Iraqi asset, Amir. A bomb goes off. Haasim rescues Leyla and Eva.

♦ Back at the base, Leyla is at work when Haasim texts her (on a secure app) to see how she’s doing.

♦ He asks her out, and she says it’s difficult to get permission to leave the base for non-business reasons.

INCITING INCIDENT (p. 11): He’s persistent and flirty, so she agrees to go to her onsite manager for permission.

♦ She gets a plate of cookies from the DFAC (dining facility). Eva, best friend and fellow linguist, sees her and asks her who the cookies are for, and Leyla makes up a story.

♦ She takes them to her onsite manager, Kain, a man drinking from a thermos of coffee and whiskey and wound up so tight, he’s sure to explode any second. But the cookies are his favorites. He tells her she can go, but for only two hours.

♦ At a restaurant off-base for dinner, Haasim tells Leyla he’d like to marry her and give her the life of wealth she deserves. Haasim’s bodyguards are keeping watch from across the room.

♦ Haasim asks Leyla to get him the names of certain U.S. human assets. He tells her this is for good and peaceful purposes.

♦ On return to the base, Eva asks Leyla where she was for dinner, and notices how happy Leyla looks, so asks her why. Leyla confides in Eva that she’s feeling something for Haasim.

♦ Kain is driving around the base in the dark, drunk as a skunk, and comes close to hitting them both.

♦ Leyla FaceTimes her daughter. The conversation is strained.

TURNING POINT 1/BREAK INTO 2 (p. 25): Leyla asks the Lead Linguist, AJ, to be transferred to the quieter graveyard shift. When Eva asks her why she wants the graveyard shift that everyone hates, Leyla says she needs a quiet office with fewer distractions so she can get more translation work accomplished.

♦ Leyla translates a classified document and communicates with an asset named “Rick.”

♦ Leyla starts baking treats for the team leader and lead linguist and hanging around the office, even when her shift is over and returning before the next shift begins.

♦ Leyla accesses highly classified details about an asset known as “Jimmy” and writes it on a paper she pockets. After shift, she texts the details to Haasim, then slips the note under her mattress.

♦ Eva begins to suspect that Leyla is up to something.

♦ Eva cannot get in touch with one of their local assets, Amir (with whom Leyla was talking when the café was hit), and asks Leyla whether she has been in touch with him, but Leyla has not.

♦ At shift change, Eva sees a message come through on Leyla’s phone. It’s from Haasim and he’s asking for Amir’s location.

♦ Eva talks to Leyla about this, but Leyla assures her that Haasim is doing this for a good purpose.

♦ Eva goes to talk to Kain about her concerns.

MIDPOINT (p. 55): Kain assigns Leyla and Eva to a mission off-base where Eva is killed by mortar fire right in front of Leyla.

♦ Leyla has a heated exchange with Kain. She blames him for his choice of a local interpreter who mistranslated radio chatter that may have gotten Eva killed.

♦ Kain is furious with her and threatens to reassign her to Afghanistan.

♦ Leyla must persuade Kain not to send her to Afghanistan. She does not want to lose Haasim.

♦ Kain tells her he needs someone to procure women and alcohol for a party, and Leyla tells him she’ll take care of it.

♦ Leyla recruits AJ who has connections in town, to help her. AJ wants to be in good stead with Kain because he likes going off base as often as possible, so he’s pleased to help Leyla with this project.

♦ As AJ drives them from his cousin’s liquor store to a nightclub where prostitutes hang out, he suspects they’re being followed, so makes some crazy maneuvers and loses the tail.

♦ Inside the nightclub, Leyla thinks she recognizes one of Haasim’s bodyguards from the restaurant lurking in the shadows. If Haasim finds out that she’s hiring prostitutes, he might call off their marriage, which Leyla couldn’t bear.

♦ She goes to talk to him, but he has disappeared. She runs into the parking lot and sees him jump into a car and drive off.

TURNING POINT 2/BREAK INTO 3 (p. 85): On the way back to the base, they stop at a market so Leyla can bake for Kain and AJ and some of the others. An Iraqi woman comes up to Leyla and asks her if she knows anything about her husband, Amir, whom she hasn’t seen in two days. Leyla hasn’t seen him since the café incident, but was sure he’d gotten away unscathed.

♦ Leyla begins to suspect that Haasim is not using the details about these assets for peaceful purposes at all. Two of the assets have vanished, and Eva, who tried to warn her, is dead.

♦ Much more to come as I flesh out Act 3.

CLIMAX: Leyla is arrested, and the FBI finds the note in Arabic hidden under her mattress.

DENOUEMENT (p. 108): Leyla is escorted to her prison cell. Meets her cell mate, Jolene. When Jolene asks her how long she’s in for, Leyla tells her 23 years.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s Life Threatening Sequence (Assignment 7)

What I learned is: Most—if not all—scenes should probably have a threat of serious danger in them, and writing out this Life Threatening Sequence appears to be—if I’m on the right track, and I would completely love and enormously appreciate feedback here as to whether I’m doing this right—a great way to write a beat sheet of sorts, in that each beat ideally should have a threat to life or limb in it. So cool!

What is the Villain’s plan and
how does that put the Hero in danger?

♦ The Villain’s (Haasim’s) plan is to convince Leyla (the Hero) to use her top secret security clearance to access highly classified details about certain U.S. human assets and turn over those details to him.

♦ If Leyla accesses those details about which she is not on a need to know basis, then she could be found out, arrested, and potentially be charged with and possibly ultimately convicted of espionage, for which she would serve time in prison and thereby lose her freedom.

2. What other potential dangers could your Hero experience as she tries to solve the mystery and confront the Villain?

♦ Not only could she lose her freedom, but her reputation, career, and income would be destroyed.

♦ She would also endanger her already fragile relationship with her only child (her daughter), potentially putting it beyond the point of no return.

♦ Depending on her sentence if convicted, she could grow old and die alone in prison.

♦ The Villain is luring her into a situation riddled with dangers.

♦ She might be watched/be under surveillance.

♦ She might see people around her be killed.

♦ She might be humiliated if she is caught.

♦ She might be betrayed.

♦ She might be betraying the confidences of others with whom she has worked alongside.

♦ She might be placing in danger the lives of the U.S. human assets (and their families).

3. From the list of potential
dangers, choose the ones that work for this story.<div>

<div>

♦ She risks losing her freedom if she is caught, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

♦ She risks losing her reputation as a highly skilled, dedicated linguist for the U.S. government.

♦ She risks losing her career as a linguist.

♦ She risks losing her income, with which she can pay off the debts her dead husband left her with.

♦ She risks losing all contact with her daughter (who is 22), with whom she already has a tumultuous, volatile relationship.

♦ She might be risking the lives of others around her.

4. Sequence those dangers in order
and make a list like the one I did for Basic Instinct above.

♦ Opens with a bomb detonating in a café in Iraq where Leyla and fellow linguist, Eva, are having tea with a local interpreter, Amir.

♦ Haasim rescues them, and he and Leyla exchange numbers.

♦ Back at the base, Leyla is at work when Haasim texts her (on a secure app) to see how she’s doing.

♦ He asks her out, and she says it’s difficult to get permission to leave the base for non-business reasons.

♦ He’s persistent and flirty, so she agrees to try.

♦ She gets a plate of cookies from the DFAC (dining facility). Eva sees her and asks her who the cookies are for, and Leyla makes up a story.

♦ She takes them to her onsite manager, Kain, a man drinking from a thermos of coffee and whiskey and wound up so tight, he’s sure to explode any second. They’re his favorites. He tells her she can go, but for only two hours.

♦ She meets Haasim who tells her he’d like to marry her and give her the life of wealth she deserves.

♦ On return to the base, Eva says she came by Leyla’s quarters to get her for dinner, but she wasn’t there. Eva asks why Leyla looks so happy.

♦ Kain is driving around the base in the dark, drunk as a skunk, and comes super close to hitting them both.

♦ Leyla FaceTimes her daughter. The conversation is strained.

♦ Haasim asks Leyla to get him the names of certain U.S. human assets. He tells her this is for good and peaceful purposes.

♦ Leyla asks the Lead Linguist to be transferred to the quieter graveyard shift. When Eva asks her why she wants the graveyard shift that everyone hates, Leyla says she needs a quiet office with fewer distractions so she can get more translation work accomplished.

♦ Leyla translates a classified document and communicates with an asset named “Rick.”

♦ Leyla starts baking treats for the team leader and lead linguist and hanging around the office, even when her shift is over and returning before the next shift begins.

♦ Leyla accesses highly classified details about an asset known as “Jimmy” and writes it on a paper she pockets. After shift, she texts the details to Haasim, then slips the note under her mattress.

♦ Eva begins to suspect that Leyla is up to something.

♦ Eva cannot get in touch with Amir, the local they had tea with at the café and asks Leyla whether she has been in touch with him, but Leyla has not.

♦ Eva goes to talk to Kain about her concerns.

♦ Kain assigns Leyla and Eva to a mission off-base where Eva is killed by mortar fire right in front of Leyla.

</div></div>

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s Mystery Sequence (Assignment 6)

What I learned is: the power of starting with the secret and brainstorming how that could be covered up, and then writing the cover up as the reality. And it’s very helpful for me if I listen to Jason Stephenson music (chill, calm, inspiring instrumental—no lyrics) while brainstorming.

To create your Villain’s plan, answer these four questions:

1. What is the big secret that the Villain is covering up?

· My Villain, Haasim, plans to have U.S. human assets killed with the classified information that Leyla retrieves for him.

2. How many ways can he cover that secret?

· Leyla initially believes what Haasim tells her–that he is using the information for a peaceful purpose (to recruit talented U.S. assets to help prevent targeted strikes in the works by U.S. enemies, such as Iran).

· Leyla’s linguist colleague and best friend on the base is killed in the field while on a mission.

· Many security, drug, & alcohol rules and laws are being knowingly violated by the employees of Leyla’s private contractor employer on the base, and Leyla is violating them, too.

· The onsite manager (Daniel, a guy with many flaws, a volatile temper, and an alcohol problem) appears to be up to no good and maybe even selling classified information to Iran.

· Leyla is getting so deeply involved with procuring classified information that at a certain point, she can no longer just quit stealing secrets for Haasim and walk away, even if she wanted to.

3. The first mystery must engage the Hero into solving it.

· The meeting between Leyla and Haasim is orchestrated by Haasim who has his operatives fire into a café where Leyla is drinking tea so that he can “rescue” her, but it won’t be obvious to the viewer that Haasim planned everything.

· At the café before the hit takes place, Leyla is talking with her best friend and fellow linguist, Eva, about how she fears getting old alone with no one to love her.

· After Haasim “rescues” Leyla, they begin a relationship—mostly texting and chatting online while Leyla continues her translation work on the base in Iraq, and she begins falling for her knight, who offers her marriage and a life of wealth.

· Haasim then asks her to get him the true names of certain U.S. human assets because he wants to employ them (for good & peaceful purposes).

· Leyla begins the process of accessing the classified information with her top secret security clearance by asking to switch to the graveyard shift, by hanging around the office (where the linguists’ computers are) before and after her shift, offering to cook for the military team leader—a young guy new to his role—and two of the linguists in charge of the other linguists.

4. Sequence the mysteries so that each one leads us to the next one.

· First mystery is was it sheer coincidence that Haasim happened to be there to “rescue” Leyla from the café when it’s hit (by an RPG or a bomb)?

· Second mystery is what is Haasim really going to do with the classified info Leyla retrieves for him?

· Third mystery is what is Daniel, the volatile onsite manager, up to?

· Fourth mystery is what is the real reason Leyla’s best friend and fellow linguist, Eva, is killed in the field on a mission?

5. Create a Mystery Chain for each main mystery. (I think First Mystery Chain is no. 3 above)

· Second Mystery Chain:

• Haasim tells Leyla that he wants to pay these talented U.S. assets to help prevent targeted strikes in the works by U.S. enemies, such as Iran.
• Leyla is pleased to help him, especially because she is romantically attracted to him, and he tells her he will marry her and give her a life of wealth.
• Leyla knows that she can access this highly classified information with her top secret clearance, but she does not have a “need to know” it, so her risk is enormous.
• Leyla must distract her co-workers and the team leader and other military members so that they don’t notice her spending extra time at the computer, so she asks to be transferred to the “quieter” graveyard shift so she “can get more translation work accomplished.” She also cooks meals for them, so she can be close to the office before and after her shift.
• We get to know a couple of the U.S. assets who communicate using fake names with Leyla and other linguists as necessary for mission translation purposes via secure text.

· Third Mystery Chain:

• Daniel, the volatile onsite manager, is probably my Red Herring, but I haven’t quite figured out how yet. Something to do with Haasim’s cover ups for his Secret that points to Daniel being guilty when one of the U.S. assets is killed.

· Fourth Mystery Chain:

• Eva begins to suspect that Leyla is doing something clandestine on the computer at night.
• Eva wonders why one of the U.S. assets with whom she has been communicating for mission translation purposes turns up dead.
• Eva tries to talk to Daniel about her suspicions.
• Eva tries to tell Leyla that something is terribly wrong about this.
• Eva is killed in the field on a mission that Daniel assigned her to.
• Leyla begins to put together the horrifying
  pieces, but is it too late for her?

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s Villain Has a Great Plan! (Assignment 5)

What I learned from this is that by exploring how the villain can cover up his road to his goal, the villain can become far more evil, complex, and driven, while his cover-ups create more seemingly insurmountable obstacles for the hero, but the hero and the audience won’t necessarily realize what the villain is doing until later when we’re all—hero, too—invested.

To create your Villain’s plan, answer these four questions:

1. What is the end goal?

· My Villain, Haasim (a Lebanese national), wants to obtain the top secret classified information—true names, cell phone numbers, roles—on the U.S. human assets working covertly on a particular U.S. strike that took out a terrorist leader.

2. How can the Villain accomplish that in a devious way?

· He uses the “honey pot” method: he lures Leyla, a linguist with Top Secret clearance, who is employed by a private government contractor for the U.S. military on a base in Iraq, by developing a romantic relationship with her and promising her marriage, love, and a life of wealth in exchange for top secret classified information to which she has access but does not “need to know.”

3. How can they cover it up?

· Pretend that when he & Leyla meet, it is completely serendipitous, even though his operatives are the ones who fire into the café so that he can rescue her.

· Prove to Leyla that he is wealthy and can give her the life she desires.

· Act like he is falling in love with Leyla and wants to marry her and love her forever.

· Convince Leyla that he is using the information for a peaceful purpose.

· Have Leyla’s friend killed before her friend is able to warn Leyla, without Leyla knowing that Haasim is the reason her friend is dead.

· Use a secure messaging app, like Signal, for chatting, romancing, and receiving classified information.

· Take advantage of the security, drug, & alcohol violations by the employees of Leyla’s private contractor employer on the base.

· Get Leyla in deeper & deeper so that she can’t just quit stealing secrets for Haasim and walk away, even if she wanted to.

Sequence it to make it as intriguing as possible.

· I’ll be rearranging some of the above pieces as I engineer the villain’s plan and add devious, evil, horrible acts to it.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s SOTL Stacking Suspense

My list of everything I learned:

1) Wow! This movie is so solid. It came out in 1991, 32 years ago (where in heaven’s name did the time go???!!!), yet it’s just as tightly and soundly structured as the best of them today.

2) Every scene has a clear purpose, and if it doesn’t have “suspense,” then it has “mystery” or “intrigue” or both. Most of the scenes have stakes and 95% have clear Character M.I.S.

3) The second scene, which is Clarice in Crawford’s office, shoves us suddenly, directly into a fiery pit of “mystery,” “intrigue,” and “suspense,” after the “action” of Clarice seeing the news articles & horrific pics on Crawford’s walls of Bill skins 5th. Crawford tells Clarice that Hannibal Lecter won’t talk to anyone, and he doesn’t expect that Hannibal will talk to Clarice, but says we have to try.

So we’re wondering who is this psycho who won’t talk to anyone, will he talk to Clarice, how will she try to get him to talk, and maybe this is her way into Behavioral Science with Crawford if she can get him to talk. And Crawford tells her don’t give Hannibal any personal information because “Believe me, you don’t want him inside your head.” That raises the stakes, so now we’re very concerned about Clarice’s mental health and her well-being because we saw in the opening scene right before this one how dedicated, determined, and young she is in this world of mostly men. And she’s just a trainee, just starting her career. And we like her. I like her a lot, so I care about what happens to her.

4) I filled out the chart for every scene, which maybe is partly why I liked it sooooo much better this time around. I mean, I remember that I watched it sometime after it left the theaters, but I don’t recall thinking it was anything terribly special then as I do now.

5) So after the scene in Crawford’s office, Clarice goes to the asylum in Baltimore where Dr. Lecter is housed, and the “mystery” builds as she has to go through all of the guards and locked doors and protocols and hear the rules, and we are wondering how is Clarice going to manage (especially after the egotistical, obnoxious Dr. Chilton shows a picture to her and explains what Hannibal did to a nurse). And the “intrigue” builds as to why all of these guards and locked doors and protocols and rules are required, i.e., who the hell is Hannibal Lecter? (And in a much later scene, Catherine’s mother refers to him as something non-human after he gets inside her head.) “Character M.I.S.” shows up when Clarice bravely, calmly, in her determined manner, tells Chilton she should go alone. Of course, this is a huge kick to Chilton’s giant ego. And the “suspense” builds as Clarice walks down the hall, alone, toward Hannibal’s cell.

6) The scene in Memphis, TN is great. We meet Catherine as she’s driving and singing and then parking at her apartment where her cat is waiting for her at the window. And then we meet Bill. We don’t know it’s Bill yet, and the M.I.S. is all there. We’re thinking, uh-oh, who is this guy pretending to move furniture at night right outside this girl’s apartment. Is this Bill, about to capture his next vic? Of course, Catherine goes to help him (her M.I.S.=trusting, helpful, kind), and we’re thinking, oh noooo, do not help this guy. And then, when he lures her into his vehicle and knocks her out, we’re thinking, what the hell is he going to do with her now? Skin her, no doubt. And at stake of course, is Catherine’s life, and the cat meows as Bill drives off with Catherine.

7) I could go on with each scene, but I don’t think anyone will want to read it because we’re all doing this assignment! I’m sure this chart I filled out in detail (with my fave purple ink), along with Hal’s Basic Instinct chart, is going to be very helpful in the very near future. This was an awesome assignment, and I’m so excited to try implementing this method of structuring scenes in all of my thrillers.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s BI Stacking Suspense

My list of everything I learned:

1) The gradual reveal—over the course of a number of scenes, like slowly peeling away the layers of an onion—of both Nick’s and Catherine’s characters’ flaws and past histories and M.I.S.

2) Beth’s reveal of her psychopathic nature doesn’t happen until much further on when Nick discovers that Beth is Lisa Hoberman. That was a good, eerie wow moment. I kind of wish it had been sooner because that for me was when the movie started getting really exciting. Before that, everything felt a bit too predictable and almost boring (but perhaps that was because the movie came out in 1992, which is 31 years ago). Holy cow, time flies. But audiences expect more now.

3) That said, I definitely noticed how essential every scene was because every scene had a purpose, a reveal of some sort, for the mystery of whether Catherine is the killer of her lovers and husband(s) and whether her books are meant as covers for her murders.

4) I do like the ice pick under the bed at the very end because we don’t know if she’ll kill him with it sometime in the future. But I guess not today. Although the day ain’t over yet. And she did say to Nick, several scenes before that, “Somebody has to die” in the story or the books won’t sell.

5) I like that we don’t get to figure out some things until later, like who killed Nilsan, after Beth’s character starts unraveling.

6) Near the end, when the cops are all looking at Beth’s stalking photos of Catherine, I like that one of them says to Nick (who has recently shot and killed Beth), “You just can’t tell about people, can you?” And then more pointedly to Nick, he adds, “Even the ones you think you know inside and out.”

7) I wish Nick has been a slightly more likeable character so that I could have cared whether he lived or died. Even when someone is a “problem detective” and has all of Nick’s other flaws (and he has many), I absolutely can empathize and care about what happens to him when he has something—anything—nice or likeable in his character or in a moment somewhere that he shows us, but Nick did not show me anything, so I didn’t really care about him, which reduced some of the potential intrigue and suspense for me.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s World and Characters! (Assignment 3)

What I learned doing this assignment is: The importance and fun of going another layer deep to find the Big M.I.S. of my top 2 characters. I see that I’m fleshing out Leyla and Haasim to be more real and 3D, and at the same time, I’m gradually building a much more solid foundation for–dare I say it–an actual for-real thriller.

The Linguist

by Maggie Tsavaris

(inspired by several true stories)

Concept: Leyla is a linguist who deeply fears growing old alone is working for the U.S. government in Iraq. She meets a wealthy and connected Lebanese man, Haasim, who promises her a life of love and comfort in exchange for highly classified details on human assets, and she must decide whether to betray her country and risk the lives of human assets for a life she dreams of.

KEY: Leyla’s biggest fear of growing old alone plays right into Haasim’s plan.

The Big M.I.S. of my story:

Big Mystery: Will Leyla access
highly classified information to which she has access but which she has no
need to know, and if she does, will she turn over classified information
to Haasim, and if she does, what will happen to her and to the human
assets?

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris’s Big M.I.S. (Assignment 2)

What I learned doing this assignment is:

1) I’m even more excited (like bursting at the seams!) to write this script because after doing this assignment is that answering these questions shows me that I’ll be able to bring this story–that’s been floating around in my head since suddenly last summer–to life and make it a nail-biter of a thriller if I can flesh out each of these moving parts.

2) I need another supporting character I realized as I wrote my answer to “Life and death situations”: another linguist who starts thinking something’s going on with Leyla.

The Linguist

by Maggie Tsavaris

(inspired by several true stories)

Logline: When a linguist working for the U.S. government in Iraq is approached by a wealthy and connected Lebanese man who promises her a life of love and comfort in exchange for top secret information, she must decide whether to betray her country and risk the lives of human assets for him.

1. What are the conventions of your story?

• Unwitting but Resourceful Hero: The
  linguist, Leyla, is a widow whose dead husband left her in debt and with a
  young adult daughter with whom she has a volatile relationship. She has
  Top Secret clearance and works hard at her assignment to a U.S. special
  ops task force facility in Iraq.

• Dangerous Villain: A wealthy,
  connected Lebanese national, Haasim, with whom Leyla forms a romantic
  connection over time, asks her to supply him with detailed information of individuals
  involved in the assassination of an Iranian commander.
• High stakes: Leyla’s life, the
  lives of the U.S. human assets (some of whom we get to know and love), the
  lives of her colleagues on the base who work with the assets.
• Life and death situations: I have
  not yet fleshed these out, but I have images–eerie and suspenseful, but
  fleeting for now–in mind. I’m also thinking that there is another
  linguist who works on the base with Leyla who, because he starts to think
  something might be up with her, unwittingly endangers himself.
• This story is thrilling because? Each
  step forward takes Leyla and the human assets closer to a danger from
  which they might not recover.

2. Tell us the Big M.I.S. of your story?

• Big Mystery: Will Leyla access highly
  classified information to which she has access but which she has no need
  to know, and if she does, will she turn over classified information to
  Haasim, and if she does, what will happen to her and to the human assets?

• Big Intrigue: Does Haasim really
  love Leyla, and what is he going to do with the details of the human
  assets if she turns it over to him? Hmmm, I’m not sure whether this is
  really the Big Intrigue. Doesn’t quite feel intriguing enough.
• Big Suspense: Leyla risks going to
  prison if she’s caught, and the assets, if their details are divulged to a
  terrorist organization, will be killed.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Side Effects was directed by Steven Soderbergh and starred Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. This is a psychological thriller with several plot twists.

Unwitting but resourceful Hero: Dr. Banks (Jude Law), current psychiatrist for 28-year-old Emily (Mara).

Dangerous villain: Initially, we think it’s only Emily’s former psychiatrist, Dr. Seibert (Zeta-Jones), but in one of the plot twists later on, it is revealed to us that it also is Emily, who conspires with Dr. Seibert.

High stakes: After Dr. Banks is convinced (by Emily & Dr. Seibert, in their underhanded ways) to put Emily on Ablixa for her depression, Emily murders her gorgeous husband, Martin (Tatum), while feigning one of the alleged side effects of Ablixa, sleepwalking. (Martin has just been released from prison for insider trading, and near the very end of the movie, we learn that Emily has taught Dr. Seibert all that Emily learned from her husband).

Life and death situations: When Emily goes on trial for the murder, she makes a deal with the prosecution and is acquitted of murder (because when sleepwalking, no intent) in exchange for being admitted to a psychiatric hospital as a victim of Ablixa’s side effects and followed up by Dr. Banks. Meanwhile, Dr. Banks is blamed for directly causing the murder of Martin by Emily, and he loses everything: his practice, his income from consulting with Big Pharma, and his wife and very cute stepson.

This movie is thrilling because at first, Emily appears to us be deeply depressed, everyone knows she is, and she appears to try to complete suicide twice—always in public (so that she has witnesses as to her depression, Dr. Banks learns at the same time we, the viewers, learn). When she murders Martin (3 well-placed stabs with a chef’s knife to his body), we are starting to wonder whether she’s truly sleepwalking, but mostly we are, even though we’re thinking that that knife must be sharp as hell for that small-boned woman to be able to kill big, strong Martin to where he can’t even put up a fight and he bleeds out on the floor. Anyway, it’s pretty eerie and chilling when we realize that sweet little depressed Emily isn’t sweet or depressed at all.

Big Mystery: Is Emily truly a victim of Ablixa and didn’t intend to murder her husband?

Big Intrigue: How is Dr. Seibert involved because surely she is: she is Emily’s former psychiatrist, so Dr. Banks touches base with her a number of times to ask her questions about Emily and about Ablixa.

Big Suspense: Will the determined Dr. Banks be able to uncover an alternate truth, even though we watch Emily “sleepwalking” and stabbing her husband, so there doesn’t appear to be another truth that can save Dr. Banks’s reputation, his career, and bring his family back to him.

Anything else that made this movie a great thriller? I like that we were in the dark with Dr. Banks and were finding clues and piecing them together to learn the truth along with him.

What
I learned from doing this assignment is that although I usually abhor the
perfect, happy ending, this ending was very satisfying because not only did the
kind and handsome Dr. Banks get his entire life back, he also took a
super-clever revenge against each villain (gave them a taste of their own medicine, shall
we say)—he got Emily committed back into the psychiatric hospital where she
clearly was drugged and a zombie staring out the little window of the stone-cold
institution, and he got Dr. Seibert taken off in handcuffs for insider trading
on Ablixa stock. Sweet!

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Maggie Tsavaris. 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.

[Maggie Tsavaris]

Hello all,

I’m Maggie Tsavaris and I’m currently a lawyer and law professor. Scripts: I’ve written a tv pilot (thriller–human trafficking at sea), which I later wrote as a feature, and I wrote an action thriller feature about an evil ship’s doctor. I started a supernatural thriller feature many moons ago and haven’t yet finished it. In this class, I’m hoping to learn how to write a tightly constructed, engrossing thriller. Fun fact: I drove cruise ships and megayachts all over the globe for 12 years. Oh, and I have a Kevin Bacon number of one! LOL.