[Monica Romero]

Monica Romero

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.

[Monica Romero]

Monica’s 4 Act Transformational Structure

What I learned from this assignment is my story points need to be explicitly shown on the page in order for the story to play out successfully. I need to be diligent about ensuring actions are motivated and goals as well as opposition and conflicts are clear and singular throughout

LULU

Concept – Lulu wants to break out of the family mold by dropping out of school to go far from home and be a writer instead of taking over the family business Main Conflict – she wants a creative life away from family but dad blew up both the business and the family and now she’s stuck trying to fix it Old Ways – Lulu is insecure, belongs nowhere, feels no acceptance New Ways – Lulu embraces her family and caring for them and takes over the family business with love and confidence, feeling love and belonging

2. Fill in each of these with the answers you have right now.

Act 1:

Opening – Lulu striving for her dream unbeknownst to parents Inciting Incident – Parents find out Lulu lied to them about being in school and does not plan to come back home and JOIN (not take over) the family business Turning Point – instead of releasing college fund, dad forces her to stay home for a year and prove she can adult by running the business

Act 2:

New plan – she’ll agree to stay but quickly self sabotage so dad intentionally releases her from the commitment (fires her) Plan in action – she actively tries to be the worst store manager ever and ACTIVELY cause the business to lose customers money Midpoint Turning Point – She discovers the store is in much worse financial shape than dad had let on, and she can no longer sabotage it in good conscience

Act 3:

Rethink everything: Lulu now has to do a 180 and do everything she can to make the business healthy again New plan – go hard after customers and against the competition PLUS she HAS TO team up with least likely ally, her dad’s GF Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift – she learns dad has mismanaged the store so badly that he’s blown through her college fund and it no longer exists. The carrot he was holding out was a lie. AND she has no money for her dream

Act 4:

Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict – under pressure she discovers that she has what it takes to rescue her family and actually enjoys it Resolution – even as things go from bad to worse, she has a NEW MOTIVATION to stay and win this fight (what is that new motivation? What changes her perspective?)

[Monica Romero]

Monica’s 4 Act Transformational Structure

What I learned from this assignment is my story points need to be explicitly shown on the page in order for the story to play out successfully. I need to be diligent about ensuring actions are motivated and goals as well as opposition and conflicts are clear and singular throughout

LULU

Concept – Lulu wants to break out of the family mold by dropping out of school to go far from home and be a writer instead of taking over the family business
Main Conflict – she wants a creative life away from family but dad blew up both the business and the family and now she’s stuck trying to fix it
Old Ways – Lulu is insecure, belongs nowhere, feels no acceptance
New Ways – Lulu embraces her family and caring for them and takes over the family business with love and confidence, feeling love and belonging

2. Fill in each of these with the answers you have right now.

Act 1:

Opening – Lulu striving for her dream unbeknownst to parents
Inciting Incident – Parents find out Lulu lied to them about being in school and does not plan to come back home and JOIN (not take over) the family business
Turning Point – instead of releasing college fund, dad forces her to stay home for a year and prove she can adult by running the business

Act 2:

New plan – she’ll agree to stay but quickly self sabotage so dad intentionally releases her from the commitment (fires her)
Plan in action – she actively tries to be the worst store manager ever and ACTIVELY cause the business to lose customers money
Midpoint Turning Point – She discovers the store is in much worse financial shape than dad had let on, and she can no longer sabotage it in good conscience

Act 3:

Rethink everything: Lulu now has to do a 180 and do everything she can to make the business healthy again
New plan – go hard after customers and against the competition PLUS she HAS TO team up with least likely ally, her dad’s GF
Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift – she learns dad has mismanaged the store so badly that he’s blown through her college fund and it no longer exists. The carrot he was holding out was a lie. AND she has no money for her dream

Act 4:

Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict – under pressure she discovers that she has what it takes to rescue her family and actually enjoys it
Resolution – even as things go from bad to worse, she has a NEW MOTIVATION to stay and win this fight (what is that new motivation? What changes her perspective?)

[Monica Romero]

Monica’s character interviews

What I learned from this assignment is my character’s M.O. in the face of conflict is different than what I first imagined. Hearing her answers to these questions showed me a very specific choice that she would make which is actually on brand for her and therefore more authentic and motivated.

Lulu dreams of being a published, best selling, award winning acclaimed novelist. But she doesn’t feel capable of this yet. She secretly thinks she’ll be able to manipulate her Dad into letting her go to the colony (giving her the money to join the colony) if she just appears to give in now and endures being at home for a few weeks or months. She thinks if she SHOWS HIM JUST HOW BAD SHE IS he’ll release her to do what she loves—that their plan will backfire because she will sabotage it. She doesn’t want her parents to know that she doesn’t intend to work the business for a year like she promised. She just said that to get them off her back. Her secret plan is to agree but then to do a horrible job forcing them to get her out of there. She has full confidence that her dad is financially very successful and can give her all the money she needs. She thinks if she actually succeeds at this challenge her parents will win and she will fail, be stuck at home indefinitely and say trapped in her current life. In this sense she inherited some of her dad’s passive aggressive nature. Her side of the story is she spent her whole life pleasing her parents and being miserable for it, and now it’s only fair she should get to spread her wings. She sees a chance to escape and she knows if she doesn’t take it she’d hate herself, so she feels completely justified in the ‘white lies’ she told about being enrolled in college when she really flunked out and then dropped out. To undertake the challenge of running the business the most difficult thing will be having to ask for help from dad’s girlfriend, which she will try to avoid at all costs even though she knows more about commerce than she does. Even harder than that will be having to live at home in the midst of a crazy family situation. She thinks she understands what makes her father and mother tick and that will give her an advantage along with her resourcefulness. Ultimately she thinks words can help her resolve anything. The wound that most holds her back is that she overheard her father say that he wishes he had kids who were more like him so they could also be successful. This hurt Lulu deeply and left her feeling she will never be good enough to please her dad or meet his expectations. Her mother is also a perfectionist, a trait Lulu seems to have inherited from her although she’d hate to admit anything in common with her mother.

[Monica Romero]

Monica’s character profiles part 2

What I learned from this assignment is taking the time up front to flesh out all these various aspects of a profile can help create a believable, more three dimensional character and also inform the specific choices they will make.

Lulu –

What draws us to this character? We see she makes choices out of passion and deep conviction but also can get herself into trouble. We want to see her realize her ideals and admire her drive but also can’t look away from the potential train wreck. We want to see if she succeeds.
Traits: idealistic, perfectionist, loves words, overly independent, won’t ask for help, insecure, not identified deeply with her roots
Subtext: disdain for her upbringing and the life her parents created for her. she resents having to ask for anything and will avoid it like the plague
Flaw: IDEALISTIC perfectionist like her mom, prideful like her dad, too idealistic
Values: creativity, believing money is evil, self reliance
Irony: Worst suited person to run a business will end up being the one to do it. Feels least like she belongs among her family and at home, and the place she wants most desperately to escape is where she’ll be stuck.
What makes this the right character for this role? She has enough drive and passion to move the story forward and we want to see if she succeeds or falls flat on her face. she is the worst person for the task ahead which is essentially to keep her family together and afloat in the midst of impending financial ruin.

Memo:

What draws us to this character? He has a soft side under his rigid demeanor and he prides himself on being a provider; noble. We empathize with him because we see he reacts and behaves out of hurt.
Traits: serious on the outside, sense of humor, noble, generous, moral conservative, traditional views, loves deeply, insecure
Subtext: often defensive, can wall up to protect his emotions or hide them, constantly watching others’ behavior for disrespect, passive aggressive
Flaw: insecure, needy? Wounded? He too won’t ask for help when needed? Prideful? PRIDEFUL
Values: family, fatherhood, work ethic, machismo
Irony: He values family but is breaking up his marriage and is unfaithful to his wife, whom he deeply loves. He prides himself in being a good businessman but is terrible at managing the business and bad at his finances. Harsh at home but warm with strangers
What makes this the right character for this role? He will offer up resistance but ultimately is both the person who can give Lulu the acceptance and validation she needs and the person who is causing her the most pain by being authoritarian, putting her through the paces. He is also the person who will mentor her despite his own flaws.

[Monica Romero]

Monica’s character profiles part 1

What I learned doing this assignment is that antagonists need to be fleshed out to the same level of detail as the main characters, and if done well, their goals, motivations and wounds can play off each other in interesting ways, especially because both characters will have meaningful things in common and that will drive the story forward or be a catalyst for the conflict resolution.

Lulu is a dreamer. She strives and longs to use her creativity to escape the mundane life back home and exist somewhere where she feels understood and accepted for who she is – a place where she can be loved and belong. The idea of money and business is offputting to her as the antithesis to creativity and her dreams.

Authority. Her dad Memo prides himself on establishing order and respect in his household and feels driven by a sense of responsibility to care for his family. He antagonizes Lulu because she wants to break away from his rules and his desire to keep her in a box, to keep her living at home under his watch and working on the business. The idea of Lulu graduating college and becoming an ‘adult’ is enough to throw him off course

Mom, antagonist to Dad and in a counterintuitive way also the thing he wants the most but doesn’t have (doesnt have her respect)

GF: the excuse Memo will use to break away – a different form of antagonism to Lulu. Baby will represent her dad’s “wanted” child while Lulu feels unwanted.

Role in the story: person Lulu cares about and wants approval from the most, and whom she desperately wants but LACKS validation from. He will also set Lulu’s main obstacle and conflict in motion with his own choices.
Age range and Description: 45, used to be a ladies’ man, now feeling his age
Internal Journey: from longing to escape to realizing that what he has now is what he wanted the most all along, wanting to come back and finding himself in the process
External Journey: blowing up his life with bravado only to be humbled by his kid finding out about his financial debacle and by his own love for his wife, which he tries to suffuse but ultimately finds undeniable

Motivation: To prove to himself and his wife that he is worthy of love from elsewhere and doesn’t need her but subconsciously just wanting to hear that she wants him and will fight for him. Perhaps this is the match that lights his fuse—that his wife called his bluff on him and now he can’t take it all back (there’s humor in her calling his bluff and him not knowing what to do with that)

Wound: feeling less than and deeply insecure as a child – siblings mistreated and parents neglected

Mission/Agenda: to get his wife to say she wants him loves him and wants him to STAY

Secret:

What makes them special? The outside world sees his soft hearted, loving and warm persona, very generous, kind, will sacrifice anything to help others even when not his responsibility. Prides himself in being a provider, which plays into the reason he is so obligated to GF now (financially).

[Monica Romero]

Lulu’s Transformational Journey

What I learned is the journey needs to take the character from one polar opposite state to the other

2. Who is your Hero and what is their Character Arc that represents a transformation?

Lulu is a 22 yo Latina college dropout who dreams of being a writer but expected to take over the family business instead

Internal Journey: from a paralyzed perfectionist girl who feels like she’ll never be good enough and is constantly striving FOR ACCEPTANCE AND BELONGING…to a confident and strong young woman who celebrates her uniqueness, her identity, her gifts and embraces her place in the world, her culture, and her family, ultimately receiving LOVE and ACCEPTANCE
External Journey: she hinges everything on the writers program where she feels she’ll finally BELONG and be VALIDATED, and loses her shit when she can’t go, while despising the life her parents are ‘forcing’ her into, to someone who feels completely competent, confident, nurturing of her family who will go out of her way to care for and defend the family where she belongs and is loved, and defend her birthright

3. What are the Old Ways and New Ways?

Summarize in ONE WORD: from FEARFUL to LOVED

Old Ways:

Obsessive perfectionist about her writing

Has written off her neighborhood and her cultural identity

Despises the path her parents laid out for her

Rejected their plan to the point of secretly dropping out of college

Hates to be “home” and hates her neighborhood

Completely incompetent at business

Always trying to prove herself

Critical of others

Makes choices out of FEAR

New Ways:

Embraces her family and upbringing

Loves her culture

Can relax and just be herself, feeling love and acceptance

Is able to enjoy imperfection in herself and others

Willingly takes over the family business and enjoys it

No longer doing things to prove anything to anyone – instead doing things out of LOVE

4. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.

I learned that I need to go to the polar opposite to create an effective arc.

[Monica Romero]

I, Monica Romero, agree to the terms of this release form