[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Lesson 3: Engaging Main Characters to Sell My Show

What I learned: The more I explore the characters, the faster I’ll get to a rich, captivating story with characters that engage viewers (and sell soap).

Assignment: Module 1, Lesson 3, Deep Dive on 4 Main Characters

Please go deep into the following areas for Lucy, Nate, David and Sarah. What makes a lead characters engaging on multiple levels? • A. Role in the show: • B. Unique Purpose / Expertise: • C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface? • D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing? • E. Unpredictable: What will they do next? • F. Empathetic: Why do we care? ChatGPT said: ChatGPT Here’s a deep dive into what makes Lucy, Nate, David, and Sarah engaging characters on multiple levels, broken down into the requested areas:
ChatGPT said:
ChatGPT
Lucy (14)
A. Role in the Show:
Lucy is the emotional and tactical leader of the siblings. Her journey propels the narrative, as she must protect Nate, make life-or-death decisions, and navigate the evolving truth about their parents and their past.
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
Lucy excels in pattern recognition and creative problem-solving, skills honed from years of living off-grid in Alaska. She’s also emotionally resilient, often acting as the glue that holds their family together.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
Lucy has flashes of memories from her early childhood, but she can’t decipher whether they are real or imagined. Her dreams hint at traumatic events, creating an underlying fear that she might not be able to trust her own mind.
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
Lucy struggles with the morality of turning in the only parents she’s ever known. She grapples with whether justice justifies betrayal and must decide how far she’s willing to go to uncover the truth.
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
Lucy’s loyalty and intelligence make her unpredictable when faced with moral dilemmas. She could confront kidnappers head-on, orchestrate a risky rescue, or forge an uneasy alliance with a dangerous adversary.
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
Lucy’s fierce love for Nate and her internal conflict make her deeply relatable. Her vulnerability, despite her strength, makes audiences root for her as she faces overwhelming odds.

Nate (11)
A. Role in the Show:
Nate is Lucy’s partner in survival and often her moral anchor. He serves as both a strategist and a voice of reason, challenging her decisions while offering his own insights.
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
Nate has an eidetic memory and an innate ability to intuit others’ motives. He’s the puzzle solver, often spotting crucial details that others miss, making him essential in uncovering the truth.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
Nate hides feelings of guilt and inadequacy, believing he’s a burden to Lucy. He also harbors a growing sense of rebellion against the survivalist teachings of their ‘parents,’ craving a more normal life.
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
Nate’s trust in Lucy wavers when her decisions conflict with his sense of right and wrong. He’s forced to question whether loyalty to family means turning a blind eye to their crimes.
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
Nate’s sharp intellect and moral conviction can lead to unexpected actions, from confronting their captors to making a bold move that even Lucy wouldn’t dare.
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
Nate’s vulnerability as a child thrust into life-threatening situations tugs at the audience’s heartstrings. His hope and innocence, despite everything he endures, make him deeply sympathetic.

David (‘Father’)
A. Role in the Show:
David is the protector and enforcer within the family. His skills and tactical mindset have kept them alive, but his secrets and questionable morality are catalysts for the show’s conflicts.
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
David is a master of survival and combat, capable of outthinking and outmaneuvering enemies. His calm demeanor under pressure contrasts with his inner turmoil.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
David hides the truth about why they kidnapped Lucy and Nate. He feels immense guilt but believes their actions were justified. He also carries scars from his own troubled past, which drive his overprotectiveness.
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
David’s willingness to kill or manipulate for the sake of the children crosses ethical lines. He also justifies keeping the kids in ignorance to control them, blurring the line between protector and oppressor.
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
David’s unpredictability stems from his love for the kids and his ruthless survivalist mindset. He could switch from nurturing to violent in an instant if it means keeping them safe.
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
David’s love for Lucy and Nate feels genuine, even if his methods are flawed. His guilt and moral conflict humanize him, making the audience question whether he’s a hero or a villain.

Sarah (‘Mother’)
A. Role in the Show:
Sarah is the emotional heart of the family, balancing David’s harshness with compassion. She acts as the mediator between him and the kids, but her own secrets add tension to the story.
B. Unique Purpose / Expertise:
Sarah’s expertise lies in emotional manipulation and diplomacy. She’s skilled at de-escalating situations and reading people, a stark contrast to David’s more direct approach.
C. Intrigue: What is secret beneath the surface?
Sarah’s guilt over their actions runs deeper than David’s, but she also harbors a darker secret: she was complicit in the crimes of Lucy and Nate’s biological parents before defecting.
D. Moral Issue: What moral boundaries are they crossing?
Sarah manipulates Lucy and Nate’s love and trust to keep them close, even as she knows they deserve the truth. She struggles with the morality of lying to protect them versus empowering them with knowledge.
E. Unpredictable: What will they do next?
Sarah’s unpredictability lies in her divided loyalties. When pushed to the brink, she could betray David, sacrifice herself for the kids, or even seek redemption by turning against their birth parents.
F. Empathetic: Why do we care?
Sarah’s maternal instincts and visible remorse make her sympathetic, even as she makes morally gray choices. Her love for the kids is genuine, and her struggle to atone resonates with the audience.

Summary
Each character is engaging because they blend unique strengths with emotional depth, moral conflict, and unpredictability. Their secrets, motivations, and complex dynamics ensure the audience is invested in their journey, rooting for them even when their actions challenge traditional notions of right and wrong.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Three Circles. What I learned: I learned to slow things down. I was confused at first because I didn’t realize there were two pre-course lessons that are vital to the understanding of the subsequent material. I may be moving more slowly through this than was my original intention, but I’m stoked to be doing this work.

Concept: Kids in an isolated fugitive family in Alaska take down kidnappers who abduct their parents, only to discover their ‘parents’ had kidnapped them years ago. Seeking justice, they turn in their ‘parents,’ only to learn their ‘parents’ had saved them from their true, dangerous birth parents. Now, they must rescue the ‘parents’ who first saved them…and take down the vast evil complex at the heart of their birth parents kingdom.

Group 1: Core Characters (Lucy, Nate, and Their ‘Parents’)
Lucy (14)
• Unique Role: Proactive hero and de facto leader of the siblings, Lucy is fiercely intelligent, resourceful, and protective of her brother, Nate.
• Secret/Intrigue: Struggles with fragmented memories of her early childhood that hint at a darker past but can’t fully trust them. She discovers she has a knack for decoding patterns, maps, and clues, which proves invaluable.
• Arc: She transitions from a loyal follower of her ‘parents’ to questioning everything they taught her and ultimately finds a way to integrate their lessons with her emerging sense of justice and morality.
Nate (11)
• Unique Role: Emotional anchor and strategist, Nate balances Lucy’s boldness with caution and ingenuity, often acting as her conscience.
• Secret/Intrigue: Nate has an eidetic memory and uncanny intuition, often able to spot dangers or lies before others. He struggles with conflicting loyalty, especially after learning the truth about their ‘parents.’
• Arc: Nate evolves from being dependent on Lucy to an equal partner in their survival and mission, embracing his unique abilities to confront their biological parents’ evil empire.
‘Parents’ (David and Sarah)
• Unique Role: Fugitives who raised Lucy and Nate, deeply flawed yet loving. They’re both protectors and criminals, whose actions ignite the central conflict.
• Secret/Intrigue: They kidnapped Lucy and Nate years ago to save them from being groomed by their birth parents to inherit a sinister empire. They harbor guilt but also fierce determination to protect the kids at all costs.
• Arc: Forced to rely on Lucy and Nate for rescue, David and Sarah must confront the morality of their choices and ultimately support the kids’ decision to dismantle the evil complex.

Group 2: Connected Characters
1. Elijah (The Tracker)
• Role: A rugged, morally ambiguous survivalist hired by the kidnappers. Initially an adversary, he later allies with Lucy and Nate, drawn to their resilience.
• Secret/Intrigue: He’s a former associate of David and Sarah, with his own agenda tied to exposing the biological parents’ empire.
2. Marisol (The Rebel Insider)
• Role: A disillusioned employee within the biological parents’ organization who aids Lucy and Nate after realizing their true intent.
• Secret/Intrigue: Marisol has a personal vendetta against the biological parents for exploiting her family, which fuels her willingness to risk everything.
3. Viktor and Serena (The Biological Parents)
• Role: Charismatic yet terrifying heads of a shadowy criminal empire. They’ve spent years searching for their children, intending to reclaim them.
• Secret/Intrigue: Viktor and Serena are masterminds of a global trafficking ring, but their obsession with power is rivaled only by their warped sense of parental entitlement.

Group 3: Environment Characters
Alaskan Sub-World:
• Park ranger
• Local bush pilot
• General store owner
Evil Complex Sub-World:
• Security guards
• Technicians managing surveillance systems
• Cult-like followers of the biological parents

Concept Breakdown
A. Engaging and Highly Proactive Heroes
Lucy and Nate are young heroes with layered internal and external conflicts. Their resourcefulness, sibling bond, and moral dilemmas make them compelling protagonists.
B. Major External and Internal Conflicts
External: Confronting brutal kidnappers, navigating the Alaskan wilderness, and battling their birth parents’ empire.
Internal: Wrestling with betrayal, identity, and justice as they decide how far they’ll go to protect those they love.
C. Transformational Journey
Lucy and Nate evolve from survivalist kids defending their family to independent heroes dismantling a criminal empire while navigating their sense of self and morality.
D. Intriguing World
The story spans the stark, rugged Alaskan wilds, a survivalist haven that sharpens the kids’ skills, to a high-tech, heavily guarded fortress of deception, power, and darkness.
This concept combines edge-of-your-seat tension with emotional depth, delivering a unique thriller/family drama hybrid.

[Susan A. Smith]

What I learned: Hal’s right, and I’m glad I’m taking the time to do a deep dive on this assignment. Watching it a second time was especially helpful. And painful. I found I HAD gotten so absorbed (repeatedly) that I got the storyline garbled and had to carefully go back and rewire (and rewrite) it so it matched the actual show.
Even though my scenes probably vastly longer than most, it gives me something to study as I move forward in this class.

SUSAN ARNOUT SMITH’S BINGEWORTHY SHOW.

THE AMERICANS

This show moves seamlessly from the present, 1981, (Reagan years) and the past, (1960’s, Russian and the US.) One thing that demonstrates how well this is written is that it’s virtually flawless in going from act to act.

ACT 1
• Yep, within 30 seconds or so, things get cooking with a barn-burner, otherwise called a blowjob.
Lots of dark on the screen and in the script, as the blowee, real name, Timoshev, is kidnapped, by the blower, (now wigless, AKA Elizabeth), and two guys. Lots of knife fights, action moves, a license change, these guys are pros.
• One of the kidnappers, Rob, is badly hurt, which creates a conflict between Elizabeth and the kidnapper who’s driving, Philip. She’s cold-hearted, wants to kill Rob outright.
• Instead, Philip dumps Rob unceremoniously off at a hospital, (Note: Rob The Wounded Guy only has a first name, so all you Galaxy-Questers know for a fact he’s going to die. He was so Under Five.)
• Meanwhile, the two kidnappers race to return Kidnapped Guy Timoshev to a ship which promises to return him to Russia to face torture and slow death. Seems like Timoshev’s been working for the US and made the mistake of coming out from undercover for a guest speaking gig to brag about it. Now he’s busy campaigning to stay alive—offering millions if he’s returned safely to the US. Elizabeth and Philip realize the ship bound for Russia is, well, bound. It’s pulled out of the harbor. To kill, or become rich. Hmmm.
• A big player is briefly introduced, Stan, who’s a heavyweight with the FBI, now assigned to ferret out KGB activities in the US. Seems the Big Speaker, Timoshev, is a no-show. Where’d he go? (Which, small aside, is another piece of writer-brilliance, as it gets us in the Top Secret Room as agents, realizing Timoshev is AWOL, swarm like ants being avalanched with whipped cream.)
• Oops. Looks like Philip and Elizabeth have an uninvited trussed-up garage guest.
• He on the sly pleads with Philip to let him go—for millions of dollars just turn him safely back to US side.
• Which is somewhat problematic, as they (Elizabeth and Philip) are mascarading as two boring parents of a young teen, Paige, and preteen, Henry. Clear and stack the American Breakfast plates. The parents chitchat about their travel agency jobs and under their breath discuss the money Philip was hurriedly offered if Mr. T’s returned safely to the US government.
• That’s about the moment even the slow viewers (the screen was dark, already), get that Philip and Elizabeth are the ones undercover in the US, working for Russia.
• We already know that Philip is the weak one, so weak. And Elizabeth is the hard as nails one. (See scary-efficient blowjob, noted above.)
• Philip tries a drop that’s not successful.
• The money plants a teensy seed in Philip’s head we expect to see grow. And grow.
• But Elizabeth is another story. When the kids and Philip leave, she goes out to the garage.
• Flashback to a very young Russian Elizabeth violently raped by a Russian captain who may—or may not—be Timoshev. Question answered as she yanks up the hood, calls him Captain and we see on his sweating, taped up face and squirming trussed-up body as he remembers exactly who she is. This is revenge for her, a whole darker color.
ACT 2
• Elizabeth mocks Paige’s teacher who has a hairlip and Paige is softer. Already Americanized. Henry talks sports with his dad. Already Americanized. It is, after all, all they’ve ever known. Elizabeth. Is. Troubled.
• Philip lets Elizabeth know the drop wasn’t successful—he needs to find out how much the US government knows about Timoshev’s absence.
• Normal family stuff involving ice cream cones and attacking each other. Subtext from Philip that he’s teaching kids countermoves without them knowing it. Elizabeth won’t play.
• Undercover, Philip interviews a gullible woman, (the only woman, it seems close to the players in the high level counter-intelligence room—and—she’s stupid. So so stupid. She spills everything the Feds have so far—the car—oh no! Philip and Elizabeth’s car!
• Philip puts his tape recording, wig, glasses, in the safe…and listens to the entire tape of Elizabeth and T in the hotel room (top of the show) as we watch his face crumble.
• News show to set us in time and place—Iranian hostages released—
• Philip fills Elizabeth in…the FBI have ID’d the getaway car and it matches theirs, but they don't have the current license plate. They square off. She wants to kill Mr. T immediately, he brings up idea of them becoming millionaires by defecting. She’s revolted, the Motherland through and through, and rebuffs him.
• New neighbors move in across the street.
• A subplot pops up, Dad (Philip) and kiddos are shopping. Paige seems grown-up, (at thirteen—AND very very young.) She shops for shoes where she gets a come-on from a predator. Daddy’s. Not. Amused. But keeps his super-hero skills quiet so he won’t tip off his little girl. We do see that he gets a good look at the credit card of said predator, so we kinda know what’s coming.
• Elizabeth takes a big knife to the garage and pauses over the closed trunk. Timoshev is still knocking from inside trying to attract attention.
• She’s interrupted as the family comes home.
• Philip in kitchen checks the knife—it’s clean. Mr. T. must still be alive. She pushes that he has to die tonight. Philip makes a play for his wife. She pulls a knife on him. Elizabeth taunts him—are they even actually married? (subtext—all show to establish they’re cover?)
• They bring over homemade brownies to new neighbors. And the husband, is… ta dah! Stan! the FBI superstar now assigned to counter-intelligence. And…they have a son , Matthew, slightly older than Paige. Foreshadowing!!!
ACT 3
• Elizabeth and Philip square off again, more intensely. He believes they’ve been spotted and that the FBI family man NEXT DOOR is proof of this. At home, Elizabeth wants to kill T while Philip wants to defect, take T to the FBI, collect a whole lot of dough, defect TRULY and FOR REAL to the US, start a new life in the Witness Protection program.
Elizabeth is livid—reminds him he promised never to tell the kids (who are red, white and blue, by the way). And she’s faithful to the Motherland. She believes she can mold the kids to be socialist trade activists…he argues with her—that doesn’t happen in America. He pushes back with the fact that they’ve been here a long time, and yes, they ARE married.
• He runs…A flashback to how they met, training in Russia. They’re not allowed to tell each other when they meet anything about who they are—only bits of their new identities. Awkward. Sad. A nice bit where they drink tea and ready themselves to talk about their fake past with each other to cement it. A Russian drink, (while we’ve seen the coffee they drink as Americans). Back to running in the now…he drops coins in a phone, calls the hospital, and finds out with relief that Rob with the Knife Wound is now Rob Now Dead.
• Stan, the Dangerous Neighbor, needs to borrow—oh no! Jumper Cables!! Aren’t they kept usually in car trunks?
• Oh, yeah, that’s right. Trussed-up Timoshev is still occupying space. And! Stan recognizes the car as the one that kidnapped T in the first place.
• The two men, Philip, our sorta-hero, and Stan, the counterintelligence man in tights, have a dance that’s right on the edge of straining credulity, as yes, we see clearly that Mr. T’s still in the trunk, and any sound will tip off Stan. T’s quiet.
• Back at HQ’s, Stan as a bad-ass expert on bad guys is asked if he thinks T is still alive. Yes, because, (me editorializing), like cats, the Russians like to play with their food before they eat it. And where would he be hidden? Safely away at the kidnappers home, as the kidnappers go about their normal lives. Chances of finding him? Zip.
ACT 4
• Philip and son, Henry, go to very patriotic performance at his school for American astronauts. The kid is pumped. Philip is feeling it. And on the fence.
• Philip in garage is cutting T loose to turn him in to next door neighbor, and is interrupted by Elizabeth. He tells her he’s defecting and she’s coming along with him and the kids, whether she wants to or not. The couple fights, then SHE interrupts fight between T and her husband and kicks the juice out of T – Note: she uses the same horrific kick to the gut T used on her to disable her before he raped her. He semi apologizes and Philip is confused. Realizes the jerk he was about to save has severely hurt is wife earlier.
She’s so upset she tells Philip to go ahead—turn him over to the Americans and ruin their cover if that’s what he wants.
Instead, he chokes and snaps T’s neck in front of her.
• They get rid of the body and have make-up sex.
• They tenderly cover as much of the fight damage as possible, and a breakfast of pancakes leads to cute moment between son and dad explaining planetary systems and astronauts and Elizabeth strongly weighing in that GETTING to the moon isn’t the Big Deal…it’s GETTING INTO SPACE.
• Stan already up as Philip and Henry pull out onto street for hockey practice. Stan drills down on the damage to Philip’s face; Philip blames it on a dull razor…Stan’s not buying it.
• Elizabeth scrubs out garage as kids go to the mall…
• Stan’s wife jokes him out of his belief that Philip may be a spy; he’s now–finally– in a boring neighborhood with boring neighbors.
• Just to make sure we get it, Philip, disguised as a bad-ass, beats up the predator (stabbing him with a steak fork through his hand, among other moves), and tells him if he ever goes after little girls again he’ll come back and kill him.
• In the KGB safe house, Elizabeth is informed by her handler that things are heating up. She takes the heat for the screw up (losing the injured Under Five that is now dead.) the presumed death of T. He questions her about Philip’s loyalty…as through the years, SHE’s questioned it and informed on Philip to her handler. She tells the handler it was ‘phase’ Philip was going through. Her handler doesn’t believe her, and rightly so. Perhaps one of the only badly written-rings-hollow lines in it.
Handler cautions her this can’t happen again—he might not be able to protect her.
• Reagan signs an order authorizing the Feds to move hard on any spies living in US. They’re at war with the bad guys, but silently.
ACT 5
• Philip asks her why she kept the assault a secret—she tells him it was while they were in Russia, and they weren’t supposed to talk about Russia. She tells him her handler has told her things are going to get a lot worse. He reassures her—reminds her they’ve been in the USA a long time now, they’ve got this. Philip stays with the horse he rode in on, much to Elizabeth’s relief. He’s not going to become a ‘real’ American. She trusts him with a piece of her real—and very painful—childhood and with her Russian name.
• FLASHBACK: Early in the US, she’s awed by the AC in a hotel, and isn’t ready for sex. He reminds her they may need to have a family—it’s what’s expected. She asks him his take on the US…he wistfully talks about how in Russia they told them how the US was—but now that they’re here, everything feels brighter. She counters with her contempt for Americans, noting, ‘they’re soft.’
• Stan checks out the car/garage of his next door neighbors with a flashlight, while Philip grimly videotapes him.

2. From that, make a list of the 5 Star Points for that show.
1. Big Picture Hooks
Ask this: What is the big hook of this show?
Two normal-seeming Americans with jobs, a house and kids, are actually Russians and are spying for the Motherland.
2. Amazing and Intriguing Character
Ask this: What makes these main characters intriguing and interesting?
Rich room to be lots of people, and wear lots of masks. A fascinating premise brought to life by actors at the top of their game.
3. Empathy / Distress
Ask this: What situation causes us to feel both empathy and distress for this character?
We very much like these two American traitors/excellent spies, we like their kids, the life they’ve created, and by moving in an FBI superstar next door and getting us into both the US room and the Russian handler’s room, we see the stakes and they’re getting higher all the time.
And, as their back stories are gradually peeled back, we feel great empathy for both of them. Even Philip calling America ‘brighter’ is said in a wistful way that makes us like him, and want to know more about his past, too.
4. Layers / Open Loops
Ask this: What questions are created by this first episode that can only be answered by watching the entire season?
Will Stan catch them? Will they get away? Will the kids find out that Boring Mom and Dad aren’t so boring after all? Will the uber patriotic son, Henry, instantly hate his father and feel betrayed by both parents? Will the creepy predator get his mitts on Paige? Will Paige and neighbor Matthew hook up and put a wrench in their parents lives? (Well, duh.) Will Philip actually shove that grilling meat fork straight into the predator’s forehead, as promised? Will these parents ever figure out a way – together –to leave their past behind and still live?
5. Inviting Obsession
Ask this: How does this pilot create the need to see every single episode? It moves like silk on speed. (No idea what that means but I love the alliteration.) You can’t wander off to the pantry and root around for chips watching this one.
Beautifully written, acted, produced. Big home run for John Landgraf country.
3. Watch the same first episode A SECOND TIME while looking at your 5 Star Point analysis. This time, your purpose is to see beyond the obvious answers. Assume there is more to learn and discover it! THIS was the really, truly Hard Work part of this assignment, and I really had thought I'd done a valiant job taking notes the first time through. A truly remarkable assignment, demonstrating what it takes to write compulsively watchable TV. Loving it.

 

• This reply was modified 10 months ago by  Susan A. Smith.
• This reply was modified 10 months ago by  Susan A. Smith.
• This reply was modified 10 months ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

I, Susan Arnout Smith, AGREE to the terms of this release form.
3. Please leave the entire text below to confirm what you agree to.

GROUP 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.

[Susan A. Smith]

GROUP RELEASE FORM
Susan Arnout Smith
I agree to the terms of this release form, as written below:
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.

[Susan A. Smith]

Tell us the following:
1. Hi, All! I’m Susan Arnout Smith
2. I’ve written four movies for TV that have all been produced and aired in the US and also in other countries. One was a finalist for a Pen-West. I’ve written several plays, some of which have won national awards and been produced. I’ve written a screenplay based on a true story to which I have the option agreement rights to market as a screenplay. It’s won the Grand Prize, International Faith in Film Screenwriting Award.
3. My intentions are: 1. To get caught up with the class so I’m participating in real time. 2. To finish this class strong by doing each assignment full-out, 3. to get my screenplay optioned and on its way to being produced, 4. To use every scrap of what I learn as fuel going forward.
4. I’m aggressively pursuing what I call “Radical Self-Care”. It involves Mind/Body/Spirit practices daily. I’ve had ocular proof that my practices are working: I just completed a workup by the Mayo Clinic that shows that my biological age is almost two decades younger than my chronological age, that my hearing is perfect (astounding the specialist who literally called in ‘incredible’, and ‘something he rarely sees in people half my age’, and have had a complete set of tests which state flatly I have a less than 1% chance of getting 50 different kinds of cancers. Knowing these things, I’ve shifted out of believing the lie I had told myself: that my ‘time had come and gone’ and shifted into a state of joy, enthusiasm, boundless energy and bravery.
I am looking forward to working with you all, supporting this group in our journey, and doing brilliant work that can light up the world.

[Susan A. Smith]

Lesson 9: What I learned is that I need to be even briefer than in my Query Letter.

Susan Arnout Smith’s Phone Pitch for GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM

I’ll lead with High Concept.

Phone Pitch: Hi, I’m Susan Arnout Smith, I’m an optioned screenwriter with a book I have the rights to, and I’m wondering if I could run a quick concept by you.

(If it’s a ‘yes’.)

The genre’s Faith and Family, the title’s GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM and the concept is: In the battle between Light and Dark, which is the worst Angel to send? The answer: The one with a gambling addiction.

(big pause here, nothing else).

If they ask…

• What’s the budget range?
$10-15 million
• Who do you see in the main role?
Dennis Quaid would be fun as the Angel, also Benedict Cumberbatch.
• How many pages is the script?
103 pages
• Who else has seen this?
I’ve just started talking to people. I’ve gotten a few script requests that I just sent out, and my plan is to keep going until I have a deal.
• Why do you think this fits our company?
You’ve done numerous Faith and Family projects in this budget range that have grossed ten times the amount of the budget, so you have a great sense of what sells.
• Briefly, what happens in the movie?
The Angel comes down to yank back a woman who’s switched sides. He gets her to bet her soul that she can talk an entire community into believing in God even when she doesn’t anymore. But he’s got his gambler’s thumb on the scale.
• How does the movie end?
She’s on the edge of losing everything she’s ever loved, including her family. Her only choice is to believe in God again, even when it’s impossible.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Lesson 8: Susan Arnout Smith’s Pitch Fest

What I learned: Winnow, winnow, winnow! Bare bones (should they love the initial hook), is under 30 seconds.

The entire pitch (minus projected budget, actor names, more credibility), is just over one minute.

This is a really big moment for me. In the past, the idea of live (or Zoom) pitching has literally made me blanch. But this feels doable and fun.

ASSIGNMENT
Create your entire Pitch Fest Pitch.

1. Hi, I’m Susan Arnout Smith, I’m a produced screenwriter.
2. The genre’s Faith and Family. The title is GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM. It’s adapted from a book and I have the rights.
3. Question: In the war between Light and Dark, which is the worst Angel to send? Answer? The one with a gambling addiction.

Pause and see if they request it.

4. a. Budget: $7-10 million
b. Angel: Jimmy Kimmel would be fun, also Benedict Cumberbatch.

REST OF PITCH:

The Angel’s job? Yank back an embittered teacher who’s switched sides. The Angel talks her into betting her soul in a daring bid to save a town on the brink of collapse.
The bet? Get them to believe in God…when she no longer does.

But the Angel’s got his gambler’s thumb on the scale. If she loses? Zip. Everything’s swept away, as if it never was. Including her family.
She has to figure out a win when the scale’s rigged. There’s only one choice, believe in God again, even when it’s impossible.

More credibility: GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM has won and placed in screenwriting competitions.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Susan A. Smith.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Lesson 7, Great Pitch, Compelling Query Letters

What I learned from this: My hooks are improving, along with the amount of fun I’m having. I am very grateful for this class.

TITLE: GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM

By Susan Arnout Smith, (adapted from the book by Shelly Mecum)

Genre: Faith/Family

In the battle between Light and Dark, which Angel’s the worst? The one with a gambling addiction.

The Angel’s job? Yank back a teacher who's switched sides. Sad news! When a child vanishes, Shelly’s belief in God is crushed. Bad news! At her next job, the entire school’s going under. She’ll lose 300 kids, not just one.

The Angel talks Shelly into betting her soul.

Get the community to believe in God when she doesn’t. If she wins, the school lives, the community thrives and her family’s fine. She loses? Zip. Everything’s swept away, as if it never was. Including her family. She cooks up an idea so crazy it just might work: send everybody out to find God and take His picture. Then they’ll write a book and sell it big. The Angel informs her she has better odds of being hit by lightning. Plus, he’s got his gambler’s thumb on the scale.

She must figure out a win when the scale’s rigged.

There’s only one choice—believe even when it’s impossible.
__
If you like the concept, I’ll be happy to send along the script.

BIO: Susan Arnout Smith is an internationally published novelist with four produced TV movies.

(Note: Then one line with cell number/ address/ and e-mail address)

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Susan A. Smith.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Susan A. Smith.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Susan A. Smith.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s High Concept and Elevator Pitch for GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM

What I learned: I’ve shared this concept with a few trusted friends. They lit up, laughing, surprised. I’m on to something here. I’m supremely glad I get to take this class and learn these things.

1. To find your main hook, give us what is most unique about your lead character’s journey from a big picture perspective.
• An Angel with a gambling addiction
2. How can you tell it in the most interesting way possible?
What’s at stake? An Angel with a gambling addiction talks a woman into betting her soul to save a community
3. Using the 10 Components of Marketability, what is your Elevator Pitch?
Q: What are you working on?
A: The story of an Angel with a gambling addiction who talks a woman into betting her soul to save a community. It’s based in part on a true story I have the rights to adapt and sell as a screenplay.
4. After you answer questions 1 – 3, use AI to brainstorm other possible ways to generate a High Concept for your project.

NOTE: What follows are the five that AI generated. Mine’s shorter, better. I passed the AI test. I win.

• In a high stakes gamble for redemption, an angel with a gambling addiction convinces a woman to wager her soul to rescue a struggling community
• A heavenly gambler persuades a woman to bet her soul in a daring big to save a town on the brink of collapse
• When an angel’s gambling habit puts a community at risk, a woman must make the ultimate wager to prevent disaster in this thrilling tale of redemption and sacrifice.
• In a celestial game of chance, an angel’s addiction leads to a desperate bet that could either save or doom a community , as one woman must decide her fate.
• A captivating story of faith, risk and sacrifice unfolds as an angel’s gambling compulsion pushes a woman to gamble her soul in a last-ditch effort to rescue a town in crisis.

Also AI left me this note: Unique and intriguing premise. The concept of an angel with a gambling addiction persuading a woman to bet her soul to save a community is a fresh and original idea that immediately grabs attention.

Yay.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Susan A. Smith.
• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Synopsis Hooks for GOD'S PHOTO ALBUM

I’m really happy with this. Literally, pom-poms and cartwheels time. The synopsis, for starters, is exactly 131 words—the precise length of the Zombieland one. Not comparing it to that, but it gives me a clear sense that I’m in the ballpark of how long this needs to be.

It’s also a deeper dive into my story, and will require some thoughtful rewrites which I plan on doing concurrently with my assignments.

This is the MOST jazzed I’ve been about this screenplay in a long, long time, and that is a win, all by itself.

Current synopsis:
A child vanishes into a car, forever lost. Crushing teacher Shelly’s belief in God.
Bad news! At her next school, the entire school’s going under, Shelly will lose 300 kids, not just one. Worse news! Dark takes up real-estate in her Soul.
God yanks an Angel with a gambling addiction back into service. His job? Pull Shelly back before her Dark spreads to others.
He talks Shelly into betting her soul. Get the community to believe in God when she doesn’t. At stake? The community’s belief in Good winning. Versus her own family’s future. With the community’s help, she pulls off miracles.
The glitch? Angel has his gambler’s thumb on the scale.
She must figure out a win when the scale’s rigged.
There’s only one choice—believe even when it’s impossible.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Tell us the following:
1. Hi, All! I’m Susan Arnout Smith
2. I’ve written four movies for TV that have all been produced and aired in the US and also in other countries. One was a finalist for a Pen-West. I’ve written several plays, some of which have won national awards and been produced. I’ve written a screenplay based on a true story to which I have the option agreement rights to market as a screenplay. It’s won the Grand Prize, International Faith in Film Screenwriting Award.
3. My intentions are: 1. To get caught up with the class so I’m participating in real time. 2. To finish this class strong by doing each assignment full-out, 3. to get my screenplay optioned and on its way to being produced, 4. To use every scrap of what I learn as fuel going forward.
4. I’m aggressively pursuing what I call “Radical Self-Care”. It involves Mind/Body/Spirit practices daily. I’ve had ocular proof that my practices are working: I just completed a workup by the Mayo Clinic that shows that my biological age is almost two decades younger than my chronological age, that my hearing is perfect (astounding the specialist who literally called in ‘incredible’, and ‘something he rarely sees in people half my age’, and have had a complete set of tests which state flatly I have a less than 1% chance of getting 50 different kinds of cancers. Knowing these things, I’ve shifted out of believing the lie I had told myself: that my ‘time had come and gone’ and shifted into a state of joy, enthusiasm, boundless energy and bravery.
I am looking forward to working with you all, supporting this group in our journey, and doing brilliant work that can light up the world.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s 10 Most Interesting Things.
What I learned doing this assignment is: This exercise is part of my sharpening points of interest and how to express these clearly and succinctly. I’ll be working at editing and reframing, adding and subtracting and I go forward.
Assignment:
A. What is most unique about your villain and hero?
Villain: A principal who hates kids and sabotages her school to fail.
Hero: Talks to an Angel, yet doubts God’s got the chops to get the job done.
B. Major hook of your opening scene?
A young girl vanishes into a stranger’s car
C. Any turning points?
School will go under without a miracle; Shelly steps up.
Shelly’s big dream crashes against the rocks of other’s disbelief.
Shelly gives up.
Shelly comes back.
D. Emotional dilemma?
Either Shelly saves the school, or saves her family.
E. Major twists?
The ‘slow problem kid’ is actually bright and being used as a cash crop by adults.
Shelly’s ‘choice’ impacts Heaven
F. Reversals?
Revealed as ‘smart’, a kid’s life gets worse, not better.
Afraid of failing, Shelly sets up failure by quitting.
G. Character betrayals?
Shelly betrays the community.
Shelly betrays a promise made to her family.
Principal lies to Diocese and claims Shelly’s work as hers.
H. Or any big surprises?
Reveal: Girl not killed by stranger; drowns searching for Shelly.
God and the Angel bet on whether Shelly will choose Good or Evil.

[Susan A. Smith]

ASSIGNMENT LESSON 3:

Susan Arnout Smith Producer/Manager

1. PRESENTING TO PRODUCER
I would briefly flag my existing work: 4 TV films, all made and airing worldwide, identify this project by its genre, its Grand Prize award (in its genre), and give the concept hook that could lead to a franchise developed out of this film. I would follow up with the two biggest marketability components: Timeliness and Great roles for Marketable Actors. I would be prepared to share the story in a one-line logline and answer any follow up questions.
In these ways I would be demonstrating:
• I write marketable projects
• That are well-written
• Fit their specific market
• And are easy to sell to actors, directors, funding sources and distributors.
• As my goal is to get them to request the script, if pressed I will remind them that my guild, (WGA), does not permit me to leave behind anything, and I’m happy to send along the script immediately.

2. PRESENTING TO A MANAGER
I would speak briefly about this current project, and the four TV films I have written that have been produced and aired. I would point out that each TV film success represents a specific skill:
• Written from another writer’s existing novel, (sole WGA writing credit)
• Original TV screenplay (awards, honors, sole WGA writing credit)
• Screenplay based on someone’s life, (sole WGA writing credit)
• A script rewrite, (awarded a WGA sole writing credit, a shared Story By credit)
I would then give brief, bold and brilliant ‘bites’ on the creative projects I have written that are available to be turned into screenplays. These include:
• 3 novels published by major US houses and translated in other languages, (pubbed by other houses worldwide)
2 of these novels are thrillers
1 novel is an historical romance about the birth of Alaska
• Several award winning theatrical plays that could be crafted as highly visual and emotionally compelling screenplays.

The goal is still the same: to get an ‘ask’ on the existing script, GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM.
The second goal is to learn more about this particular manager, and so I would come into the meeting having prepped by finding out more about him/her so I could ask incisive questions that relate to a possible working relationship.

I would be business-like, and aware of time and honor the moment by understanding that I have something they need; the question is whether it’s a good fit for both of us to work together.

3. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY IS without realizing it, I’ve been presenting myself as less than professional. The shift is now in me to clearly state my goals, strengths and intentions and evaluate, based on that meeting, what steps I want to take moving forward.

[Susan A. Smith]

LESSON 2 ASSIGNMENT

Susan Arnout Smith’s Marketable Components

1. Current Logline: A Hawaiian teacher, gutted over the loss of a child, is being consumed by the Dark, and God sends an Angel down to bring her back before her Dark consumes others.

2. 10 Components of Marketability: top 2

G. Wide Audience Appeal: Huge Faith-based market for good scripts.

J. Great Roles for Bankable Actors:
• Angel: Conflicted
• Shelly: Wounded
• Lolani: Warrior
• Lanny: Cunning

3. Elevating Wide Audience Appeal: G
Off-shoot of Faith-based films is a new category: Light-based films dealing not with religions but Spirit.
Popular to Christians and also popular with a secular audience, or audiences of other faiths, as it’s not about Christianity, but about Light dwelling in every heart and its vulnerability to corruption. Core: YOU MATTER. THE CHOICES YOU MAKE, MATTER.

Elevating Great Roles for Bankable Actors: J

• Angel: Powerful, conflicted, fierce
• Shelly: Wounded, scrappy, vulnerable
• Lolani: Invalid, warrior, truth-teller
• Lanny: Cunning, manipulative, hungry

4. What I Learned Doing this Assignment is:

I have participated in numerous classes here, and this time, have a changed attitude. I am committed to finishing this class and achieving my goal of getting my screenplay optioned and then made. I am shifting every fearful thing from avoidance and retreat into a powerful learning experience filled with joy, calm and resolve. I am tapping into the creativity I’ve always known is there, and using this process to fuel my growth, discovery and the gifts I am able to share with the world.

[Susan A. Smith]

Lesson 1 Assignment, (posted), 8/16/24

Susan Arnout Smith
GENRE: Light Workers (a genre off-shoot of Faith Based)
TITLE: GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM
CONCEPT: A teacher at a Hawaiian school, gutted over the loss of a child, is being consumed by the Dark, and God sends an Angel down to get her back before her Dark consumes others.
WHAT’S MOST ATTRACTIVE ABOUT THIS STORY: Based loosely on a true story to which I have the rights, it is a movie of its time, reminding each of us that the war between Good and Evil takes place daily within our own hearts, and that our choices have consequences that affect the world.
WHO TO TARGET FIRST: Specifically producers to get an option agreement, but I’ll keep my ‘synchronicity antenna’ alert to possible actor matches for the role of the Angel.
WHAT I LEARNED TODAY: After taking numerous classes from Hal, I came to see a pattern in dropping out before I finished the class. Many things led to this outcome, which aren’t necessary to detail here. I am committed to doing and finishing this class in an orderly way and using every part of the lessons to further my writing goals of getting this project optioned and produced.

[Susan A. Smith]

GROUP RELEASE FORM
As a member of this group, I, Susan Arnout Smith, 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.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s 10 Most Interesting Things.
What I learned doing this assignment is: This exercise is part of my sharpening points of interest and how to express these clearly and succinctly. I’ll be working at editing and reframing, adding and subtracting as I go forward.
Assignment:
A. What is most unique about your villain and hero?
Villain: A principal who hates kids and sabotages her school to fail.
Hero: Talks to an Angel, yet doubts God’s got the chops to get the job done.
B. Major hook of your opening scene?
A young girl vanishes into a stranger’s car
C. Any turning points?
School will go under without a miracle; Shelly steps up.
Shelly’s big dream crashes against the rocks of other’s disbelief.
Shelly gives up.
Shelly comes back.
D. Emotional dilemma?
Either Shelly saves the school, or saves her family.
E. Major twists?
The ‘slow problem kid’ is actually bright and being used as a cash crop by adults.
Shelly’s ‘choice’ impacts Heaven
F. Reversals?
Revealed as ‘smart’, a kid’s life gets worse, not better.
Afraid of failing, Shelly sets up failure by quitting.
G. Character betrayals?
Shelly betrays the community.
Shelly betrays a promise made to her family.
Principal lies to Diocese and claims Shelly’s work as hers.
H. Or any big surprises?
Reveal: Girl not killed by stranger; drowns searching for Shelly.
God and the Angel bet on whether Shelly will choose Good or Evil.

[Susan A. Smith]

ASSIGNMENT LESSON 3:
Susan Arnout Smith Producer/Manager
1. PRESENTING TO PRODUCER
I would briefly flag my existing work: 4 TV films, all made and airing worldwide, identify this project by its genre, its Grand Prize award (in its genre), and give the concept hook that could lead to a franchise developed out of this film. I would follow up with the two biggest marketability components: Timeliness and Great roles for Marketable Actors. I would be prepared to share the story in a one-line logline and answer any follow up questions.
In these ways I would be demonstrating:
• I write marketable projects
• That are well-written
• Fit their specific market
• And are easy to sell to actors, directors, funding sources and distributors.
• As my goal is to get them to request the script, if pressed I will remind them that my guild, (WGA), does not permit me to leave behind anything, and I’m happy to send along the script immediately.

2. PRESENTING TO A MANAGER
I would speak briefly about this current project, and the four TV films I have written that have been produced and aired. I would point out that each TV film success represents a specific skill:
• Written from another writer’s existing novel, (sole WGA writing credit)
• Original TV screenplay (awards, honors, sole WGA writing credit)
• Screenplay based on someone’s life, (sole WGA writing credit)
• A script rewrite, (awarded a WGA sole writing credit, a shared Story By credit)
I would then give brief, bold and brilliant ‘bites’ on the creative projects I have written that are available to be turned into screenplays. These include:
• 3 novels published by major US houses and translated in other languages, (pubbed by other houses worldwide)
2 of these novels are thrillers
1 novel is an historical romance about the birth of Alaska
• Several award winning theatrical plays that could be crafted as highly visual and emotionally compelling screenplays.

The goal is still the same: to get an ‘ask’ on the existing script, GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM.
The second goal is to learn more about this particular manager, and so I would come into the meeting having prepped by finding out more about him/her so I could ask incisive questions that relate to a possible working relationship.

I would be business-like, and aware of time and honor the moment by understanding that I have something they need; the question is whether it’s a good fit for both of us to work together.

3. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY IS without realizing it, I’ve been presenting myself as less than professional. The shift is now in me to clearly state my goals, strengths and intentions and evaluate, based on that meeting, what steps I want to take moving forward.

• This reply was modified 11 months, 1 week ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Lesson 1 Assignment, (posted), 7/28/24
*Lesson 1 Assignment, reworked 7?30/24
Susan Arnout Smith
GENRE: Light Workers (a genre off-shoot of Faith Based)
TITLE: GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM
CONCEPT: A teacher at a Hawaiian school, gutted over the loss of a child, is being consumed by the Dark, and God sends an Angel down to get her back before her Dark consumes others.
*CONCEPT: I realize based on new lesson material that what I called my ‘Concept’ is really my Logline. Here is my
Concept 2: • What if humans choosing daily between Good and Evil can affect Angels and move the dial on human history?
WHAT’S MOST ATTRACTIVE ABOUT THIS STORY: Based loosely on a true story to which I have the rights, it is a movie of its time, reminding each of us that the war between Good and Evil takes place daily within our own hearts, and that our choices have consequences that affect the world.
WHO TO TARGET FIRST: Specifically producers to get an option agreement, but I’ll keep my ‘synchronicity antenna’ alert to possible actor matches for the role of the Angel.
WHAT I LEARNED TODAY: After taking numerous classes from Hal, I came to see a pattern in dropping out before I finished the class. Many things led to this outcome, which aren’t necessary to detail here. I am committed to doing and finishing this class in an orderly way and using every part of the lessons to further my writing goals of getting this project optioned and produced.

[Susan A. Smith]

LESSON 2 ASSIGNMENT

Susan Arnout Smith’s Marketable Components
1. Current Logline: A Hawaiian teacher, gutted over the loss of a child, is being consumed by the Dark, and God sends an Angel down to bring her back before her Dark consumes others.
2. 10 Components of Marketability: top 2
G. Wide Audience Appeal: Huge Faith-based market for good scripts.
J. Great Roles for Bankable Actors:
• Angel: Conflicted
• Shelly: Wounded
• Lolani: Warrior
• Lanny: Cunning
3. Elevating Wide Audience Appeal: G
Off-shoot of Faith-based films is a new category: Light-based films dealing not with religions but Spirit.
Popular to Christians and also popular with a secular audience, or audiences of other faiths, as it’s not about Christianity, but about Light dwelling in every heart and its vulnerability to corruption. Core: YOU MATTER. THE CHOICES YOU MAKE, MATTER.
Elevating Great Roles for Bankable Actors: J
• Angel: Powerful, conflicted, fierce
• Shelly: Wounded, scrappy, vulnerable
• Lolani: Invalid, warrior, truth-teller
• Lanny: Cunning, manipulative, hungry
4. What I Learned Doing this Assignment is:
I have participated in numerous classes here, and this time, have a changed attitude. I am committed to finishing this class and achieving my goal of getting my screenplay optioned and then made. I am shifting every fearful thing from avoidance and retreat into a powerful learning experience filled with joy, calm and resolve. I am tapping into the creativity I’ve always known is there, and using this process to fuel my growth, discovery and the gifts I am able to share with the world.

[Susan A. Smith]

Lesson 1 Assignment, (posted), 7/28/24

Susan Arnout Smith
GENRE: Light Workers (a genre off-shoot of Faith Based)
TITLE: GOD’S PHOTO ALBUM
CONCEPT: A teacher at a Hawaiian school, gutted over the loss of a child, is being consumed by the Dark, and God sends an Angel down to get her back before her Dark consumes others.
WHAT’S MOST ATTRACTIVE ABOUT THIS STORY: Based loosely on a true story to which I have the rights, it is a movie of its time, reminding each of us that the war between Good and Evil takes place daily within our own hearts, and that our choices have consequences that affect the world.
WHO TO TARGET FIRST: Specifically producers to get an option agreement, but I’ll keep my ‘synchronicity antenna’ alert to possible actor matches for the role of the Angel.
WHAT I LEARNED TODAY: After taking numerous classes from Hal, I came to see a pattern in dropping out before I finished the class. Many things led to this outcome, which aren’t necessary to detail here. I am committed to doing and finishing this class in an orderly way and using every part of the lessons to further my writing goals of getting this project optioned and produced.

[Susan A. Smith]

Hi, Cheryl:
This is LESSON 2, and I’m posting it here in LESSON 1 because inexplicably I’m experiencing difficulty in getting my ‘Lesson 2 Post’ to take in the proper section. So here it is!
____
LESSON 2 ASSIGNMENT

Susan Arnout Smith’s Marketable Components
1. Current Logline: A Hawaiian teacher, gutted over the loss of a child, is being consumed by the Dark, and God sends an Angel down to bring her back before her Dark consumes others.
2. 10 Components of Marketability: top 2
G. Wide Audience Appeal: Huge Faith-based market for good scripts.
J. Great Roles for Bankable Actors:
• Angel: Conflicted
• Shelly: Wounded
• Lolani: Warrior
• Lanny: Cunning
3. Elevating Wide Audience Appeal: G
Off-shoot of Faith-based films is a new category: Light-based films dealing not with religions but Spirit.
Popular to Christians and also popular with a secular audience, or audiences of other faiths, as it’s not about Christianity, but about Light dwelling in every heart and its vulnerability to corruption. Core: YOU MATTER. THE CHOICES YOU MAKE, MATTER.
Elevating Great Roles for Bankable Actors: J
• Angel: Powerful, conflicted, fierce
• Shelly: Wounded, scrappy, vulnerable
• Lolani: Invalid, warrior, truth-teller
• Lanny: Cunning, manipulative, hungry
4. What I Learned Doing this Assignment is:
I have participated in numerous classes here, and this time, have a changed attitude. I am committed to finishing this class and achieving my goal of getting my screenplay optioned and then made. I am shifting every fearful thing from avoidance and retreat into a powerful learning experience filled with joy, calm and resolve. I am tapping into the creativity I’ve always known is there, and using this process to fuel my growth, discovery and the gifts I am able to share with the world.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith
GENRE: Light Workers (a genre off-shoot of Faith Based)
TITLE: GOD'S PHOTO ALBUM
CONCEPT: A teacher at a Hawaiian school, gutted over the loss of a child, is being consumed by the Dark, and God sends an Angel down to get her back before her Dark consumes others.
NOTE: CONCEPT was logline I learned. CONCEPT 2 (current Concept) is:
CONCEPT (2) What if the battle between Good and Evil depends solely on the choice of one person, and must be played out every day, and that choice can tip Angels?
WHAT'S MOST ATTRACTIVE ABOUT THIS STORY: Based loosely on a true story to which I have the rights, it is a movie of its time, reminding each of us that the war between Good and Evil takes place daily within our own hearts, and that our choices have consequences that affect the world.
WHO TO TARGET FIRST: Specifically producers to get an option agreement, but I'll keep my 'synchronicity antenna' alert to possible actor matches for the role of the Angel.
WHAT I LEARNED TODAY: After taking numerous classes from Hal, I came to see a pattern in dropping out before I finished the class. Many things led to this outcome, which aren't necessary to detail here. I am committed to doing and finishing this class in an orderly way and using every part of the lessons to further my writing goals of getting this project optioned and produced.

• This reply was modified 11 months, 1 week ago by  Susan A. Smith. Reason: Learned in Lesson 2 that what I considered my Concept is actually my Logline, so I created a new Concept (Concept 2)

[Susan A. Smith]

I, Susan Arnout Smith, agree to the terms of this release form which I have copied in full below.

GROUP 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.

[Susan A. Smith]

Hi, Everyone!
I signed up for this class over a year ago and am now ready to methodically learn what I need to sell to producers. Not sure if anybody else is taking this class late, as I am, but if you are, and would like to stay in touch as we do the lessons, please reach out.
I’ve written for TV movies that have all be produced and aired, while never living in HW and being over the age of 40. I’ve also written 3 novels that have been published in the US by houses and two of those have been translated and published in other languages by other pub houses abroad.
My project I’m taking into this class has one the Grand Prize in the Faith in Film Screenwriting competition.
You may not know am Alaskan born, happily married with kiddos and grands, living now in San Diego, and that last year, I went around the world for almost six months.
Looking forward to going forward with this class.

[Susan A. Smith]

Hi, Everyone!
I signed up for this class over a year ago and am now ready to methodically learn what I need to sell to producers. Not sure if anybody else is taking this class late, as I am, but if you are, and would like to stay in touch as we do the lessons, please reach out.
I’ve written four TV movies that have all be produced and aired, while never living in HW and being over the age of 40. I’ve also written 3 novels that have been published in the US by houses and two of those have been translated and published in other languages by other pub houses abroad.
My project I’m taking into this class has one the Grand Prize in the Faith in Film Screenwriting competition.
You may not know am Alaskan born, happily married with kiddos and grands, living now in San Diego, and that last year, I went around the world for almost six months.
Looking forward to going forward with this class.

[Susan A. Smith]

Hi, there,
Takeaways from the lecture:
This class may not be the right fit for me at the moment. I’m viewing Hal’s lecture this afternoon on getting existing projects placed in the current market, and may find that I’ll be putting this current class on hold and signing up for the class on marketing existing projects.
I loved the lecture, by the way. Hal is invariably clear, encouraging and generous with invaluable information. I’ll know more after I hear today’s lecture about the steps I need to use presently to move forward, and that will inform which of these two classes I dig into first.
Currently I have a project I very much want to find a home for, and if I find in the lecture that this other class is geared specifically to moving along current projects, I’ll make the jump.
By the way, I think both Seth and Rhonda have an amazing existing body of work. Rhonda, five novels is nothing to pooh pooh, and Seth…wow, what a fascinating set of projects are currently percolating in your life.
Good luck to you both. If I do decide to make the leap, I assure you I’ll let you know here in the forum.
Good luck to you both in your writing lives…I have a strong feeling we’re all in it to win it, and will be reconnecting again, either here or sometime down the road.

[Susan A. Smith]

Hi, all!

I’m delighted to be here in this class. I’ve written four movies for TV that have all been produced and sold also in other countries. I’ve written one screenplay, finalist, semi-finalist in some contests and winner of the Grand Prize, Faith in Film, International Screenwriting award. I was an essayist for NPR, Weekend Edition-Sunday for a decade, have written three novels published by US houses, two of which have been translated into other languages and published in other countries. I’ve won the Stanley Drama Award for playwriting, was an O’Neill Playwright, where my play, DIFFERENT, became an TV movie starring Lynn Redgrave and was a finalist for PEN-West.
That said, I have lots to learn, and come to this class with a strong curiosity and desire to become current and adaptable in this ever-evolving marketplace. And a serene confidence that Screenwriting U is–as always–the place to do it.
Looking forward to what’s ahead, and to getting to know my fellow travelers.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith

I agree to the terms of this release.

[Susan A. Smith]

4, Lesson 9, Scene Requirements

ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

VISION: I easily create powerful produced works that bring me financial abundance and professional respect as they heal the world, while providing me time to explore that world in comfort with my family.

WHAT I LEARNED DOING THIS ASSIGNMENT: Oh. Wow. This assignment is one of the main reasons I took this class. Getting mastery over an outline for me has been a challenge I’ve wrestled with for decades. I am committed to changed my practices until writing outlines this way become simply second nature. For now, I am joyous that I have finished this assignment–imperfectly–yep, but I’m wrestling that one to the ground, too.

High Concept: A young girl is spirited off planet after an ancient prophesy reveals she will cause the destruction of her world, not knowing that her being off-planet is what creates her world’s end.

ACT I

EXT. HARSH TERRAIN – DAY

Scene Arc: The crone guards the prophesy; the Queen steals it.

Essence: The Queen savagely kills a crone to get an ancient prophesy.

Conflict: Fight to the death.

Subtext: The prophesy gives its owner power.

Hope/fear: We hope whoever the protag is she’ll be okay. Fear: We fear the prophesy will harm her.

EXT. CANTORIA, BEHIND THE COMPOUND – DAY

Scene Arc: 12-year old Halfling Esme whales other girl; they’re separated by Ilya, Esme’s mother.

Essence: Esme is attacked for being different and defends herself.

Conflict: Two girls fighting. Emotionally, Esme is fighting because Gisselda hit her tender spot, that she hasn’t inherited her mother’s power.

Subtext: Esme’s worst enemy is using her worst fear against her.

Hope/fear: We hope Esme inherits her mother’s powers. We fear she won’t.

EXT. GISSELDA’S HOUSE – DAY

Scene Arc: ‘Apology’ flowers to hive reaction.

Essence: Esme is not apologizing, not backing down. Gisselda’s mother raises threats.

Conflict: Severe unexpected reaction to ‘gift’.

Subtext: The High Priestess line is based on magic; Esme might not have it. Prove it.

Hope/Fear: We hope Esme will inherit her mother’s powers. We fear she won’t.

INT. QUEEN’S BUTCHER SHOP – DAY

Scene Arc: Queens chooses a victim; Croom, her evil sidekick, eviscerates her.

Essence: Reinforces Queen’s evil. She has a ‘plan’ for the body.

Conflict: Peasant begs for her life; she dies.

Subtext: Queen’s evil act ties into obtaining.

Hope/Fear: We hope the mutilated dead woman is not used for evil. Fear: We fear that’s exactly what the Queen has in mind.

EXT. BRIDGE, GUARD GATE – DAY

Scene Arc: A peasant with a cart and ‘broken woman’ is allowed inside Cantoria.

Essence: Croom tricks the Cantorian guards into letting him through to Cantoria.

Conflict: The guards are ‘on guard’; something about Croom, and the ‘unconscious’ woman, are ‘off’.

Subtext: Croom is disguised as a peasant; gutted dead woman is disguised to look comatose.

Hope/Fear: We hope Croom will be found out before something happens. Fear: We fear that ship has already sailed.

EXT. PROTECTED PLAY AREA

Scene Arc: Esme babysits little kids as punishment; palms off her ‘job’ to Bodhi, her best friend.

Essence: The Binder women prep for a soul fragment retrieval, using the dead woman in the cart.

Conflict: Esme needs Bodhi to tend kids. Bodhi doesn’t want to risk his job; he’s a Bender in training, (part of the Cantorian guard.)

Subtext: Bodhi is far more attached to Esme than she is to him, and, she’s willing to use him to get what she wants.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope the ‘dead woman’ allowed inside the gates won’t prove to be a threat. Fear: We fear it will be.

EXT. BINDER TENT – DUSK

Scene Arc: Esme scouts out the Binder tent and slips inside.

INT. BINDER TENT – CONTINUOUS

Scene Arc: Esme witnesses and then becomes part of a soul fragment retrieval.

Essence: Esme attaches herself to her mother and is lifted skyward.

Conflict: Esme violates an ancient ceremony, is conflicted, but does it anyway.

Subtext: Dark magic is inside the tent with the peasant woman’s body.

Hope/Fear: We hope the strange eviscerated peasant with a crater in her chest is not evil; we fear she is.

EXT. SKY – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Esme attacked by a monster; Esme rescued by her mother and returned to the tent. Essence: Esme puts herself and her mother at risk.

Conflict: Monster attacks; Ilya (Esme’s mother) disables creature and saves her

Subtext: Esme doesn’t have her mother’s power; she can’t see the soul fragment

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope Esme hasn’t caused her mother harm. Fear: We fear she has.

INT. TENT – NIGHT

Scene Arc: From crashing into the safety of the tent to the prophesy delivered.

Essence: Ilya performs the soul fragment binding on the peasant woman, who morphs into a silvery molten creature who delivers the prophesy: the island paradise kingdom of Cantoria will be destroyed…at the hands of a child: Esme!

Conflict: Terrifying prophesy. Then the creature attacks Binders to kidnap Esme. She’s stopped.

Subtext: Cantoria is vulnerable to attack and ruin—and Esme started this mess!

Hope/Fear: Hope: Esme will not be captured; Fear; the island will never be safe.

ACT II

EXT.INT. TENT – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Creature attacks; creature killed, Esme protected.

Essence: Esme and her family have put Cantoria in danger. Fearful people do fearsome things. Conflict: Savage fight with acid by creature trying to kidnap Esme; Binders (joined by the

Subtext: The survival of the entire island is on the shoulders of a child.

Hope/Fear: Esme will stay free and Cantoria alive/Fear: The community will die.

EXT. BINDER INTERIOR COURTYARD – LATE DAY

Scene Arc: The Binder Tribunal meets and decides Esme’s fate: she’s banished from the Binder compound and stripped of her succession rights.

Essence: Former allies become untrustworthy.

Conflict: The community votes to kill her to save the kingdom. Ilya fights for her daughter.

Subtext: There are the Queen and her enemies outside, and now enemies inside Cantoria.

Hope/Fear: Esme hopes for the best. Fear: She fears the worst, and barely escapes it.

INT. ESME AND BRINN’S SLEEPING QUARTERS – LATE DAY

Scene Arc: Esme packs quickly, leaves with Bodhi for the hazardous journey to her dad’s.

Essence: Esme’s life isn’t safe anymore in the Binder compound.

Conflict: Esme experiences emotional tumult.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope her family reunites. Fear: We fear they won’t.

INT. PALACE GREATROOM, KINGDOM OF MALDORIA – NIGHT

Scene Arc: The Queen rages when her plan to kidnap Esme fails; punitive punishment, then on to Plan B.

Essence: Croom is saved from death by his report that Cantoria is turning against Esme and can be talked into siding with the Queen.

Conflict: The Queen rages at the failure to capture Esme; gloats that Cantoria is turning.

Subtext: Power is her opiate. With Cantoria’s aid, capturing Esme is in reach.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope Esme makes it to her dad’s safely; Fear: We fear she won’t.

EXT. BINDER COMPOUND – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Bodhi and Esme encounter Cantorians wanting to kill them; they arrive at her dad’s. Essence: It’s started: fear has turned some of her community against her.

Conflict: People who were ‘safe’ and friends of hers, she and Bodhi now must fight.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope they get away. Fear: We fear she’ll be caught and killed.

EXT./INT. OUTLIER QUARTERS, JOHN’S LAB – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Fighting to safely inside her dad’s compound.

Essence: Her dad is not just a nerdy inventor. He can fight ruthlessly. Who is he, really?

Conflict: Fierce firefight.

Subtext: The Outliers are actually fighting because John, her dad, is their powerful leader. Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope Esme is safe. Fear: We wonder about her dad.

INT. PALACE QUEEN’S GREAT HALL – SAME NIGHT

Scene Arc: Update on firefight, Esme’s whereabouts, new plan to attack to corralling dissenters.

Essence: Cantorians seduced. Queen is not the threat. Esme and her family are.

Conflict: Group of Cantorians there to protest. Queen ‘contains’ them until Esme caught.

Subtext: Cantorians are split, which makes their country vulnerable.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope the Cantorians come to their senses. Fear: We fear they won’t.

INT. JOHN’S PRACTICE GYM – DAY

Scene Arc: John works with Esme and Bodhi on defense, he’ll reveal gradually who he is.

Essence: Esme discovers she doesn’t know her dad; her Mom’s version is only partially true.

Conflict: We hope learning defense will save her. Fear: We fear the Queen will win.

MONTAGE OF LEARNING HOW TO KILL/LEARNING ABOUT HER DAD

(The montage shows Esme/Bodhi increasing their fighting skills and Esme learning that on Earth her dad was something called a Navy Seal. He was also known across the Earth-globe as a brilliant physicist working on contact between Earth and other galaxies…who one day…vanishes, (when he leaves Earth with Ilya and comes to Cantoria….lots to unpack…other versions.)

INT. BINDER COMPOUND – DAY

Scene Arc: Ilya, the High Priestess and Esme’s mother, packs, runs with Brinn to safety.

Essence: Things are heating up. More people they trusted betray them.

Conflict: Brinn has wandered off. Ilya must find her before they can run. And fast.

Subtext: Brinn is in as much danger as Esme, as she’s the High Priestess next in line now.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope Brinn is found unharmed. Fear: We fear for the little one.

EXT. OUTLIER COMPOUND – DAY

Scene Arc: Esme and Bodhi find and rescue Brinn. Esme’s family escapes into space. Pursued.

Essence: This is the end of their life on Cantoria. New dangers face them.

Conflict: Time versus death. The mob is closing in. Their ship is pursued.

Subtext: Bodhi sacrifices himself so she can escape.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope their new life is safe. Fear: We fear it’s not.

ACT III

EXT. SPACE/INT. SPACESHIP – ENDLESS NIGHT

Scene Arc: Endless time in space, punctuated by fighting enemies.

Essence: Threats escalate; Esme given protection of cloak of forgetfulness.

Conflict: Esme is emotionally frayed; wants to remember. Fights with enemies.

Subtext: They will be runners forever…and then they will be captured…and then they will die.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope they escape. Fear: We fear they can’t outrun Death.

INT. QUEEN’S PALACE – NIGHT

Scene Arc: The Queen tracks the ship…and loses it when a tracker is sheared off.

Essence: The Queen needs Esme alive, tortures Esme’s Nurse to find out where they’re headed.

Conflict: The Nurse holds out, then the information is squeezed out of her as she dies. Her dad, John, is from a place called Earth.

Subtext: The Queen must get Esme back onto Cantoria before the prophesy can be fulfilled.

Hope/Fear. Hope: We hope the Queen won’t find her. Fear: We fear the Queen will.

INT. QUEEN’S ANTEROOM – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Readies ship. Queen creates copy as Queen to stay, an avatar to follow Esme.

Essence: Queen pivots, pushes on. Creates a stunningly beautiful young avatar, Mary.

Conflict: Pushes tech team past limits to create a ship that will get her there.

Subtext: John is more brilliant than we knew, but the Queen is unstoppable.

Hope/Fear: We hope she won’t find Esme. Fear: We fear she will.

EXT. EARTH (spot to be determined) – DAY

Scene Arc: Family in spaceship, losing control of ship.

Essence: The ship crash lands on Earth.

Conflict: Dad (John), trying to keep the ship stable; slammed out of orbit by bad things.

Subtext: Esme’s on her own, now.

Hope/Fear: Hope: That the family’s all okay. Fear: People are dead.

INT. HOSPITAL ROOM – DAY

Scene Arc: Esme (now Rose) assailed by media. To Mary Fortuna driving them out.

Essence: Esme wakes up with amnesia. Names herself ‘Rose’. Mary seen as an ally.

Conflict: Media storm versus Mary. ‘Rose’ wants anything Mary can tell her; Mary obliges.

Subtext: Mary wants to control ‘Rose’ by gaining her trust. She’s a Homeless Advocate.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope Esme remembers who she is. Fear: We fear it will place her in danger.

EXT. HOSPITAL GROUNDS – DAY

Scene Arc: Doctors/scientists intent on tests to John’s parents laying claim to her.

Essence: The crash landing of the ship is worldwide news and brings ‘Rose’ help.

Conflict: The scientists insist on keeping her, grandparents allied with Mary get her away.

Subtext: ‘Rose’ is now at even more risk. Mary uses this to gain grandparents’ trust.

Hope/Fear: We hope she’s safe. Fear: We fear what Mary’s up to.

EXT. KANSAS FARM FIELD – DAY

Scene Arc: Lands in Kansas to getting settled at her grandparents’ place.

Essence: She hears parents’ origin story, triggering memories, finds spaceship prototype.

Conflict: Wants to stay in safe world; has to save old world by returning.

Subtext: Mary is pretending to be child advocate.

Hope/Fear: We hope Mary doesn’t harm Esme. Fear: We fear she will.

EXT. KANSAS FIELD – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Soul fragments seen, to she readies ship to go.

Essence: ‘Rose’ remembers who she is. Her leaving has caused Cantoria’s ruin; she must return to save it and her people.

Conflict: Grandparents against Esme. They fear she’ll die if she goes back. Mary agrees.

Subtext: Mary pretending she cares about Esme’s wellbeing.

Hope/Fear: Hope: We hope Esme gets away. Fear: We fear she’ll be stopped.

INT. SHED – NIGHT

Scene Arc: From Esme with grandparents to big reveal that her true grandparents are dead.

Essence: Avatar grandparents are assassins.

Conflict: Esme fights against avatars. Ship needs special powers she doesn’t possess.

Subtext: She’s bigger than she knows. She’s had the power all along.

Hope/Fear: Hope. We hope she lifts off in spaceship. Fear. We fear she won’t be able to.

Act IV

EXT. FIELD – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Esme goes from blasting free of shed to getting space-borne.

Essence: As ship bumps along the ground, Mary climbs on board.

Conflict: Fight with grandparents’ avatars. Mary displays hidden power.

Subtext: Mary’s not who Esme thought she was.

Hope/Fear: We hope Mary won’t hurt her. Fear: We fear she will.

EXT. DEEP SPACE – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Space vehicle: Esme goes from trusting Mary to doubting her.

Essence: Mary caught in lies; reveals truths about Esme and her family.

Conflict: Deep space is no place to find out your companion is crazy.

Subtext: Mary’s façade slips the closer they get to Cantorian airspace.

Hope/Fear: We hope Esme’s power is strong. Fear: We fear not strong enough.

EXT. CLOSER TO CANTORIAN AIR SPACE – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Mary ‘cracks’ apart, Esme handcuffs her inside space ship.

Essence: Queen reveals she is Ilya’s sister. Ilya chose Light. The Queen chose Dark.

Conflict: Esme and the Queen fight.

Subtext: Queen is sending out distress signals to her troops

Hope/Fear: We hope Esme can win. Fear: We fear the Queen is stronger.

EXT. CANTORIAN AIR SPACE – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Bodhi’s troops arrive. he’s been corrupted by the Queen.

Essence: Esme’s craft is overrun. From space, she sees sky covered in soul fragments.

Conflict: Bodhi’s troops bring down Esme’s craft.

Subtext: Bodhi is not there to save Esme, but to destroy her.

Hope/Fear: We hope she has a plan. We fear she doesn’t.

EXT. CANTORIA BINDER COMPOUND – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Esme crash lands, Bodhi’s hurt, to she’s rescued by Outliers.

Essence: Cantorians her rescue her and scoop up Bodhi’s body.

Conflict: Dark and Light are fighting.

Subtext: Cantorians on the Dark side are ‘asleep’; Lightworkers are awake.

Hope/Fear: We hope she can restore Bodhi to Light. We fear she can’t.

INT. CRYSTAL TUNNEL – NIGHT

Scene Arc: She’s spirited through a tunnel to safety in the Outlier compound along with Bodhi’s body.

Essence: Esme’s wounded and worn out.

Conflict: Fighting to protect the flank.

Subtext: Dark is more powerful and will win.

Hope/Fear: We hope they make it to the Outlier’s compound. We fear they won’t.

INT. OUTLIER COMPOUND – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Esme is reunited with her family

Essence: Cantoria can be saved now that she’s back, one soul at a time.

Conflict: She’s pressed to go on her first soul fragment retrieval—for Bodhi.

Subtext: Esme is the new High Priestess.

Hope/Fear: We hope she’s up to the task. We fear she’ll get killed by the Dark.

EXT. OUTLIER AIRSPACE – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Esme finds Bodhi’s soul frag, is pursued, maneuvers away, returns safely.

Essence: Esme now has the power her mother had when she rescued Esme.

Conflict: Queen’s minions after her; they battle.

Subtext: Esme has come into her full power.

Hope/Fear: We hope she gets safely inside with Bodhi’s soul fragment. We fear she won’t.

INT. OUTLIER COMPOUND – NIGHT

Scene Arc: With her mother’s help, Esme reunites Bodhi’s soul fragment that had been torn from his body.

Essence: Esme is a healer now.

Conflict: Exhausting, and so many who remain separated from their soul fragments

Subtext: One small step to healing the island kingdom, but she has to create a new plan.

Hope/Fear: We hope Esme can figure out how to bring back Cantoria, we fear she can’t.

EXT. CANTORIA – NIGHT

Scene Arc: Esme transfers some of her healing power into every healed person, so they in turn can heal.

Essence: The way to restore the island is for each new healer to heal others.

Conflict: Fighting, but the balance is tipping.

Subtext: Every person on Cantoria carries Light and Dark. If they choose Light, they can spread Light.

Hope/Fear: We hope each Cantorian lets Hope win and not Fear.

EXT. CANTORIA – NIGHT

The sky is lighting up like little fireflies as soul fragments are reunited with their bodies and those people, in turn, heal others.

The Queen is defeated. Good wins.

(to be fleshed out later.)

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me professional respect, financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned in Lesson 7: I’m beginning to see where the holes are–haven’t filled them yet, but beginning to see them. I discovered an important piece that had just been a placeholder, so I’m realizing the more into this I get, the better and more cohesive the script outline is becoming.

Act I

Note: These emotions are all from the POV main characters. And…I’ll be making choices later that among these ‘moments’, I’ll find the 2-4 big moments to hit harder.

Success/Winning: The Queen succeeds in wresting the ancient prophesy away from the crone who took care of it.

Distress/Surprise: The crone puts a curse on the Queen. (Note: will figure this part out later.)

Wounds: Esme attacks her nemesis when Gisselda taunts her that as a Halfing, Esme’s inferior and won’t inherit her mother’s gifts.

Vulnerability/Love: Ilya, Esme’s mother, reminds Esme that because her dad is from Earth, Esme has gifts Gisselda will never have…and even if the ‘line’ dies out with Ilya, Ilya loves Esme just as she is…and Ilya wouldn’t change a thing about her past, the past that led to Esme and her little sister, Brinn.

Surprise: The tender moment turns instantly. Esme has picked flowers to give to Gisselda as an apology. Hidden among them lie poisonous flowers and Gisselda immediately breaks out in hives.

Betrayal: Esme disobeys her mother and follows her into the sky as Ilya does her work.

Distress: Esme is roundly punished by the Binders, the tribe of women who support Ilya.

Distress: The ‘healed’ woman turns into an assassin who delivers the prophesy that Esme will cause the destruction of the kingdom of Cantoria.

Act II

Distress: Esme tracks down the crone: the prophesy is real. (Note: may have room here to have Esme plead to have a ‘way out’ and the crone give her one. Work on it later.)

Betrayal/Hidden Weakness: The Queen feels she’s been betrayed by the assassin and those she trusted to easily conquer Cantoria. It creates a bloodbath of revenge and she allows her weakness (needing revenge) to decimate some of her very best soldiers.

Bonding: Esme is sent to live with her dad, an Outlier from Earth, to protect her. A former Navy Seal, he teaches her extreme defense tactics.

Love/Courage: Esme finds Brinn, (her younger sister), as Cantoria is invaded. The

family is able just barely to escape Cantoria. It takes will, risky maneuvers and

Act III

Distress/Sacrifice: Esme is wrapped by her mother in the ‘mantle of forgetfulness’ to save her. Ilya sacrifices her own desire to be with her daughter in order to protect her daughter.

Distress: Esme wakes up in an American hospital with amnesia. She’s dubbed ‘Rose’. Her distress plays off of Mary (the Queen in disguise) and her (fake) compassion.

Excitement: Esme discovers that the necklace she’s wearing gives her brief glimpses of another place, land, people.

Emotional dilemma: Croom forces Esme to choose: does she go with him or stay with Mary.

Surprise: Esme can see soul fragments. The Earth sky is covered in people who have been fractured apart through trauma.

Moral Issue: Esme must choose whether to try and find the body to which a fragment belongs, or to give the fragment to Croom, who promises her he’ll reunite the two parts and in return for Esme working ‘with’ him, he’ll help get her home to her half-remembered land. Esme puts off choosing.

Surprise/Excitement: Esme can fly! She chooses a soul fragment and returns with it to Earth.

Success: Esme’s ‘light’ had been obscured from Mary when Esme chose momentarily to go with Croom. Now that she’s actually used her gift to fly, her ‘Light’ is very clear and Mary uses it to track her. She lies in waiting for her.

Act IV

Moral Issue/Surprise: Esme’s loyalty to her family/father is challenged as she begins to doubt her grandparents…and then turns to surprise as she realizes that the two grandparents are imposters, and that her grandparents are dead.

Betrayal: Esme discovers that Mary is really the Queen

Betrayal: Bodhi, Esme’s childhood friend and ally, has been twisted by the Queen into betraying Esme

Wounds: The Queen describes to Esme why she wanted Esme and the kingdom of Cantoria gone. It’s to heal an old festering wound.

Success/Winning: Esme uses everything powerful in her arsenal and defeats the Queen and her kingdom and brings peace to Cantoria.

0

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me professional respect, financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned from Lesson 8: I’m beginning to get a sense of what this story is. Every exercise adds a new dimension, which makes me very happy.

ACT I

Intrigue: The Queen searches out an ancient crone, the holder of a hidden prophesy, and wrenches the prophesy from her. Who is the Queen trying to harm, and why?

Secret: The woman reunited with her soul fragment is actually a creature created by the Queen, who morphs into a molten silvery assassin.

ACT II

Hidden identity: John, Brinn and Esme’s father, is an Outlier on Cantoria, disguised as a nerdy tinkerer. He’s actually a former Navy Seal and known across the Earth-globe as a brilliant physicist working on contact between Earth and other galaxies…who one day…vanishes. (when he leaves Earth and joins Ilya on Cantoria.) Note: There’s a lot to unpack here that will be spread out through the script.

Superior Position: The Queen prepares for war with Cantoria. Her forces outnumber the island kingdom’s forces four to one.

ACT III

Secret/Cover up: The Queen has transformed herself into Mary and is on Earth, disguised as a brilliant, wise-cracking compassionate advocate for homeless kids.

Scheme: Croom, Esme’s fun science teacher at her school for the homeless, plans to enslave Esme to use her gift as an endless money making machine.

ACT IV:

Secret/Hidden identity: Ilya has been carrying with her a terrible lie: Her older sister really didn’t die. Her older sister is the Queen, tricked by Ilya into giving up her H.P. birthright for the kingdom of Maldoria. And now the Queen is determined to get vengeance.

Superior position: All the knowledge Esme has gathered through the story changes her into a fierce leader and rightful heir to the High Priestess role. She saves her Cantoria kingdom, and contains the Queen and her allies. A fierce last fight: Esme wins.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by  Susan A. Smith. Reason: Posted as Lesson 8; reposted correctly as Lesson 7
• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me professional respect, financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned from Lesson 6: Every lesson teaches me something. Even though all the pieces aren’t in place, I’m beginning to feel the ‘outline’ here of what this is, and know I just have to keep going step by step. My goal is never quitting.

Act I

Set-up: Queen unearths the prophesy and pays extra for a curse. (first scene between Queen and crone )

Reveal: Cantoria will die at the hands of a child—Esme! (1^St TP, as assassin delivers the prophesy before it dies)

Set up: Esme’s mother, Ilya, has power; she is revered and feared. (Even flowers bow down to her. Scene where Esme is lectured by her mother as she collects flowers)

Reveal: Ilya’s line might not continue! (Esme forced to apologize scene and is reminded by Gisselda’s mother that Ilya’s line might end with no heir)

Set up: A lowly peasant carrying cargo and a wounded woman (missing a soul fragment) is given permission to enter Cantoria’s protected island space. Some ‘markers’ are left on the path, placed secretly by the ‘peasant’.

Second part of the set up: This happens in Act II

Reveal: (Note: Reveal: this pays off Act II)

Set up: Esme knows her flowers, knows which ones offer teas, compresses for healing. (She collecting flowers as her mother lectures her.)

Reveal: She also knows which ones cause hives and other skin maladies!! (When she presents the flowers as an apology to Gisselda and her family they break out!)

Set up: Binders (female posse) prepare Ilya. But for what? (Scene when Esme talks Bodhi into taking care of the little kids so she can sneak into the Binder tent. We see the prep happening through Esme’s eyes, but at a distance from mother.)

Reveal: Esme’s mother is the Cantorian High Priestess!

Set up: Esme sneaks into Binder tent. Her mother looks comatose.

Reveal: Ilya can fly! Ilya sees and retrieves soul fragments! (Parts of a body that leave the body when a severe trauma occurs.)

Act II

Set up: Esme uses sophisticated techniques to break out of her protected confinement

Another part of set up: She tracks the ancient crone with devices (things that are out of reach for an almost 12-year old.)

Another part of set up: (When she’s sent to Outlier compound she disarms hidden devices casually.)

Reveal: Dad (John) is a former Navy Seal! He’s taught her stuff! (we learn this when we see things at the Outlier compound. And then when he teaches her new stuff.)

Set-up: Dad (John) was an inventor/scientist on Earth and tinkers here with a car in his Outlier Compound

Reveal: It’s not a car…it’s a spaceship! And it gets them out of there!

Set up: Bodhi’s experience taking care of the little kids is like herding cats. Brinn, Esme’s little sister, veers into protected boundary territory. .. Where she picks up the things that were left along the path by the peasant delivering what turned out to be the assassin. Only she can see them.

Reveal: Brinn’s ‘treasures’ unlock the path into Cantoria and Cantoria is invaded!

Act III:

Set up: In the spaceship, Esme gets an early birthday present, a necklace. (Note: This creates a very intense scene—she’s afraid it means her parents know something she doesn’t—that maybe she’ll be separated from her family.)

Reveal: Through the necklace, Esme sees glimpses of her former life. It’s the key that holds the answer to her questions.

Set up: Esme’s parents place a ‘cloak of forgetfulness’ over her and tell her that the more she remembers the more at risk she is.

Reveal: As ‘Rose’ remembers, we see that the risk to her increases.

Set up: The Queen creates an Avatar as a ‘place holder’…and then morphs into another form.

Reveal: When Esme wakes up in the US hospital, she meets Mary. We know it’s really the evil Queen who wishes her and Cantoria dead!

Set up: We meet Croom, Esme’s science teacher at the school for the homeless kids. He is funny, quirky, entertaining, and encourages ‘Rose’ (the name Esme gives herself), to break away from Mary and explore her world more.

Reveal: Oh no! Croom is a bad guy, (the triangle character), who knows exactly who ‘Rose’ is, and also knows that Mary is the Queen disguised! And Esme (Rose) has blocked Mary from ‘seeing her. Now Mary must urgently find Croom and save Grace. (Reveal at TP3)

Set up: Croom takes a group of kids on a night sky field trip. The group peels off (with another chaperone. Leaving ‘Rose’ alone with Croom.

Reveal: Croom reveals to Esme (Rose) where Cantoria is! She has memory bursts! And…she sees a sky crowded with soul fragments. (Earth is a shattered place filled with shattered souls). (Note): Croom is gloating. He is greedy and can make a lot of money out of Esme’s gift.

Note: This reveal ties into the Queen and what she wants: Mary is trying to get Esme to remember and take her (as Esme) back to Cantoria, where she can at last be killed. Croom wants to keep her here and enslave her, getting her to retrieve soul fragments that he then pulps into a potent ‘juice’ to keep rich clients looking young. So…going back to Cantoria with the Queen means death…staying on Earth means death (enslavement) by Croom. Nothing is safe.

Act IV Esme rights the world

Set up: (In Act II): Esme’s father, John, talks to Esme about his parents, farmers in a place called Nebraska on Earth. If she’s ever in trouble, find them; they’ll help her.

Reveal: (In Act IV): Esme discovers the grandparents have been killed and two imposters were installed to subdue Esme. She subdues them long enough to get away

Setup: (Act IV) Mary turns Croom’s evil ways on himself: she puts him in the ‘juicer’ to distill down his energy so that it’s pure evil.

Reveal: …(later in Act IV) So she can use it as an extra weapon to beat Esme!

Setup: (Act IV: Farm in Kansas). Esme discovers prototype her dad made, the first spaceship. It needs special power she doesn’t possess.

Reveal: (Act IV: spaceship) But she does have the special powers! They’ve been hidden in the necklace until Esme had gained the knowledge and is headed home. Esme powers the ship! Mary climbs in at the last second. She’s going with her. It’s too late to turn around.

Setup: The curse of the crone is circling back on the Queen.

Reveal: The farther they get into the airspace of the Queen’s kingdom and Cantoria, the more the façade of ‘Mary’ slips; the frightening changes reveal…it’s the Queen. The Queen has been with Esme all the time.

Setup: Bodhi, Esme’s childhood friend, now a leader in the Benders (who have gone underground as Cantoria was destroyed), comes to her aid.

Reveal: He’s been corrupted/bewitched by the Queen.

Setup: (Act I) Bodhi and Esme has a secret pact to be friends forever.

Reveal: (Act IV) Bodhi gets out from under the Queen’s power and leads the force with Esme to save Cantoria, which has been put under a speel.

Setup: The Queen swallows the ‘pure evil’ of Croom and it gives her extra power to defeat Esme.

Reveal: The pure evil actually brings the crone’s curse into reality: the power the Queen has always had is now corrupted. The Queen is forced to tell the ‘truth’. The Queen is Esme’s evil grandmother, sent from Cantoria because she used her High Priestess power for evil. She has vowed to kill of the line of High Priestesses and the work of Cantoria is famous for: healing. She’s been on killing good.

Set up: Knowing the ‘secret’ Esme is able to access the allies she’s gained, and her special knowledge.

Reveal: She brings the Queen and her kingdom down. It is neutralized and the land is finally freed of the Queen and her evil.

Resolution: Good triumps on Cantoria. Esme is installed as High Priestess and the kingdom restored. The mainland is joyous to be free from the yoke of the evil queen and Bodhi become the leader of the mainland kingdom. And they all…live in peace.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me professional respect, financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned in this assignment: This is just round 1, giving the characters basic actions, some not even in place yet. Through time, my intention is to make every action a surprise and running counter when possible to the dialogue, so the scene is multi-layered and delivers on each of them.

Genre: SciFi/ Drama

ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

High Concept: A 12-year-old Halfing must come into her own power in time to save her world from an evil Queen after an ancient curse is activated that would crush Esme’s world forever.

Esme character traits: Rule-breaker, Loyal, At Risk, Magical

Queen/Mary’s core traits: Obsessive, Cruel, Enraged, Chameleon

Croom’s core traits: Sly, Obsequious, Greedy, Pleasant

ACT 1: The Prophesy Finds its Mark

Queen Action: (Obsessive). The Queen and her elite force slog through creepy country to control a witch who activates an ancient prophesy. The Queen ‘pays extra’ to get a curse attached.

H3M3 (Queen) AJ 1: H3M3, ruler of the immense and dangerous mainland, unearths an ancient prophesy and pays extra to activate the curse buried inside it to destroy the kingdom of Cantoria—but the curse can swing back and hit the person who called it out, so it’s dangerous.

Deeper Layer: H3M3 is taking no chances: her goal is to destroy the High Priestess line, and especially Esme, along with the island kingdom of Cantoria.

Esme Action: (Fiercely loyal, insecure, fearless). Esme is whaling into (and winning against) bigger and more skilled Gisselda. Gisselda is attacking Esme where she’s the most insecure, taunting her that she may literally not have what it takes to inherit the powers of her mother.

Esme PJ 1: 12-year-old Halfling Esme Cooper attacks her nemesis, Gisselda. At issue is whether a Halfling (Esme) will ever become the next High Priestess, even though the role has been in Esme’s mother’s pureblood family line for centuries. Esme’s taunted: there’s no guarantee when she comes of age (12), she’ll have the gift of ‘soul fragment healing’.

Esme Action: (Fiercely loyal, rule-breaker). Esme picks flowers she has to ‘give’ to Gisselda and her family as an apology. : Esme fights with her mother to be allowed to attend a Soul Binding. Esme is almost 12, the age when they’ll know if she has her mother’s gift. Esme wants to know ahead of time, so that she won’t be publicly humiliated. Only the High Priestess, (and Esme hopes the HP-in-waiting), are able to see soul-fragments. It’s way too dangerous; her mother refuses. She adores her mother Ilya, the High Priestess of Cantoria, and because Esme believes Gisselda dissed her mother, Esme hides a plant in the mix that immediately makes Gisselda and her mother break out in hives. Esme is sentenced to take care of her little sister, Brinn and a bunch of other girls.

Esme action: (Rule-breaker.) Esme PJ 2 We meet Bodhi, Esme’s best friend. He’s a year older and he is part of the Bender class, the crack security team that defends the island and especially the holy Binders. He’s besotted with her. Esme quickly talks him into taking on her punishment (watching the younger kids)…and she’s off.

Queen action: (Cruel, cunning.). The Queen orders her maids to bathe a very scared peasant woman. When she’s clean, the Queen eviscerates her. We see the screaming soul fragment expelled from her body.

Queen Action. (Cruel, cunning, obsessive). H3M3 (Queen) AJ2: The Queen is looking out at Cantoria from every angle. She’s interviewing potential candidates for her plan. She settles on one. And then kills her. The woman’s eviscerated. The woman’s broken body is allowed into Cantoria, so that the High Priestess (Esme’s mother, Ilya), can reunite it with its soul fragment.

Esme Action: (Fearless, rule-breaker.) INCITING INCIDENT: In a risky and brash move, Esme disobeys her mother, and climbs into the sky following her mother to find the current soul fragment. She’s attacked by gyres, and only her mother’s skills bring Esme and the soul-fragment back safely into the Binder tent.

Esme Action: (fearless, rule-breaker). Esme PJ 3: is rebuked by the Binder women, but allowed to watch the Soul Binding as her mother reunites the soul fragment with the woman we now recognize as the Queen’s victim.

Queen Action: (cunning, obsessive) H3M3 (Queen) AJ3: The fragment is reunited with the eviscerated woman…who morphs into a molten silvery assassin creature.

Deeper Layer: The Queen has breached the security of Cantoria. The destruction has begun.

Esme Action: (fearless, loyal) Esme PJ4: The Binder women meld into a fighting force to protect their High Priestess…and Esme. Esme fights to protect her mother.

Queen Action: (Creature represents the queen. Cunning, cameleon, cruel.) H3M3 (Queen): AJ 4: The creature uses acid and other weapons to chew through the Binders (who now have been joined by the Benders, (the Cantorian security arm).

Queen Action: (Creature represents the queen. Obsessive, cunning) TURNING POINT 1: As the assassin melts into acid, it delivers the ancient prophesy: Cantoria will die at the hands of a child: Esme!

ACT 2: Lessons Learned

Esme action: (fearless, magical.) Esme finds and goes to the crone who gave the prophesy and the curse. She terrifies the old women who instantly knows who she is and what she can do. Esme discovers that the curse is real, her kingdom is at risk.

Esme PJ 5: Completely shocked by the security breach, carnage and the prophesy, Esme is sequestered for her own protection. She tries multiple ways to prove the prophesy false and to take off of her family the community’s outrage and belief that Esme’s behavior caused all the ruin that followed. Everything she tries fails.

Queen action: (Cruel, obsessive) Massive bloodbath, assisted by Croom, the kingdom’s hand. H3M3 AJ5: The Queen savagely punishes those she holds responsible for the screw-up. She had intended the assassin to make quick work of the High Priestess and Esme. Now she must activate Plan B.

Deeper Layer: The Queen prepares for a vicious invasion of Cantoria.

Esme action: (loyal, fearless). Esme PJ 6: Esme’s sent to live with her dad in the Outlier compound. He takes the prophesy very seriously. As a former Navy Seal, he teaches her multiple ways to defend herself for what he knows is a coming war.

Esme action: (fearless, loyal). Turning point 2/Midpoint: Brinn goes missing (looking for Esme) as Cantoria is invaded by the Queen’s army. The Cantorians are enslaved by the Queen’s army. Esme fights off the enemy (using skills her dad taught her and scoops up her sister. Esme and her immediate family, (mother, dad, little sister, Brinn), barely escape Cantoria, headed for Earth.

Act 3: Shifting identities

Esme action: (Loyal, At Risk) Esme PJ 7: Esme’s mother gives her a necklace and wraps her in a mantle of forgetfulness to protect her. She’s cautioned by both parents she must never remember her old life, as they will be able to track her signal that way.

Queen action: (Obsessive) H3M3 AJ 7: The Queen indeed is tracking them (using Esme’s Light). She sends her best team after them. They lose the signal (when Esme is wrapped in the cloak of forgetfulness). Outraged, the Queen picks a new path.

Queen action: (Cameleon, obsessive, cunning, vain). H3M3 AJ 8: She creates an avatar to ‘place-hold’ as Queen, tries on various identities, and settles on one. Her vanity comes out here, she arranges ‘Mary’ to be stunning. While she’s primping, the ancient keeper of the prophesy appears and reminds the Queen of the ‘rules’. The curse she bought is clear: Esme can only be killed…as Esme…and the Queen…must be in her own form. The battle for Cantoria must occur…on Cantoria. The Queen must find a way to return Esme to Cantoria in order to obliterate the kingdom and change back in time to kill her. The Cantorians are enslaved, but only Esme dying will kill off the kingdom forever. If the Queen goes off-plant and kills Esme, violating these rules, she’ll die a horrible death and her immense kingdom will be forever blotted from history. And…the downside to being Mary: she loses the powers she had as Queen. She must do all this as…(figure out where Cantoria is and how to get back there) as Mary.

Esme action: (Fearless, at risk). Esme PJ 8: Esme’s family crash-lands on Earth. She’s got amnesia when she wakes up in a hospital room. She remembers nothing of who she is or where she came from. She picks Rose as her name.

Queen action: (cunning, cameleon) H3M3 (now Mary) AJ 9: Mary Fortuna meets Esme in the hospital. She’s a wise-cracking, fun and fierce advocate for homeless kids. She promises Esme (Rose) she’ll help her remember who she is so she can be reunited with her family, whoever and wherever they are. Mary brings daring and fun into Esme’s life and encourages her to try dangerous things.

Esme action: (At risk, loyal.) Esme PJ 9: Esme realizes the necklace produces brief flashes of memory about her family. We see the more she remembers, the more Light she emits. She urgently needs to figure out where this place is (Cantoria) and how to return.. She relates these to her protector, Mary, who has found a place for her in a foster home.

Deeper Layer: We know that Mary is the Queen in disguise; Esme doesn’t. Mary realizes Esme is being tracked by bad guys using her ‘light flashes’ to find her.

Croom action: (Sly, pleasant.) Croom does essentially a ‘magic trick’ in his room. Esme is charmed. Without realizing it, her magical abilities are ) Croom TJ 1 We introduce Croom, the triangle character, a science teacher at the school for homeless kids. Croom’s doing an entire section on ‘extra special abilities’. He’s doing something fun and ‘big’ in the classroom and the kids adore him. Esme (Rose) is in many ways an innocent. The mantle of forgetfulness has also affected her ability to intuit danger. Croom immediately understands who Esme is, and who Mary is. Neither of them know who he is.

Esme action: (At risk). She’s helping Croom with a science project). Esme PJ 10: Esme is befriended by her science teacher at the school for the homeless. As a growing girl, she’s feeling a bit of chafing at how constricted a rein Mary has on her. She likes that she’s meeting people on her own; it makes her feel grown up. Croom skillfully separates her out from Mary, tricking her into not going back to her foster home.

Croom action: (Sly, obsequious, greedy) Croom, TJ 2: Croom takes a select group of students on a ‘field trip’. He shows them where he works at a part-time job, a magical bookstore that will take them through books where ever their hearts desire. And then somehow, the others peel off, (arranged by Croom), leaving Esme with Croom. The ceiling softens, becomes porous, disappears. It reveals the sky. Esme sees for the first time soul fragments in the Earth’s sky. Croom is triumphant, but carefully keeps this to himself. Esme/Rose, is, indeed, the ‘real deal’. He can make a lot of money out of her gift.

Deeper layer: We see that yes, Esme does have the special Cantorian powers that would lead to her being the next High Priestess. And her level of danger just keeps getting higher. And we know that while Mary (the Queen), is trying to kill Esme, Cantoria, and finish off the line of Soul Binders completely, Croom, on the other hand, is trying to use her powers for ill and wants to enslave her on Earth. (So going back to Cantoria means death—at the Queen’s hands, staying on Earth means death (enslavement) by Croom. Nothing’s safe.

Esme action: (Magical) Esme PJ 11: What Esme sees in the Earth’s sky confuses and terrifies her: Now that she can see them, on Earth the sky is literally jammed with soul fragments, traumatized ‘bits’ of people trapped out of time.

Croom action: (Greedy, sly, obsequious.). Croom TJ 3: Croom claims that Mary is the danger…and that with Esme’s help, he can get Esme back to her ‘own kind’. If….Esme assists him first with capturing soul fragments. He earnestly tells her she must block Mary’s energy. Mary is the enemy. The danger. He assures her she can do this, she’s just demonstrated her power. This is just another part of it.

Deeper Layer: Croom pretends he has a humane system of reuniting soul fragments with their wounded bodies. He makes her believe this by using her new, revealed knowledge and hunger for home to entrap her.

Queen action: (Enraged, obsessive). H3M3 (Mary): AJ 10: Mary knows exactly the danger Croom represents. She goes on the hunt for him. Her powers of connection with Rose/Esme have been ‘blocked’, something Esme did at Croom’s urgent suggestion.

Croom action: (Greedy.) Croom TJ4: Croom encourages Esme/Rose to try her first soul retrieval of a fragment. She’s not to worry about finding the wounded body it belongs to; Croom will take care of that part. Her part is just to pick a fragment and bring it safely down to Earth. He takes her to the highest part of the bookstore. She grips her necklace.

Esme action: (Magical) Esme PJ 12: The sky is so full it’s hard to pick. Esme ‘sees’ herself lifting into the sky…and she manifests this. Suddenly, she’s airborne. Esme picks a fragment out that’s vibrating at a very high frequency of terror, a small child repeating the moment when the ‘fracture’ happened.

Deeper Layer: Esme is in line now to be the High Priestess. She is Esme. Her memories come flooding back. Including her mother, her mother’s gift, and now the realization that she, Esme, is the proven heir to her mother: The High Priestess in Waiting. She’s exultant and in awe. She can fly. She can soothe. She can retrieve. And, she needs to find her family.

Queen Action: (Obsessive). Mary AJ 11: Mary’s been on the lookout for this moment. The instant Esme connects with her true power/nature and retrieves the soul fragment, the ‘fog’ Esme/Rose placed around herself splits apart; her light is too big. Mary instantly sees Esme’s energetic form. Mary doesn’t fly skyward: that would bring the curse down on her. She waits on the ground and figures out where Esme is headed.

Croom action: (greedy, obsequious). Croom TJ5: Croom tracks her progress and guides her to him. Back to the innocuous looking bookstore, but it’s magic, with multiple ‘backrooms.

Esme action: (loyal). Esme PJ 13: Esme tenderly carries in the soul fragment, reassuring it that it’s soon to be healed, soon to be reunited with its human body that it fled at its moment of severe trauma. Esme is about to hand over the fragment to Croom.

Queen action: (obsessive, enraged, cameleon). Mary AJ 12: Mary stops her just in time. Croom was feeding the soul fragments into a hideous big machine to get all the ‘juice’ out. He’s selling the fragments to rich worldly patrons as the fountain of youth.

Croom action: (Greedy) Croom TJ6: He fights with Queen (as Mary) and grabs Esme). If he can’t have the soul fragment, he’ll take Esme, and keep her power harnessed on a wheel so that all she sees is a repeat over and over of Cantoria at its most powerful. He captures and contains her.

TP 3 Act 4: Esme rights the world

Queen action: (enraged, obsessive, cruel). Mary AJ 13 Mary grabs Esme back—hard–and sends her to stay with her paternal grandparents, retired farmers in Kansas. Mary ‘handles’ Croom, by putting him in his machine, extracting his ‘juice’. It’s pure evil, and an extra weapon she can use to infuse herself when necessary. Note: we may only see this in flash blacks, when Mary is revealed to be the Queen.

Esme action: (Magical, loyal, fearless). Esme PJ 14: Esme’s loyalty to her grandparents is immediately challenged powers reveal that her father’s parents have been killed and the two imposters were sent by the Queen to hold her captive until the Queen could kill her. She subdues the two.

Queen action: (Cameleon, obsessive) Mary AJ 14 Mary is right behind, ready to do battle with the two imposters to save the child. Together, she and Esme neutralize the two imposters. She offers to ‘adopt’ Esme.

Deeper Layer: It takes both Mary and Esme’s power to subdue and neutralize the imposter grandparents. Esme still hasn’t attained her true powers yet. She’s only seen glimpses of what she could be. Mary is trying to control Esme’s power, and ultimately, her life.

Esme action: (magical, at risk, fearless.). (This may be what precipitates the fight with the imposter grandparents—the discovery of the prototype.) Esme PJ 15 Esme discovers the prototype her father told her about that he built to use to traverse the distance between Earth and Cantoria. She’s going home and nothing and no one can stop her.

Queen action: (Obsessive). Mary AJ 15 Impulsively, Mary climbs in at the last second. It’s too late to turn around.

Deeper Layer. The farther they get in the spaceship taking them back to Cantoria, the more Mary ‘slips’.

Esme Action: (At risk) Esme PJ 16 Esme goes from trusting Mary to doubting her to being afraid of her. They are entering Cantorian boundaries.

Queen action: (Cameleon, enraged). Mary/Queen AJ 16 Mary struggles to keep the persona of Mary intact, but as they get closer to Cantoria, her actual body starts to distort into something frightening; a gargoyle. The gargoyle morphs into the Queen.

Deeper Layer. Esme realizes she’s been with the Queen this entire time, and now the Queen is going to kill her. The Queen’s been party to seeing all her vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

Esme action: (loyal, at risk). Esme PJ 17: Esme’s childhood friend, Bodhi, now a captain in the Bender security guard, surrounds the ship and stops them. Esme is thrilled to have an ally and a fierce one at that.

Queen action: (obsessive, enraged). She is using her rage to manipulate the world. Queen AJ 17 The fight for Cantoria begins in earnest. The kingdom has been put under a spell so they are slaves to the queen and are part of the attack quard.

Esme/Queen action (The big fight) Esme PJ 18: Esme and her forces and the Queen and her forces have a fight that escalates. Bodhi is revealed to be enchanted by the Queen: Esme must win this battle herself. In even fiercer fighting, summoning all she knows and is, and rallying the community behind her once more, Esme finds her parents and sister. They rally to her side.

Queen action: (enraged, obsessive, cruel). Queen AJ 18 Queen corners Esme and reveals the why, the big secret: The Queen is Esme’s grandmother. She misused the High Priestess power to create her own kingdom and was banished from Cantoria forever. Only Ilya knows that the evil Queen is actually her deranged mother. The Queen is greedy to get back the power she once had—and if she can’t, then nobody can have it. She’d prefer the entire kingdom of Cantoria, including her daughter and grand-daughter, extinguished so that as far as the eye travels, the only ruler is the Queen, with absolute power. (Goodness trumps evil, unless good is killed.)

Esme action: (Magical, fearless). Esme AJ 19. Esme now knows the Queen’s weakness: (Note, still to be discovered). Knowing the ‘secret’, Esme is able to put all her sacred and secret knowledge to work. She stops the Queen.

Esme/Queen action: Resolution: We tie up the ends: Esme becomes the High Priestess and leader of Cantoria. The Queen is neutralized and her kingdom is freed. The scary and ancient curse is turned on the Queen.

Cantoria with Esme as the young leader is saved, badly wounded, back alive as a kingdom. The Queen’s reign is blown up, and her along with it. Esme and Bodhi are still not reconciled but there’s a path back to friendship.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me professional respect, financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned from this assignment: It’s great to start to get the beats down in a cohesive way.

Genre: SciFi/ Drama

ACT 1: The Prophesy Finds its Mark

Esme PJ 1: 12-year-old Halfling Esme Cooper attacks her nemesis, Gisselda. At issue is whether a Halfling (Esme) will ever become the next High Priestess, even though the role has been in Esme’s mother’s pureblood family line for centuries.

Esme PJ 2: Esme fights with her mother to be allowed to attend a Soul Binding as a means of proving her worth. Only the High Priestess, and Esme hopes the HP-in- waiting, are able to see soul-fragments. It’s way too dangerous; her mother refuses.

H3M3 (Queen) AJ 1: H3M3 unearths an ancient prophesy and pays extra to activate the curse buried inside it.

Deeper Layer: H3M3 is taking no chances: her goal is to destroy the High Priestess line, and especially Esme, along with the island kingdom of Cantoria.

H3M3 (Queen) AJ2: The Queen, in the looming large mainland kingdom next to the island, finds the perfect victim. The woman’s eviscerated.

INCITING INCIDENT: In a risky and brash move, Esme disobeys her mother, and climbs into the sky following her mother to find the current soul fragment. She’s attacked by gyres, and only her mother’s skills bring Esme and the soul-fragment back safely into the Binder tent.

Esme PJ 3: Esme is punished by the Binder women, but allowed to watch the Soul Binding as her mother reunites the soul fragment with the woman we now recognize as the Queen’s victim.

H3M3 (Queen) AJ3: The fragment is reunited with the eviscerated woman…who morphs into a molten silvery assassin creature.

Deeper Layer: The Queen has breached the security of Cantoria. The destruction has begun.

Esme PJ4: The Binder women meld into a fighting force to protect their High Priestess…and Esme.

H3M3 (Queen): AJ 4: The creature uses acid and other weapons to chew through the Binders (who now have been joined by the Benders, (the Cantorian security arm).

TURNING POINT 1: As the assassin melts into acid, it delivers the ancient prophesy: Cantoria will die at the hands of a child: Esme!

ACT 2: Lessons Learned

Esme PJ 5: Completely shocked by the security breach, carnage and the prophesy, Esme is sequestered for her own protection. She tries multiple ways to prove the prophesy false and to take off of her family the community’s outrage and belief that Esme’s behavior caused all the ruin that followed. Everything she tries fails.

H3M3 AJ5: The Queen savagely punishes those she holds responsible for the screw-up. She had intended the assassin to make quick work of the High Priestess and Esme. Now she must activate Plan B.

Deeper Layer: The Queen prepares for a vicious invasion of Cantoria.

Esme PJ 6: Esme’s sent to live with her dad in the Outlier compound. He takes the prophesy very seriously. As a former Navy Seal, he teaches her multiple ways to defend herself for what he knows is a coming war.

Turning point 2/Midpoint: Cantoria is invaded by the Queen’s army. Esme and her immediate family escape Cantoria, headed for Earth.

Act 3: Shifting identities

Esme PJ 7: Esme’s mother gives her a necklace and wraps her in a mantle of forgetfulness to protect her. She’s cautioned by both parents she must never remember her old life, as they will be able to track her signal that way.

H3M3 AJ 7: The Queen indeed is tracking them. She sends her best team after them. They lose the signal (when Esme is wrapped in the cloak of forgetfulness). Outraged, the Queen picks a new path.

H3M3 AJ 8: She creates an avatar to ‘place-hold’ as Queen, tries on various identities, and settles on one. The ancient keeper of the prophesy appears and reminds the Queen of the ‘rules’. The curse she bought is clear: Esme can only be killed…as Esme…and the Queen…must be in her own form. The battle for Cantoria must occur…on Cantoria. ‘Rules is rules.’ If the Queen violates these rules she’ll die a horrible death and her kingdom will be forever blotted from history.

Esme PJ 8: Esme’s family crash-lands on Earth. She’s got amnesia when she wakes up in a hospital room. She remembers nothing of who she is or where she came from. She picks Rose as her name.

H3M3 (now Mary) AJ 9: Mary Fortuna meets Esme in the hospital. She’s a wise-cracking, fun and fierce advocate for homeless kids. She promises Esme (Rose) she’ll help her remember who she is.

Esme PJ 9: Esme realizes the necklace produces brief flashes of memory. She relates these to her protector, Mary, who has found a place for her in a foster home.

Deeper Layer: Mary urgently needs to get ‘Rose’ back to being ‘Esme’ so Esme will feel compelled to return to Cantoria to save her island and her people. And…there’s another group now tracking Esme by her ‘light flashes’.

Croom TJ 1 We introduce Croom, the triangle character. Croom’s doing an entire section on ‘extra special abilities’. Esme (Rose) is in many ways an innocent. The mantle of forgetfulness has also affected her ability to intuit danger.

Esme PJ 10: Esme is befriended by her science teacher at the school for the homeless. As a growing girl, she’s feeling a bit of chafing at how constricted an rein Mary has on her. She likes that she’s meeting people on her own; it makes her feel grown up. Croom natural desire to separate out and skillfully separates her out from Mary, tricking her into not going back to her foster home.

Croom, TJ 2: Croom takes a select group of students on a ‘field trip’. He shows them where he works, a magical bookstore that will take them through books where ever their hearts desire. And then somehow, the others peel off, (arranged by Croom), leaving Esme with Croom. The ceiling soften, becomes porous, disappears. It reveals the sky. Esme sees for the first time soul fragments in the Earth’s sky. Croom is triumphant, but carefully keeps this to himself. Esme/Rose, is, indeed, the ‘real deal’. He can make a lot of money out of her gift.

Deeper layer: We see that yes, she does have the special Cantorian powers that would lead to her being the next High Priestess. And her level of danger just keeps getting higher. And we know that while Mary (the Queen), is trying to kill Esme, Cantoria, and finish off the line of Soul Binders completely, Croom, on the other hand, is trying to use her powers for ill and wants to enslave her on Earth. (So going back to Cantoria means death—at the Queen’s hands, staying on Earth means death (enslavement) by Croom. Nothing’s safe.

Esme PJ 11: What Esme sees in the Earth’s sky confuses and terrifies her: Now that she can see them, on Earth the sky is literally jammed with soul fragments, traumatized ‘bits’ of people trapped out of time.

Croom TJ 3: Croom claims that Mary is the danger…and that with Esme’s help, he can get Esme back to her ‘own kind’. If….Esme assists him with capturing soul fragments. He earnestly tells her she must block Mary’s energy. Mary is the enemy. The danger. He assures her she can do this, she’s just demonstrated her power. This is just another part of it.

Deeper Layer: Croom pretends he has a humane system of reuniting soul fragments with their wounded bodies. He makes her believe this by using her new, revealed knowledge and hunger for home to entrap her.

H3M3 (Mary): AJ 10: Mary knows exactly the danger Croom represents. She goes on the hunt for him. Her powers of connection with Rose/Esme have been ‘blocked’, something Esme did at Croom’s urgent suggestion.

Croom TJ4: Croom encourages Esme/Rose to try her first soul retrieval of a fragment. She’s not to worry about finding the wounded body it belongs to; Croom will take care of that part. Her part is just to pick a fragment and bring it safely down to Earth.

Esme PJ 12: The sky is so full it’s hard to pick. Esme ‘sees’ herself lifting into the sky…and she manifests this. Suddenly, she’s airborne. Esme picks a fragment out that’s vibrating at a very high frequency of terror, a small child repeating the moment when the ‘fracture’ happened.

Deeper Layer: Esme is in line now to be the High Priestess. She is Esme. Her memories come flooding back. Including her mother, her mother’s gift, and now the realization that she, Esme, is the proven heir to her mother: The High Priestess in Waiting. She’s exultant and in awe. She can fly. She can soothe. She can retrieve.

Mary AJ 11: Mary’s been on the lookout for this moment. The instant Esme connects with her true power/nature and retrieves the soul fragment, the ‘fog’ Esme/Rose placed around herself splits apart; her light is too big. Mary instantly sees Esme’s energetic form. Mary doesn’t fly skyward: that would ruin her cover. She waits on the ground and figures out where Esme is headed.

Croom TJ5: Croom tracks her progress and guides her to him. Back to the innocuous looking bookstore, but it’s magic, with multiple ‘backrooms.

Esme PJ 13: Esme tenderly carries in the soul fragment, reassuring it that it’s soon to be healed, soon to be reunited with its human body that it fled at its moment of severe trauma. Esme is about to hand over the fragment to Croom.

Mary AJ 12: Mary stops her just in time. Croom was feeding the soul fragments into a hideous big machine to get all the ‘juice’ out. He’s selling the fragments to rich worldly patrons as the fountain of youth.

Croom TJ6: If he can’t have the soul fragment, he’ll take Esme, and keep her power harnessed on a wheel so that all she sees is a repeat over and over of Cantoria at its most powerful. He captures and contains her.

TP 3 Act 4: Esme rights the world

Mary AJ 13 Mary grabs Esme back—hard–and sends her to stay with her paternal grandparents, retired farmers in Kansas. Mary ‘handles’ Croom, by putting him in his machine, extracting his ‘juice’. It’s pure evil, and an extra weapon she can use to infuse herself when necessary. Note: we may only see this in flash blacks, when Mary is revealed to be the Queen.

Esme PJ 14: Esme’s powers reveal that her father’s parents have been killed and the two imposters were sent by the Queen to hold her captive until the Queen could kill her. She subdues the two.

Mary AJ 14 Mary is right behind, ready to do battle with the two imposters to save the child. Together, she and Esme neutralize the two imposters. She offers to ‘adopt’ Esme.

Deeper Layer: It takes both Mary and Esme’s power to subdue and neutralize the imposter grandparents. Esme still hasn’t attained her true powers yet. She’s only seen glimpses of what she could be. Mary is trying to control Esme’s power, and ultimately, her life.

Esme PJ 15 Esme discovers the prototype her father told her about that he built to use to traverse the distance between Earth and Cantoria. She’s going home and nothing and no one can stop her.

Mary AJ 15 Impulsively, Mary climbs in at the last second. It’s too late to turn around.

Deeper Layer. The farther they get, the more Mary ‘slips’.

Esme PJ 16 Esme goes from trusting Mary to doubting her to being afraid of her.

Mary AJ 16 Mary struggles to keep the persona of Mary intact, but as they get closer to Cantoria, her actual body starts to distort into something

Deeper Layer. Esme realizes she’s been with the Queen this entire time, and now the Queen is going to kill her. The Queen’s been party to seeing all her vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

Esme PJ 17: Esme’s childhood friend, Bodhi, now a captain in the Bender security guard, surrounds the ship and stops them. Esme is thrilled to have an ally and a fierce one at that.

Queen AJ 17 The fight for Cantoria begins in earnest. The kingdom has been put under a spell so they are slaves to the queen and are part of the attack quard.

Esme PJ 18: Esme and her forces and the Queen and her forces have a fight that escalates. Bodhi is revealed to be enchanted by the Queen: Esme must win this battle herself. In even fiercer fighting, summoning all she knows and is, and rallying the community behind her once more, Esme finds her parents and sister. They rally to her side.

Queen AJ 18 Queen corners Esme and reveals the why, the big secret: The Queen is Esme’s grandmother. She misused the High Priestess power to create her own kingdom and was banished from Cantoria forever. (Goodness trumps evil, unless good is killed.)

Esme AJ 19. Knowing the ‘secret’, Esme is able to put all her sacred and secret knowledge to work. She stops the Queen.

Resolution: Esme becomes the High Priestess and leader of Cantoria. The Queen is neutralized and her kingdom is freed. The scary and ancient curse is turned on the Queen.

Cantoria with Esme as the young leader is saved, badly wounded, back alive as a kingdom. The Queen’s reign is blown up, and her along with it. Esme and Bodhi are still not reconciled but there’s a path back to friendship.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me professional respect, financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned from Lesson 4: I was heartened by how the story–while certainly having ‘holes’ is coming together. Small steps.

Genre: SciFi/ Drama

ACT 1: The Prophesy Finds its Mark

Esme PJ 1: 12-year-old Halfling Esme Cooper attacks her nemesis, Gisselda. At issue is whether a Halfling (Esme) will ever become the next High Priestess, even though the role has been in Esme’s mother’s pureblood family line for centuries. Esme’s taunted: there’s no guarantee when she comes of age (12), she’ll have the gift of ‘soul fragment healing’.

Esme PJ 2: Esme fights with her mother to be allowed to attend a Soul Binding. Esme is almost 12, the age when they’ll know if she has her mother’s gift. Esme wants to know ahead of time, so that she won’t be publicly humiliated. Only the High Priestess, (and Esme hopes the HP-in-waiting), are able to see soul-fragments. It’s way too dangerous; her mother refuses.

H3M3 (Queen) AJ 1: H3M3, ruler of the immense and dangerous mainland, unearths an ancient prophesy and pays extra to activate the curse buried inside it—but the curse can swing back and hit the person who called it out, so it’s dangerous.

Deeper Layer: H3M3 is taking no chances: her goal is to destroy the High Priestess line, and especially Esme, along with the island kingdom of Cantoria.

H3M3 (Queen) AJ2: The Queen, in the looming large mainland kingdom next to the island, finds the perfect victim. The woman’s eviscerated. Disguised, the woman’s broken body is allowed onto Cantoria, so that the High Priestess (Esme’s mother, Ilya), can reunite it with its soul fragment.

INCITING INCIDENT: In a risky and brash move, Esme disobeys her mother, and climbs into the sky following her mother to find the current soul fragment. She’s attacked by gyres, and only her mother’s skills bring Esme and the soul-fragment back safely into the Binder tent.

Esme PJ 3: Esme is rebuked by the Binder women, but allowed to watch the Soul Binding as her mother reunites the soul fragment with the woman we now recognize as the Queen’s victim.

H3M3 (Queen) AJ3: The fragment is reunited with the eviscerated woman…who morphs into a molten silvery assassin creature.

Deeper Layer: The Queen has breached the security of Cantoria. The destruction has begun.

Esme PJ4: The Binder women meld into a fighting force to protect their High Priestess…and Esme.

H3M3 (Queen): AJ 4: The creature uses acid and other weapons to chew through the Binders (who now have been joined by the Benders, (the Cantorian security arm).

TURNING POINT 1: As the assassin melts into acid, it delivers the ancient prophesy: Cantoria will die at the hands of a child: Esme!

ACT 2: Lessons Learned

Esme PJ 5: Completely shocked by the security breach, carnage and the prophesy, Esme is sequestered for her own protection. She tries multiple ways to prove the prophesy false and to take off of her family the community’s outrage and belief that Esme’s behavior caused all the ruin that followed. Everything she tries fails.

H3M3 AJ5: The Queen savagely punishes those she holds responsible for the screw-up. She had intended the assassin to make quick work of the High Priestess and Esme. Now she must activate Plan B.

Deeper Layer: The Queen prepares for a vicious invasion of Cantoria.

Esme PJ 6: Esme’s sent to live with her dad in the Outlier compound. He takes the prophesy very seriously. As a former Navy Seal, he teaches her multiple ways to defend herself for what he knows is a coming war.

Turning point 2/Midpoint: Cantoria is invaded by the Queen’s army. The Cantorians are enslaved by the Queen’s army. Esme and her immediate family, (mother, dad, little sister, Brinn), escape Cantoria, headed for Earth.

Act 3: Shifting identities

Esme PJ 7: Esme’s mother gives her a necklace and wraps her in a mantle of forgetfulness to protect her. She’s cautioned by both parents she must never remember her old life, as they will be able to track her signal that way.

H3M3 AJ 7: The Queen indeed is tracking them. She sends her best team after them. They lose the signal (when Esme is wrapped in the cloak of forgetfulness). Outraged, the Queen picks a new path.

H3M3 AJ 8: She creates an avatar to ‘place-hold’ as Queen, tries on various identities, and settles on one. The ancient keeper of the prophesy appears and reminds the Queen of the ‘rules’. The curse she bought is clear: Esme can only be killed…as Esme…and the Queen…must be in her own form. The battle for Cantoria must occur…on Cantoria. The Queen must find a way to return Esme to Cantoria in order to obliterate the kingdom. The Cantorians are enslaved, but only Esme dying will kill off the kingdom forever. If the Queen goes off-planet and kills Esme, violating these rules, she’ll die a horrible death and her immense kingdom will be forever blotted from history.

Esme PJ 8: Esme’s family crash-lands on Earth. She’s got amnesia when she wakes up in a hospital room. She remembers nothing of who she is or where she came from. She picks Rose as her name.

H3M3 (now Mary) AJ 9: Mary Fortuna meets Esme in the hospital. She’s a wise-cracking, fun and fierce advocate for homeless kids. She promises Esme (Rose) she’ll help her remember who she is so she can be reunited with her family, whoever and wherever they are. Mary brings daring and fun into Esme’s life and encourages her to try dangerous things.

Esme PJ 9: Esme realizes the necklace produces brief flashes of memory. She relates these to her protector, Mary, who has found a place for her in a foster home.

Deeper Layer: We know that Mary is the Queen in disguise; Esme doesn’t. Mary realizes Esme is being tracked by bad guys using her ‘light flashes’ to find her.

Croom TJ 1 We introduce Croom, the triangle character, a science teacher at the school for homeless kids. Croom’s doing an entire section on ‘extra special abilities’. Esme (Rose) is in many ways an innocent. The mantle of forgetfulness has also affected her ability to intuit danger. Croom immediately understands who Esme is, and who Mary is.

Esme PJ 10: Esme is befriended by her science teacher at the school for the homeless. As a growing girl, she’s feeling a bit of chafing at how constricted a rein Mary has on her. She likes that she’s meeting people on her own; it makes her feel grown up. Croom skillfully separates her out from Mary, tricking her into not going back to her foster home.

Croom, TJ 2: Croom takes a select group of students on a ‘field trip’. He shows them where he works at a part-time job, a magical bookstore that will take them through books where ever their hearts desire. And then somehow, the others peel off, (arranged by Croom), leaving Esme with Croom. The ceiling softens, becomes porous, disappears. It reveals the sky. Esme sees for the first time soul fragments in the Earth’s sky. Croom is triumphant, but carefully keeps this to himself. Esme/Rose, is, indeed, the ‘real deal’. He can make a lot of money out of her gift.

Deeper layer: We see that yes, Esme does have the special Cantorian powers that would lead to her being the next High Priestess. And her level of danger just keeps getting higher. And we know that while Mary (the Queen), is trying to kill Esme, Cantoria, and finish off the line of Soul Binders completely, Croom, on the other hand, is trying to use her powers for ill and wants to enslave her on Earth. (So going back to Cantoria means death—at the Queen’s hands, staying on Earth means death (enslavement) by Croom. Nothing’s safe.

Esme PJ 11: What Esme sees in the Earth’s sky confuses and terrifies her: Now that she can see them, on Earth the sky is literally jammed with soul fragments, traumatized ‘bits’ of people trapped out of time.

Croom TJ 3: Croom claims that Mary is the danger…and that with Esme’s help, he can get Esme back to her ‘own kind’. If….Esme assists him first with capturing soul fragments. He earnestly tells her she must block Mary’s energy. Mary is the enemy. The danger. He assures her she can do this, she’s just demonstrated her power. This is just another part of it.

Deeper Layer: Croom pretends he has a humane system of reuniting soul fragments with their wounded bodies. He makes her believe this by using her new, revealed knowledge and hunger for home to entrap her.

H3M3 (Mary): AJ 10: Mary knows exactly the danger Croom represents. She goes on the hunt for him. Her powers of connection with Rose/Esme have been ‘blocked’, something Esme did at Croom’s urgent suggestion.

Croom TJ4: Croom encourages Esme/Rose to try her first soul retrieval of a fragment. She’s not to worry about finding the wounded body it belongs to; Croom will take care of that part. Her part is just to pick a fragment and bring it safely down to Earth.

Esme PJ 12: The sky is so full it’s hard to pick. Esme ‘sees’ herself lifting into the sky…and she manifests this. Suddenly, she’s airborne. Esme picks a fragment out that’s vibrating at a very high frequency of terror, a small child repeating the moment when the ‘fracture’ happened.

Deeper Layer: Esme is in line now to be the High Priestess. She is Esme. Her memories come flooding back. Including her mother, her mother’s gift, and now the realization that she, Esme, is the proven heir to her mother: The High Priestess in Waiting. She’s exultant and in awe. She can fly. She can soothe. She can retrieve. And, she needs to find her family.

Mary AJ 11: Mary’s been on the lookout for this moment. The instant Esme connects with her true power/nature and retrieves the soul fragment, the ‘fog’ Esme/Rose placed around herself splits apart; her light is too big. Mary instantly sees Esme’s energetic form. Mary doesn’t fly skyward: that would ruin her cover. She waits on the ground and figures out where Esme is headed.

Croom TJ5: Croom tracks her progress and guides her to him. Back to the innocuous looking bookstore, but it’s magic, with multiple ‘backrooms.

Esme PJ 13: Esme tenderly carries in the soul fragment, reassuring it that it’s soon to be healed, soon to be reunited with its human body that it fled at its moment of severe trauma. Esme is about to hand over the fragment to Croom.

Mary AJ 12: Mary stops her just in time. Croom was feeding the soul fragments into a hideous big machine to get all the ‘juice’ out. He’s selling the fragments to rich worldly patrons as the fountain of youth.

Croom TJ6: If he can’t have the soul fragment, he’ll take Esme, and keep her power harnessed on a wheel so that all she sees is a repeat over and over of Cantoria at its most powerful. He captures and contains her.

TP 3 Act 4: Esme rights the world

Mary AJ 13 Mary grabs Esme back—hard–and sends her to stay with her paternal grandparents, retired farmers in Kansas. Mary ‘handles’ Croom, by putting him in his machine, extracting his ‘juice’. It’s pure evil, and an extra weapon she can use to infuse herself when necessary. Note: we may only see this in flash blacks, when Mary is revealed to be the Queen.

Esme PJ 14: Esme’s powers reveal that her father’s parents have been killed and the two imposters were sent by the Queen to hold her captive until the Queen could kill her. She subdues the two.

Mary AJ 14 Mary is right behind, ready to do battle with the two imposters to save the child. Together, she and Esme neutralize the two imposters. She offers to ‘adopt’ Esme.

Deeper Layer: It takes both Mary and Esme’s power to subdue and neutralize the imposter grandparents. Esme still hasn’t attained her true powers yet. She’s only seen glimpses of what she could be. Mary is trying to control Esme’s power, and ultimately, her life.

Esme PJ 15 Esme discovers the prototype her father told her about that he built to use to traverse the distance between Earth and Cantoria. She’s going home and nothing and no one can stop her.

Mary AJ 15 Impulsively, Mary climbs in at the last second. It’s too late to turn around.

Deeper Layer. The farther they get in the spaceship taking them back to Cantoria, the more Mary ‘slips’.

Esme PJ 16 Esme goes from trusting Mary to doubting her to being afraid of her. They are entering Cantorian boundaries.

Mary/Queen AJ 16 Mary struggles to keep the persona of Mary intact, but as they get closer to Cantoria, her actual body starts to distort into something frightening; a gargoyle. The gargoyle morphs into the Queen.

Deeper Layer. Esme realizes she’s been with the Queen this entire time, and now the Queen is going to kill her. The Queen’s been party to seeing all her vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

Esme PJ 17: Esme’s childhood friend, Bodhi, now a captain in the Bender security guard, surrounds the ship and stops them. Esme is thrilled to have an ally and a fierce one at that.

Queen AJ 17 The fight for Cantoria begins in earnest. The kingdom has been put under a spell so they are slaves to the queen and are part of the attack quard.

Esme PJ 18: Esme and her forces and the Queen and her forces have a fight that escalates. Bodhi is revealed to be enchanted by the Queen: Esme must win this battle herself. In even fiercer fighting, summoning all she knows and is, and rallying the community behind her once more, Esme finds her parents and sister. They rally to her side.

Queen AJ 18 Queen corners Esme and reveals the why, the big secret: The Queen is Esme’s grandmother. She misused the High Priestess power to create her own kingdom and was banished from Cantoria forever. Only Ilya knows that the evil Queen is actually her deranged mother. The Queen is greedy to get back the power she once had—and if she can’t, then nobody can have it. She’d prefer the entire kingdom of Cantoria, including her daughter and grand-daughter, extinguished so that as far as the eye travels, the only ruler is the Queen, with absolute power. (Goodness trumps evil, unless good is killed.)

Esme AJ 19. Knowing the ‘secret’, Esme is able to put all her sacred and secret knowledge to work. She stops the Queen.

Resolution: Esme becomes the High Priestess and leader of Cantoria. The Queen is neutralized and her kingdom is freed. The scary and ancient curse is turned on the Queen.

Cantoria with Esme as the young leader is saved, badly wounded, back alive as a kingdom. The Queen’s reign is blown up, and her along with it. Esme and Bodhi are still not reconciled but there’s a path back to friendship.

[Susan A. Smith]

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Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me professional respect, financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned from this assignment: Every choice I make doesn’t have to be permanent, it’s just a placeholder as I learn to elevate my abilities.

ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

</div>

Surface Layer: A 12-year-old needs to prove to herself that even though she’s a Halfling, she carries her mother’s magical healing powers.

Deeper Layer: A curse has been activated so that instead, Esme causes the destruction of her world.

Major Reveal: The evil Queen activating the curse is her grandmother, her mother’s mother.

Influences Surface Story: The story of her grandmother’s ‘death’ has holes in it. Her mother is fearful of things in her past. Her mother recognizes the hand of her own mother instantly in the activated prophesy. Esme, suffering from amnesia, is drawn to the very things her mother rejected long ago to save herself and the kingdom. Esme (in her state of amnesia) is told lies about her mother that make her start to despise her and shift her allegiances.

Hints: Mary Fortuna (the Queen disguised), as the child advocate, slips into the conversation with Esme the importance of discovering one’s lineage and respecting one’s elders, even following paths that don’t seem correct, because the elders hold wisdom and ultimately safety. Changes Reality: During the battle of her life to save her kingdom, Esme discovers the truth about the evil Queen: she’s Esme’s grandmother who sold her legacy in order to gain absolute power, at the cost of the kingdom of Cantoria, and her descendants.

Add the rest of the structure to the characters to the script.

· Beginning: 12-year old Esme Cooper attacks her nemesis, Gisselda, who challenges Esme about her ability to ever become High Priestess since Esme’s a Halfling.

· Inciting Incident: In a risky, brash move, Esme secretly follows her mother into the sky during a healing ‘binding’ to see whether she can see what her mother sees, thus insuring that the line of power is intact.

Turning Point 1: The wounded woman her mother is healing morphs into an assassin who delivers the prophesy: the kingdom of Cantoria will we destroyed at the hands of a child: Esme.Act 2: Everything Esme tries fails. She’s finally sent to stay with her father, John, in the Outlier compound for her own protection and the protection of Cantoria. John teaches her Earth survival tactics.

Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: Cantoria’s security is breached and attacked by the Queen. Esme and her immediate family, (mom, dad, younger sister) escape their world and head for Earth.

Act 3: In the escape vehicle, Esme’s mother wraps her in a mantle of forgetfulness. Both parents order her not to remember who she is…the more she remembers…the more she will be able to be tracked by Evil, following her Light. The vehicle crashes. Amnesiac Esme calls herself Rose, meets the court child advocate, Mary Fortuna, and as she begins to remember bits of her past, she becomes more at risk. Mary sends her to live with her dad’s parents in Kansas for her own safety.

Turning Point 3: Her grandparents are assassins sent by the Queen to kill her. Returning for protection to Mary, Esme discovers that Mary herself is not her protector, but sent by the Queen to track/control every move of Esme, and especially stop her from returning to Cantoria in time to save her world, which is still alive, but barely. Her old friend, Bodhi, helps her return to Cantoria.

Act 4 Climax: The evil Queen rapidly flips between her Queen persona and Mary, so Esme discovers that Mary (the Queen) has been with her the entire time, discovering everything Esme can use as power. Esme’s dad, mother, sister, along with the rest of Cantoria still ‘alive’ have been leached of all powers and magic. Gisselde, Esme’s old enemy, is now a tyrant ruling Cantoria. Bodhi reveals himself to be a pawn of the Queen and now an ally of Gisselda. Esme must dig deep, embrace the power she’s never claimed before, and battle the queen and her forces in the fiercest fight between light and dark. She rallies her community once more to fight with her, as they remember who they really are.

Resolution: Esme becomes the High Priestess and leader of Cantoria. The Queen, (her grandmother), is neutralized and the curse turns on her. The kingdom of Cantoria once again lives in Light.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me professional respect, financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned from this assignment: I am so relieved I’m at least working on and in the same module as the class. It really is encouraging to me that I can get caught up bit by bit, and that soon I’ll be current in assignments.

ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

HC: A 12-year old Halfing must come into her own power in time to save her world from an evil Queen activating an ancient prophesy that carries a curse.

Look at the story and who your character is in order to create their unique structure.

CHARACTER’S JOURNEY: Esme Cooper, protagonist

Beginning: Where does the character start?12-year-old Halfling Esme Cooper attacks her nemesis, Gisselda. At issue is whether a Halfling (Esme) will ever ‘grow’ into a Binder, like her mother, High Priestess Ilya.

· Inciting incident: What propels them on their journey?

In a risky and brash move, Esme follows her mother into the sky when her mother goes on a Binder journey to reunite a soul fragment with its wounded self. Esme’s caught and chaos ensues.

Turning Point 1: A major twist that locks them into a conflict.

The woman Ilya was healing morphs into an assassin and delivers an ancient prophesy: Cantoria will be destroyed at the hands of a child: Esme.

· Act 2: The character has a “normal response” to this change in their lives.

Plans that fail: Esme’s contained for her own protection.

She tries to get free. She’s found and contained.

She tries to win allies. Fails.

Esme escapes and uncovers the truth of the prophesy: it’s attached to a curse the Queen activated. Cantoria will die.

Esme’s captured and sent to live in the Outlier compound with her dad. NOTE: all ‘the plans that fail’ are neatly condensed down so that we see everything she tries and fails until she’s sent away to live in the Outlier compound.

MOST OF ACT II: Esme learns skills in the Outlier compound from John, her dad, who is from Earth.

· Turning Point 2 / Midpoint: A twist that causes everything to change but keeps the character on the same journey.

Cantoria’s security is breached and attacked by the Queen. Esme and her family escape their world, headed for Earth.

· Act 3: The character rethinks their journey and makes a real change to solve things.

· Reaction: In the escape vehicle, Esme’s mother wraps her in a mantle of forgetfulness. She must never remember her old life…the more she remembers, the more she’ll be in danger.

They crash land on Earth. Esme is separated from the rest of her family.

When she wakens, she can’t remember who she is, or anything about herself.

She meets Mary Fortuna, a wise-cracking, fun and fierce advocate for homeless kids, who promises Esme she’ll help her remember who she is. Esme picks Rose as her name.

Esme (Rose) learns Earth fighting skills and begins to regain memories. This puts her at grave risk.

Mary sends her away to save her, to live with her dad’s parents in Kansas.

Her grandparents turn out to be assassins sent by the Queen to kill her.

This shock leads Esme back to Mary for protection.

· Turning Point 3: Another major twist that takes them to the biggest conflict.

Mary is revealed not to be who she claims to be, not her protector. She was sent by the Queen to neutralize Esme and to never allow her to return to try and save her kingdom. Cantoria is alive, but barely, as is her family. Mary escapes.

· Act IV:

With Bodhi’s help, Esme returns to Cantoria to save her kingdom.

· 4th Act Climax: The ultimate experience/expression of this conflict.

Esme and her forces and the Queen and her forces have a fight that escalates. The Queen reveals she actually is Mary, that she’s seen everything Esme has done and been party to her biggest secrets.

Bodhi reveals himself to have been corrupted by the evil Queen: Esme really must win this battle herself.

In even fiercer fighting, summoning all she knows, and is, and rallying her community behind her once more, Esme neutralizes and stops the Queen.

· Resolution: Their world has changed. How did they end up after going through this journey?

Esme becomes the High Priestess and leader of Cantoria. The Queen is neutralized and all the really risky and scary curse stuff that the ancient one had predicted would happen if the Queen activated the curse, is now turned on the Queen.

Cantoria with Esme as the young leader is saved. The Queen’s reign is blown up, her along with it. Esme and Bodhi are still not reconciled but not enemies either.

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ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

CHARACTER’S JOURNEY: (Antagonist) Her High Holy Most Marvelous Muchness (H3M3) (aka Mary Fortuna)

High Concept: A 12-year old Halfing must come into her own power in time to save her world from an evil Queen activating an ancient prophesy that carries a curse.

Beginning: Where does the character start?

NOTE: Queen’s beginning is before the story starts. She unearths an ancient prophesy and pays extra to activate the curse buried inside it.

Queen’s Inciting Incident is Esme’s TP 1: Inciting incident: What propels them on their journey? The prophesy is delivered, but there’s a screw-up; the assassin delivers the prophesy but is killed! And Esme and her mother get away, but with multiple casualties.

Turning Point 1: A major twist that locks them into a conflict. Note: Queen’s TP1 is Esme’s TP2

Ilya’s security force infiltrates H3M3’s kingdom and is found out. Note: This information is known by Esme’s dad but at least in this version, it’s info kept from her. And whatever was activated inside the prophesy is already starting to in subtle ways affect the Queen.

Act 2: The character has a “normal response” to this change in their lives. The Queen mounts a fierce counter attack on Cantoria. Esme and her family escape.

Turning Point 2 / Midpoint, (into Act 3): A twist that causes everything to change but keeps the character on the same journey.

Note: Both timelines now coincide. On Earth, the crash is big news. Queen (as Mary Fortuna) meets Esme in the hospital. Esme’s lost her memory. Mary insinuates herself into Esme’s life through the court system and her seeming good will.

Act 3: The character rethinks their journey and makes a real change to solve things.

As Esme regains memory with Mary’s help, Mary punches up the danger Esme’s in, and Esme promises to only tell Mary when she retrieves a memory. Mary begins to weaken Esme’s power.

Esme’s grandparents take her from Mary. When they’re revealed to be assassins sent by the Queen, Mary saves her. Oh no! Mary herself is the threat, sent by the Queen to neutralize her and never let her return to Cantoria.

Turning Point 3: Another major twist that takes them to the biggest conflict.

With Bodhi’s help, she gets free of Mary. The Queen readies herself for the face-off.

4th Act Climax: The ultimate experience/expression of this conflict.

Esme and her forces and the Queen and hers square off in a fierce, bloody and epic battle.

Oh no! Among those corrupted by the Queen’s power is Bodhi. Esme must win without him. It’s only here, then, that Esme finally claims her true power and is able to defeat the evil Queen.

Resolution: Their world has changed. How did they end up after going through this journey?

Esme becomes High Priestess and leader of Cantoria. The Queen dies.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned doing this assignment: Wow! This really helped open up the characters for me, when each of them had to justify their being in the script. And it also supported many of the choices I had already intuitively and intentionally made.

ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS:

Bodhi, Ilya, John Cooper, Brinn, Croom, Nurse, Ancient One.

Support 1:

Name: Bodhi

Role: A 13-year-old Bender. When he grows into his gift, he’ll have the capacity to bend time and events, but at a price. He’s a guard-in-training in Cantoria, Esme’s best friend.

Main purpose: Esme’s confidante who is willing to break rules for her, and eventually, breaks her heart.

Value: Teaches Esme through disloyalty the crushing and empowering lesson that she must rely on herself

Support 2:

Name: Ilya

Role: Esme’s mother, High Priestess of Cantoria, the only one capable of reuniting soul fragments with their bodies.

Main purpose: She has endangered the family line by falling in love with, marrying, and having children with an Outlier. Conveyor of family history to Esme, the model Esme desperately wants to emulate.

Value: She shows us what’s a stake if Cantoria dies, (her unique gift will die with it); her choices put her family in peril before the story opens.

Support 3:

Name: John Cooper

Role: Esme and Brinn’s dad, Ilya’s husband. He lives with the other Outliers in a restricted area on Cantoria. His wife and kids travel back and forth to see him.

Main purpose: He brings with him gifts from Earth (he’s a physics/science geek, and has taught Esme and her little sister, Brinn, English and some US customs.

Value: His story echoes the theme: loving well requires sacrifice.

Support 4:

Name: Nurse.

Role: Esme and Brinn’s nurse from the beginning, beloved confidant.

Main Purpose: Ancient, she’s on Cantoria to protect and guide Esme and Brinn, and has hidden powers of her own.

Value: She leads Esme to information and magical connections that convey important information Esme can use later to succeed.

Support 5:

Name: Brinn.

Role: Esme’s 8-year-old sister.

Main Purpose: She’s a catalyst. She causes a change in Esme; she’s the first person Esme starts to remember, and the chief reason Esme works hard to regain her memory completely. Remembering Brinn opens the gateway to Esme realizing that she has a bigger task then saving her beloved little sister and possibly her mother and father: she has the holy task of saving her world.

Value: Brinn represents the essence of the choice Esme feels she must make later on: between regaining and protecting her family, especially Brinn, or saving the world of Cantoria, at the expense of her family. Early on, Brinn—with love and innocence—puts Esme in grave danger by giving her as a gift the ability to see into her young and lively mind any shared past experiences from her viewpoint. It connects them, but puts both girls at terrible risk. The Queen and her group first track Esme by getting inside Brinn’s head to find her older sister.

Support 6:

Name: Croom.

Role: A very creepy Queen’s Hand.

Main Purpose: To carry out the Queen’s wishes when it comes to destroying Esme and after that, the entire world of Cantoria.

Value: He is willing to do whatever is necessary to secure favor, position…and save his own life. He represents the dark side of attachment. His presence is used over and over to create bigger dangers and risks for Esme. He shows us the stakes for Esme and is where we get the first experience of Esme stepping into her challenge.

Support 7:

Name: Ancient one.

Main Purpose: She who activates the prophesy ordered by the Queen, and builds in a terrible ‘backdoor’ price.

Value: She is conveys important and powerful information to Esme along her journey that may be the most crucial thing Esme can use to save herself and her world.

BACKGROUND CHARACTERS: Queen’s minions, people inhabiting Cantoria, the Outliers compound, Earth. (At most, am trying to keep their parts to 5-and-under.)

[Susan A. Smith]

Character Profiles, part 1

ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I easily co-create with the Creator projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned from this assignment: How much I am creating a ‘safe space’ for creation at my highest level by doing the exercises and the assignments.

Character: Esme Cooper

With each of your lead characters, first tell us the following:

A. The High Concept. A young girl is spirited off planet after an ancient prophesy reveals she will cause the destruction of her world, not knowing that her being off-planet is what creates her world’s end.

B. This character’s journey. Esme goes from being a kid—naïve, needy, self-centered–into transforming through time into a great leader who saves her kingdom from evil and destruction.

C. The Actor Attractors for this character.

Brainstorm the first 6 parts of the profile for each of your lead characters.

Role in the Story: Protagonist, savior of Cantoria

Age range and Description: A spirited, scrappy 12-year old Halfling

Core Traits: Fearless, Trusting, Wounded, Magical

Motivation; Want/Need: On Earth under her cloak of forgetfulness, Esme wants to experience a normal childhood; as she comes back into remembering her past and gradually who she is, she needs to step into her brilliance to save her world. Note: see post #4: hidden agendas

Wound: Her wound is tied to why she wants to stay in forgetfulness (without realizing that’s what it is.) If she remembers, her wound rears up raw and untrammeled: her belief that her family and land were destroyed because of her essence. Losing everything is her fault.

Likability. She attacks her childhood nemesis who is mocking her mother.

Relatability. Esme kicks off the tale with her belief that she’s ‘not enough’, a common human fear.

Empathy. We empathize when she’s separated from her family and her world, and on top of that, is suffering from amnesia. We’ve all felt alone at time and unsure how to handle an environment that’s new and untested.

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Character: Her High Holy Most Marvelous Muchness, (aka Mary Fortuna)

With each of your lead characters, first tell us the following:

The High Concept. A young girl is spirited off planet after an ancient prophesy reveals she will cause the destruction of her world, not knowing that her being off-planet is what creates her world’s end.

This character’s journey. She goes from obsession to rage, to tracking Esme to a different planet, assuming a different identity and in the showdown, trying to kill her and thus kill Cantoria. She fails, but it’s an epic fight.

The Actor Attractors for this character. Brainstorm the first 6 parts of the profile for each of your lead characters.

Role in the Story: She is the antagonist and a fearsome foe against a 12-year old child.

Age range and Description: As the Queen, early forties and looks timeless, but not in a good way.

Core Traits: Vain, Angry, Obsessive, Abused

Motivation; Want/Need: Based on the ancient prophesy, the Queen’s immediate goal is to destroy Cantoria by getting Esme to flee. Once this is accomplished, she is led deeper into the prophesy: Cantoria only dies if and when Esme is captured and killed, and whatever has been placed with her for safekeeping is retrieved.

The Queen wants to be loved and respected. She needs to be all powerful and crush her sister’s family line and entire world, believing this will finally heal her wound.

Wound: Her relationship with Ilya (Esme’s mother) goes back to their childhoods, and her deep losses, leading to her obsession to extinguish the High Priestess lineage and obliterate Cantoria.

Likability. As Mary Fortuna, she is a fierce advocate and protector of vulnerable children.

Relatability. When Mary is driven past her control point, she spins into a fearsome caricature of who she pretends to be, then feels rage and shame, which only compounds her behavior. We’ve all sometimes been amazed at what we’ve done when we’re way past being our best selves.

Empathy. As Queen, she was the least favored child and grew up wounded and always trying to best real and imaginary opponents. We empathize because we’ve all felt vulnerable at times and tried in numerous ways to heal a hurt heart.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I co-create with God projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and that bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM THIS ASSIGNMENT:

The same lovely lesson, repeated over and over: a step at a time, just a step. Only do this one thing right now. The rest will follow in its own time.

ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

Brainstorm one or more ways you can present your Protagonist through each of these:

Likability: She attacks Gwendolyn at the Glimmer party when Gwendolyn mocks her little sister, Brinn. Esme attacks her to protect/defend Brinn.<div>

Relatability: Everybody fears they’re ‘not enough’ and worries that their dreams are out of reach. Esme following her mother into the sky is the direct result of her fears and wanting to prove her ability.

Empathy: We empathize with her when she’s separated from her family and forced to survive in an alien world, because we’ve all felt alone at times and unsure of how to handle an environment that’s new and untested.

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Just to get the experience, give us one or more ways that your Antagonist could be presented through each of these:

Likability: As Mary Fortuna, she is a fierce advocate and protector of vulnerable children. Relatability: Exhaustion fraying our composure and control is a human condition, followed usually by anger and shame, which only compounds the exhaustion, and deepens the cycle. Because it’s a human condition, everyone experiences a form of it and understands it when they experience it in a film.</div>

Empathy: As queen, she was the least favored child and grew up wounded and always trying to best real and imaginary opponents. We empathize because we’ve all felt vulnerable at times and tried in numerous ways to heal a hurt heart.

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[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I co-create with God projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and that bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned from this: If I just do the assignment in front of me, if I allow myself to relax into it, I can help dissolve perfectionism as I learn exciting and interesting things about my characters.

For each of your main characters, use this list to brainstorm one or more Intrigue items that might apply. You don’t need all of them; just one or two.

Character Name: Esme Cooper<div>

Role: A scrappy Halfling who must conquer evil to save the kingdom of Cantoria.

Hidden agendas: When she’s cloaked under the Veil of Forgetfulness, she uses her amnesia as protection while her goal is to retrieve her memory, where her mother has stored the secrets needed to restore the kingdom. Her hidden agenda is to get close enough to the queen to kill her.

Unspoken Wound: Esme believes she’s responsible for the major losses suffered by Cantoria; if she’d been a better daughter/person, the kingdom would have remained safe and intact.

Give us an idea of how that character’s subtext might show up in your movie. Esme uses her age and seeming lack of knowledge to protect herself as she secretly works at regaining her memory and taking down the evil queen. Her unspoken wound is evident throughout the script as she deals with the loss of her family and her part in it.

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Character Name: Her High Holy Most Marvelous Muchness, (aka Mary Fortuna)</div><div>

Role: The evil queen, also a legal advocate for homeless kids

Secrets: The queen knows that the secret hidden in the prophesy is that Cantoria will be destroyed…only if Esme goes off-planet. So her immediate goal is getting Esme and her family to flee Cantoria.

Unspoken Wound: Her relationship with Ilya (Esme’s mother) and her deep losses, leading to her rage at Esme and desire to obliterate her and Cantoria.

Secret Identity: At some point, the queen is disguised as a court advocate for homeless kids.

Give us an idea of how that character’s subtext might show up in your movie. The queen’s goal is to destroy Cantoria by getting Esme to flee. Once this is accomplished, she is led deeper into the prophesy: Cantoria only dies if and when Esme is captured and killed, which leads to the queen assuming a hidden identity and following her to Earth.

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[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Vision: I easily create powerful produced works that bring me financial abundance and professional respect as they heal the world, while providing me time to explore that world in comfort with my family.

What I discovered:

Every assignment brings me closer to understanding my characters and giving them depth and complexity.

2. With your example movie, give us the following answers for the character with the most subtext:

Movie Title: StardustCharacter Name: Captain ShakespeareSubtext Identity: campy crossdresserSubtext Trait: joyous, over the top, secretiveSubtext Logline: Captain Shakespeare is a gay, swashbuckling sky pirate who hides his identity under a gruff stereotypic behaviorPossible Areas of Subtext: It comes out beautifully during the movie, especially as he transforms with clothes Yvaine and Tristan, and at the end, when he winks at Humphrey, Victoria’s boyfriend.<div>

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3. For your two leads, brainstorm these answers:

Character Name: Esme CooperSubtext Identity: Fierce fighter and defender of CantoriaSubtext Trait: In denialSubtext Logline: Esme Cooper is a fierce fighter ready to die defending Cantoria and covers it by pretending to be defenseless, suffering from amnesia, but when triggered, lashes up furious magic revealing who she is.Possible Areas of Subtext: with the Outliers, who see her as she is, not as she’s disguised, with Croom in Nebraska, with Mary who is trying to kill her but needs to obtain her magic first.

· Character Name: Mary Fortuna

Subtext Identity: An advocate for homeless kids who befriends EsmeSubtext Trait: Treacherous, evilSubtext Logline: Mary Fortuna is evil and covers it by being an advocate for homeless kids but when triggered does staggeringly punitive things to kidsPossible Areas of Subtext: With the court, with her peers, with Esme, with Croom
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[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Vision: <b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>: I easily create powerful produced works that bring me financial abundance and professional respect as they heal the world, while providing me time to explore that world in comfort with my family.

What I learned doing this process: I’m learning things about my leads all the time, and this was a wonderful path to discovery.

ACTOR ATTRACTOR TEMPLATE

Lead Character Name: Esme Cooper

Role: (Protagonist)

What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?

Like Harry Potter, this character is a kid we will watch transform through time into a great leader who saves her kingdom from evil. But she starts as a kid not even knowing what her magic is, and must grow into discovering who she is by making choices that can hurt and harm. Or great good.

What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?

She’s a Halfling: half Earth, half Cantoria. She can fly and has a specialized gift of healing. She understands Cantorian, a language where colors communicate thoughts and feelings but can’t speak it. (She doesn’t turn colors to match her thoughts and feelings.) She speaks and understands English, but has little understanding of what a lie is and no understanding of subtext so is at grave risk for coming under the spell of those who wish to use her gifts for evil. When she’s ‘plugged in’ to her gift of seeing and healing, she begins to radiate light. The people who wish to find her and use her for harm use her Light as a beacon to find her and capture her.

3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?

She flies. She’s able to see soul fragments. Through time, she’s able to reunite the fragment with its owner. She’s able to do something no Cantorian High Priestess would think of doing: she also is able to separate soul fragments from their bodies, so she is a tool that used in the right hands, could reunite peoples and kingdoms, or rip them apart. She comes to Earth mantled in the Gift of Forgetfulness, and the more she learns about herself, the more at risk she becomes, as her true self starts to radiate, which acts as a beacon drawing the Bad Ones to her.

4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?

At a strictly proper function, she is goaded into fighting by her nemesis. She secretly fights back with her childhood enemy and suddenly takes flight to rain down stuff from a different angle. She’s shocked, she didn’t know she could fly. This brings her immediately crashing down to the ground where she accidentally smashes flat her enemy’s corpulent mother. She’s corralled and properly punished, but her gift brings with it grave risks and responsibilities, besides the shame she’s brought on her high-born mother by her misbehavior.

What could be this character’s emotional range?

She has the human hormones of a soon-to-be-twelve-year-old girl, which means she’s moody, needy, weepy, selfish and ‘turns on a dime’. She also is developing some of the traits of a Cantorian High Priestess, (her mother’s line), which means she has the power to see ruptures and reunites pieces, bringing the emotional range of a pure body of Light, bringing radiance, calm, poise and all-knowingness. So. She ranges from the human teen behavior to a being capable of uniting broken kingdoms. This gives the character lots of room to explore a wide range of emotions.

6. What subtext can the actor play?

She might not understand subtext, (a human trait she will have to learn, as she didn’t inherit it from her human father), but she lives in a constant state of delivering subtext. When her mother puts on her the spell of Forgetfulness, Esme is constantly at war with what she remembers and what has been forgotten. This tension creates moments where the words she speaks have more significance than she understands.

7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?

Definitely with the antagonist. A kingdom is at stake.

8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?

Youth has a specific voice: impetuous, easily wounded, enthusiastic.

9. What could make this character special and unique?

She’s the heir to a kingdom, but a kingdom that’s in terrible trouble. She’s required to grow into the role through a series of adventures, dangers and setbacks.

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Lead Character Name: The Queen, Her Majesty, the Most Marvelous Muchness

Role: (Antagonist)

What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?

She’s fun, playful, over-the-top and lethal. She kills easily and often to achieve her goals. She’s relentless. And she has Esme squarely in her cross-hairs.

2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?

Her backstory is tied seamlessly to her reasons for wanting to kill the island of Cantoria and everybody on it, and especially, to wipe out Esme and her family line.

3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?

She is diabolical and clever. She gets around protective walls and creates avatars which seem helpless or kind or necessary, as a means of trying in a variety of ways to take out Esme. If something doesn’t work, she just tries something else.

How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?

She’s going over with her chief of staff why the latest attempt to infiltrate Cantoria and destroy the High Priestess community ended in failure, while doing it in a way that makes him think he’s about to be promoted. He’s not. He’s killed. Efficiently.

5. What could be this character’s emotional range

From charming to brutally vindictive.

6. What subtext can the actor play?

In her mind, she is the hero who is righting ancient wrongs and healing her own people who have been blighted by the curse of living next to Cantoria.

7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?

With Esme and her mother, Ilya.

8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?

Through hyperbole morphing into cold, clipped rage, both sides equally terrifying.

What could make this character special and unique?

She uses magic to kill magic. She’s not against magic. Only against anybody having it but her. She is curious about how far she can take evil. She’s looking for the prize through all time of being the force which cannot be crossed and which neutralizes goodness.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Vision: <b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>: I easily create powerful produced works that bring me financial abundance and professional respect as they heal the world, while providing me time to explore that world in comfort with my family.

What I’ve Learned Doing This: Wow. This was a very helpful assignment. I learned that the throughline has to be powerful and sturdy enough to drive the entire movie, and that deepening OFF that throughline is the way to do it: not going off in other directions that don’t mesh with the main drive.

Movie Title: Stardust

1. Lead Character Name: Claire Danes plays Yvaine, a Star.

2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Yvaine is a Star, and not just any Star…the Evening Star. As such, she has a unique perspective on humans. She’s spent a very long time observing their actions. She’s fresh, funny, and forthright.

3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? We first meet her as she literally falls from the sky. She rides a Unicorn. She’s tossed over the side of a ship—and lives. She has honest and deeply personal conversations with her beloved—when he’s been transformed into a mouse. She’s fearless. She’s curious. She’s vulnerable. She puts herself at risk of being incinerated by in a grief-state wandering toward the Wall. If she’d crossed the Wall, she’d have been turned into crumbling stardust and carbon.

4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? See #2.

5. What is this character’s emotional range? Loathing and bewilderment to love and sacrifice.

6. What subtext can the actor play? Deep attraction, conflicted, shattered heart, loyalty.

7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? The youth, Tristan, who journeyed through the Wall in order to find a Star and take her back to win his girlfriend, is a beautiful nuanced dance as they gradually change how they feel about each other. In the beginning, Tristan only thinks of Yvaine as a prize to use to win his home town love. By the end, Yvaine’s own actions and words have completely won him over.

8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? Yvaine is given the most profound parts of the script, where the deep questions are revealed and answered. It creates a character that’s profoundly original (a real Star), with a wise point of view and moments that spur other characters to change and grow.

9. What makes this character special and unique? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Star portrayed before. Once she’s on screen, she is very seldom off, and when she is, the other characters are discussing her. This puts her and her issues in our minds at all times. And it’s interesting to use such an unusual POV to ask profound questions.

10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)

Tristan and Yvaine have been captured by a pirate ship that rides the clouds gathering lightning to sell. They’re tied up in the hold. She’s almost casually telling him truths he didn’t know: that people often aren’t what they seem, and that he could either be a ‘shop boy’ or ‘a boy who works in a shop.’ And then she adds, ‘And you’re no shop boy.’ A beautiful way of almost carelessly showing us she’s fearless (she’s not a hot mess being captured and tied up by pirates), she’s a truth-teller, and she is able to help Tristan see himself for the first time the way he actually is, and not the way he’s been portrayed by others. Which makes her infinitely kind and worthy of love.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s vision: I easily create powerful produced works that bring me financial abundance and professional respect as they heal the world, while providing me time to explore that world in comfort with my family.

What I learned doing this assignment is the importance of taking small steps…and then POSTING! I’ll be able to transform this as I go…but I must keep going forward.

Title: ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

High Concept: A young girl is spirited off planet after an ancient prophesy reveals she will cause the destruction of her world, not knowing that her being off-planet is what creates her world’s end.

Genre: Sci Fi/Drama

SCI -FI: PURPOSE: ​ To explore alternate worlds, to cause us to think outside our own world.

FANTASTIC WORLDS: ​ World of the story is dramatically different from our current world, (and even Earth when we return to it is altered from what we have today)

INCREDIBLE VISUALS: ​ Amazing visuals that come directly from the story

SOCIAL COMMENTARY: ​ Yes! Am able to delve into how we become fractured, and how we can come back together

DRAMA: PURPOSE: ​ To explore stories with emotional and interpersonal high stakes for their characters.

CHARACTER-DRIVEN JOURNEY: We care about an eleven-year old girl with the heavy responsibility of saving her world

HIGH STAKES COME FROM WITHIN: She’s a kid, so she’s still in flux, which means her being able to save her world is at risk

​EMOTIONALLY RESONATES: ​ We’re on her side, inside her as she makes choices that lead to events with extreme consequences

CHALLENGING, EMOTIONALLY-CHARGED SITUATIONS: ​ Esme is challenged to the core when she encounters a world that has flipped from being loving and protective to one that is out to kill her. And then other flips and explosive moments come as new choices/consequences come up

REAL-LIFE SITUATIONS: ​ Drama stories are grounded in reality. Scenes on Earth, especially have rules we’re familiar with, and real-life seeming situations with consequences.

Act 1:

Opening

· Party on Cantoria honoring a girl receiving Glimmer she’ll have the rest of her life. Esme, 11, loathes the girl being honored. When the girl mocks her as a Halfling, Esme fights back—hard. Esme’s blamed and hauled away.

· Esme’s mother, the High Priestess of Cantoria, lectures Esme and warns her of the danger her family’s in. If the Glimmer doesn’t come to Esme during the season of the Glimmer, the chances are very real that Esme has not inherited her mother’s singular gift of reuniting shattered souls. If that’s the case, their family line could be stripped of its power used for centuries. The penalty? Death to the family line: llya, a pureblood Cantorian, John, an Outlier from Earth, and their two children, Halflings Esme and Brinn.

· Ilya is alerted that the Binders are gathering and that she’s needed to reunite a soul.

· Inciting Incident

Esme urgently needs to know if she has power to see shattered souls. If she can see them, then someday, she’ll inherit her mother’s rare magic needed to heal them. She disobeys her mother secretly follows her mother into the sky. We see spectacular magic.

· The evil Queen in the neighboring country sees Esme and sends a gyre to separate her from her mother.

· All hell breaks loose. Ilya rescues the soul piece and rescues Esme.

· Turning Point:

The woman Esme’s mother is healing morphs into an assassin and delivers an ancient prophesy involving Esme: Cantoria will be destroyed at the hands of Esme.

Act II: All Plans Lead to Hell

· Reaction. The assassin tries to kill Ilya, Esme and the other women.

· The assassin is killed…but adds a final message: she’s been sent by the evil Queen and more will be coming.

· Esme is contained in the compound for her own ‘protection.’

· Plan A: She tries to get free. She’s found and contained.

· Plan B: Esme tries to blame others. Nope. Creates rage and division among those still alive.

· Plan C: She tries to win allies: Her former friends steer clear of her. Bodhi, a young guard and childhood friend, is the only one still loyal.

· Plan D: Esme needs proof that the prophesy is true. Esme challenges whether the prophesy is even true. Her Nurse helps set up a meeting between Esme and an ancient one who has answers.

· Plan E: Esme slips out. Her friend, Bodhi, is her guard on this perilous journey. She meets with the ancient crone. There’s heavy magic. It’s scary. Yes, indeed, the destruction of Cantoria is written in Esme’s future. There is magic Esme can try, but it will be costly and may even kill her.

· They’re interrupted and Esme is almost killed.

· The person is not the queen…they think it is…but no….former allies from Cantoria have turned against the family.

· Esme and her sister are no longer safe in the compound.

Act III: Hiding Out – Evil Surrounds them

· They are sent swiftly under darkness to stay with their father

· We meet the Outliers, the strangers from other solar systems who have found their way to Cantoria. They are in a ghetto. Esme and Brinn’s dad is here. He was an inventor on Earth and a former soldier.

· He trains Esme in the basics she’ll need to survive.

· The compound is swarmed by bad guys.

· The family escapes the world

· Esme’s mother puts a spell of forgetfulness on her.

· She’s warned that if she remembers who she is, she’ll be killed

· They crash onto Earth. Her family is gone.

· Esme is discovered alone and immediately surrounded by strangers. Good? Bad?

Act IV: Escape and Resurrection

· Esme starts to remember vague stuff

· She’s pursued by the Queen’s evil guy

· The stuff starts to coalesce

· Esme is tricked into thinking he’s a helper

· Esme is befriended by a beautiful, smart young lawyer

· Esme starts to really remember

· She gets away from the evil guy

· But the lawyer ‘friend’ is actually the Queen in disguise

· Cantoria and all its people are being destroyed because Esme left it unattended

· She has to get back to save it

· First she has to escape Earth

· The Queen and her bad guys pursue her

· They fight it out

· Esme wins

· Cantoria starts to come back to life

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I co-create with God projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and that bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned doing this assignment: I finally tuned back into the class and am committed to catching up. The main thing is to post stuff, and buckle up when my perfectionism tries to derail my progress.

ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM

CONCEPT: A young girl is spirited off planet after an ancient prophesy reveals she will cause the destruction of her world, not knowing that her being off-planet is what creates her world’s end.

Main Conflict. The queen of a neighboring land wants to swallow up a nearby island country and goes to war with its young princess to win.

Old Ways. Esme Cooper is:

Reckless

Naïve

Careless

Disregards cost to others

New Ways. Esme Cooper is:

Far-sighted

Sacrifices for others

Fearless

Understands Ancient Knowledge

· Internal Journey: From impulsive and needy to strong and fearless

· External Journey: From naïve child, unsure of her abilities, to respected warrior able to defeat Evil

Act 1:

Opening

Esme, 11, ruins a celebration party for a girl she loathes by attacking her.

· Esme’s mother, Ilya, warns Esme of the danger she’d put the family in by her actions.

· Inciting Incident

Esme secretly follows her mother into the sky.

All hell breaks loose.

· Turning Point:

The wounded woman (Esme’s mother is healing) morphs into an assassin and delivers an ancient prophesy involving Esme.

Act II: All Plans Lead to Hell

· Reaction. The assassin morphs into a creature who tries to kill Ilya, Esme and the other women.

· The assassin is killed…but first warns them she’s been sent by the queen (evil) and more will be coming.

· Esme is contained for her own ‘protection.’ She tries to get free. A time of great chaos and grief. Multiple ‘blessings’ as bodies are burned and the ashes thrown into the sea. Esme is not allowed to attend any of the services. It feels to her like punishment, but she does feel that it’s her fault.

· Plan 1 First, she tries to explain. Doesn’t work. Esme, her little sister, Brinn, and their mother, Ilya, are essentially under house arrest while the Binders figure out what to do and what this means. The Binders for the first time are split in two: one camp believes Ilya’s line (the only Binder line ever having the power to vault skyward and reunite soul fragments), must be protected at all costs, including in how they think. The other faction (jealous and for eons waiting to wrest power from her line, now see their chance to step in.

· Plan 2 Then, she denies she did anything. But the proof is right there.

· Plan 3, Finally, she accepts that she herself is responsible for this terrible loss. (This only happens when her mother takes her out to the site where the bodies are being prepared…the field is huge…Esme ‘gets’ what she did. She wishes her mother could console her, forgive her, but Ilya is too caught up in the grave danger Esme’s actions have placed the family in. Ilya does, but surrounded by guards ‘for her protection’. And because of her, her little sister Brinn is now also under ‘house arrest’. )

· Plan 4 This leads Esme to needing proof that the prophesy is true. Esme challenges whether the prophesy is even true. This upsets Ilya—to challenge the ‘ways’ is what led to this mess…and now Esme is suggesting that the prophesy itself is a lie. Esme won’t let it go. To her, it makes perfect sense. The evil assassin came in as a lie…it would be easy to lie about the prophesy itself. Her Nurse knows of someone high up who knowns truth in ancient messages. She helps set up a meeting between the child and the ancient one.

· Plan 5 Esme slips out. Her friend, Bodhi, is her guard on this perilous journey. She meets with the ancient crone. There’s heavy magic. It’s scary. Yes, indeed, the destruction of Cantoria is written in Esme’s future. There is magic Esme can try, but it will be costly and may even kill her.

· They’re interrupted and Esme is almost killed.

· Cantoria arms itself, ready to do war against the Queen, certain it is she who is trying to wipe out Esme’s line.

· But it turns out to be somebody they know and love from Cantoria…who was trying to kill Esme to allay the curse and save the island kingdom. (Note: this person has been bewitched by the Queen we find out later)

· The person is not the queen…they think it is…but no….it’s somebody from Cantoria who has turned against the family.

· Esme and her sister are no longer safe in the compound.

Act III: Hiding Out – Evil Surrounds them

· They are sent swiftly under darkness to stay with their father

· We meet the Outliers, the strangers from other solar systems who have found their way to Cantoria. They are in a ghetto. Esme and Brinn’s dad is here. He was an inventor on Earth and a former soldier.

· He trains Esme in the basics she’ll need to survive.

· The compound is swarmed by bad guys.

· The family escapes the world

· Esme’s mother puts a spell of forgetfulness on her.

· She’s warned that if she remembers who she is, she’ll be killed

· They crash onto Earth

Act IV: Escape and Resurrection

· Esme starts to remember vague stuff

· She’s pursued by the Queen’s evil guy

· The stuff starts to coalesce

· Esme is tricked into thinking he’s a helper

· Esme is befriended by a beautiful, smart young lawyer

· Esme starts to really remember

· She gets away from the evil guy

· But the lawyer ‘friend’ is actually the Queen in disguise

· Cantoria and all its people are being destroyed because Esme left it unattended

· She has to get back to save it

· First she has to escape Earth

· The Queen and her bad guys pursue her

· They fight it out

· Esme wins

· Cantoria starts to come back to life

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I co-create with God projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned doing this assignment is: I’m learning more about the characters and their story as we go through these exercises

ESME COOPER AND THE PROPHESY OF DOOM: A young girl is spirited off planet after an ancient prophesy reveals she will cause the destruction of her world, not knowing that her being off-planet is what creates her world’s end.

Subtext Plots: Superior Position and Layering

Using ‘Superior Position’: The audience knows more than Esme. Esme has magically induced amnesia. We know that she is the intended champion for restoring Cantoria. We also know that the more she ‘remembers’ the more at risk she is, so her risk builds throughout the script.

Using ‘Layering’: Her High Holy Most Marvelous Muchness is hidden as another person on Earth and is gradually exposed to be evil. Everything said and done earlier by this disguised character then shifts in meaning when the evil one is revealed.

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Lesson 3 transformational journey

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I co-create with God projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned doing this assignment is: I’m loving the exercise and it’s becoming ‘what I do’ every day…before I ‘do what I do.’ 

Arc Beginning: Impulsive Halfing kid

Arc Ending: Heroine and ruler of a healed country

Internal Journey: From impulsive and needy to strong and fearless

External Journey: From naïve child, unsure of her abilities, to respected warrior able to defeat Evil

Old Ways:

· Reckless

· Naïve

· Careless

· Disregards cost to others

New Ways:

· Thoughtful

· Sacrifices for others

· Fearless

· Understands ancient knowledge

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Intentional Lead Characters

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I co-create with God projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned doing this assignment is: the great joy I’m finding in writing about this character and her world.

High Concept: A young girl is spirited off planet after an ancient prophesy reveals she will cause the destruction of her world, not knowing that her being off-planet is what creates her world’s end.

Character: Esme Cooper (Protagonist)

Logline: Esme is a 12-year-old Halfling cloaked in protective amnesia who must remember who she is in time to gather an army and save her world.

Unique: She is a careless, unskilled Soul Binder, an orphan, and the focus of an ancient curse.

Character: Your High-Holy Most Marvelous Muchness (Queen Blitzkrieg, Antagonist)

Logline: Queen Blitzkrieg obliterates an island kingdom, only to discover that the real kingdom is hidden away in a necklace of a child, and in order destroy Cantoria, she must find and eliminate Esme Cooper.

Unique: Her picture isn’t next to the word ‘Narcissist’ in the dictionary—she’s so narcissistic the ONLY word/ pic in the dictionary (page after page) is her. So, yes. She’s crazy. She has one teensy killer allergy: a whiff of someone’s pure, undiluted joy sends her into anaphylactic shock.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s Great Amazing Vision: I co-create with God projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with my family and friends.

What I learned doing this assignment is: the great joy I’m finding in writing about this character and her world.

Title: Esme Cooper and the Prophesy of Doom

High Concept: A young girl is spirited off planet after an ancient prophesy reveals she will cause the destruction of her world, not knowing that her being off-planet is what creates her world’s end.

Character: Esme Cooper (Protagonist)

Logline: Esme is a 12-year-old Halfling cloaked in protective amnesia who must remember who she is in time to gather an army and save her world.

Unique: She is a careless, unskilled Soul Binder, an orphan, and the focus of an ancient curse.

Character: Your High-Holy Most Marvelous Muchness (Queen Blitzkrieg, Antagonist)

Logline: Queen Blitzkrieg wants to fulfill an ancient curse by destroying the island of Cantoria, which means she first must find and murder Esme Cooper.

Unique: Her picture isn’t next to the word ‘Narcissist’ in the dictionary—she’s so narcissistic the ONLY word/ pic in the dictionary (page after page) is her. So, yes. She’s crazy. She has one teensy killer allergy: a whiff of someone’s pure, undiluted joy sends her into anaphylactic shock.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith’s spectacular vision: I co-create with God projects that are produced, win awards, heal hearts and bring me financial abundance and time to explore the world with family and friends.

What I learned doing this assignment is: I’m so excited to find out what this story has to tell me—and the world.

Title: Esme Cooper and the Prophesy of Doom

Fantasy/Adventure

Concept: A young girl is spirited off-planet after an ancient curse reveals she will cause the destruction of her world, not knowing that her being off-planet is what creates her world’s end.

[Susan A. Smith]

1. Susan Arnout Smith

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

GROUP RELEASE FORM

As a member of Writing Incredible Movies, 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, through social media, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, videos, 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.

[Susan A. Smith]

Susan Arnout Smith

I agree to the terms of this release form. See my release below which includes entire confidentiality agreement/release form.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Hi, Everyone!

My name is Susan Arnout Smith and I’m an optioned screenwriter. I have a joyous and abundant personal life, with people who expand my soul. My goal here is to work diligently on structure so I’ll be able to create not only an A-list script, but also will be able to take what I learn about structure and use it as a template for other art forms, especially novel writing. I am a novelist published in hardback and paperback in the US, translated into other languages, and found in other countries. So part of my work here in this class is owning deeply and gratefully what I’ve already achieved, using the spiritual practices Hal recommends to integrate the spirit with the doing. I’m so glad to see people here I already know, and am looking forward to meeting you all.

Oh! And I worked for Bechtel as a rec director building the trans-Alaska pipeline.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by  Susan A. Smith.

[Susan A. Smith]

Great! Thanks, Adite. My e-mail is saswriter1s@pacbell.net

[Susan A. Smith]

Brian, this sounds like fun. Great twist. Good work.

[Susan A. Smith]

Hi, Gill! How fantastic to see that you seem to be doing the assignments around the same time I am. I love your idea and think it’s an area that hasn’t been tapped before. Great work!

[Susan A. Smith]

Adite! I was thrilled to see that you and I seem to be in sync turning in assignments. Want to be ‘check-in’ buddies? I LOVED how you handled assignment 6, and it was fascinating to see how the AI made a terrific pitch even stronger.

I believe you idea is interesting timely and salable.

As I was just transferred into this class, I have no sense of timing and thought maybe you’d know. Is this class officially still in play? Are there more assignments past 12 that will be dropped?

If not…how fantastic, there’s one other ‘live person’ doing these!!!

Would love to hear back from you, if you’re willing.

All best on this wild and amazing journey…

Susan

[Susan A. Smith]

Hi, Claire!

I’m absolutely endeared by the fact that you edited your profile three times in three minutes. Oh, those of us bravely meeting head-on this challenge of perfectionism! I can’t wait to meet you here in this group.

Susan Arnout Smith

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by  Susan A. Smith.