[Tom Adams]

Does anyone know why I can’t paste copy into this form? Thanks

[Tom Adams]

Subject: Tom Adams Basic Structure Version 1

What I learned from this exercise:

To tell the story clearly and concisely, I needed to throw a lot of junk overboard, which implies to me that it probably didn’t have a place in the script to begin with.

Log Line:

A Jewish woman grad student from Boston plunges into the drastically different culture of living on an army base in the deep south and must find purpose for the six years of her black husband’s contract.

Main Conflict:

Maggie’s life has been put on hold and she hates being where she now lives (fish out of water) but cannot leave until her new husband (Andrew) finishes his tour of duty.

Opening:

Arriving on base, Maggie sees a child having a potentially fatal seizure and races her husband, a licensed pediatrician, to the scene to save the child. The neighbors and parents are applauded that this black man is doing CRP with their white child with no protective devices. MPs arrive and arrest this black man, only to learn that he is Captain Andrew Westbrook, reporting for duty.

Inciting Incident:

Maggie and Andrew meet two obnoxious neighbors, Grace and Hawk. Hawk is also a Captain and informs Andrew that although he was promised that he would be resident at the base hospital serving children of military families, his superior, the evil Major Dunbar, has him slotted to join a medical unit in Africa

By page 10, you know what the movie is about:

Maggie attends a reception for local wives, sets off on a terribly wrong foot, and realizes that she has to live with these people for a long time while deserted by her husband.

First turning point at end of Act 1:

Andrew deploys and Maggie is on her own.

Mid-Point:

Everyone has it in for Maggie. She’s too urban, too Jewish. She can’t get a job. She’s been squeezed out of local society. Oddly enough, it’s Grace who befriends her and helps her navigate around her troubles. And overseas, Andrew and Hawk are ordered to administer a vaccine that has never been approved by the FDA. He soon learns that it is being used for off-label testing on unknowing patients.

Second turning point at end of Act 2:

Snooping around, Andrew is caught and, while saving Andrew’s life, Hawk is killed. Stateside, to keep from going nuts, Maggie starts an enterprise which employs military spouses at good wages and makes major contributions to the community.

Crisis:

Grace holds Maggie and Andrew responsible for Hawk’s death. Andrew faces a court martial which may remove all his rank, income and pensions and incarcerate him for many years.

Climax:

Andrew learns that Dunbar is a major stockholder in the pharma company and had everything to gain if the drug was a success. He uses this information to blackmail an honorable discharge with all the benefits. At home, Maggie is at a bar with friends and starts to drive home. Just as a barreling semi is about to smash into her, Grace pulls her car in the path of the truck, saving Maggie, but killing Grace.

Resolution:

With the honorable discharge, Andrew and Maggie can move on after only ten months in the service. However, the enterprise has grown a great deal and Maggie has a purpose now and doesn’t want to leave.

Elsewhere, on another military base, Grace and Hawk move into officers quarters. We learn that they are angels, put there to protect military families, one family at a time.

CLICHÉ BASHING Snooping around, Andrew is caught and Hawk is killed

· Ugandan mercenaries protecting the drugs could open fire, kill Hawk and capture Andrew.

· Running away from their recon mission, Hawk might throw a trip wire and blow himself up.

· Showing locals that the vaccine is safe, Hawk might administer it to himself and die from it.

· Hawk and Andrew might steal a truckload of the vaccine and the truck hits a landmine.

· Andrew and Hawk might be hiding among the drugs when a rebel mortar attack takes out the entire storage tent, which has the added benefit of ending the ad-hoc drug trial.

[Tom Adams]

What I learned from this assignment is that the one pager is far more interesting that the actual script and hence, I guess I’ll have a lot of work to do.

“Plans”

Log Line: A Jewish woman grad student from Boston plunges into the drastically different culture of living on an army base in the deep south and must find purpose for the six years of her black husband’s contract.

One Page­ – “Plans” – Tom Adams

A recent Masters graduate from Smith College in Boston, Maggie Stein, lively, opinionated, and Jewish, travels into the deep south with her new black husband, Captain Andrew Westbrook, a medical doctor who owes six years of service to the Army in exchange for their paying for his education. In route, they discuss their life plans into which they will leap the moment Andrew is discharged. Maggie is already seeing Ft. Benning, Georgia, in her rear-view mirror.

On their way to their officer housing on base, they see a small child having a seizure. As Andrew is a pediatrician by specialty, they instinctively jump out of the car and aid the boy, and soon after learn that that’s not the way things are done in the Army.

Word quickly travels up the ranks to Major Dunbar, head of the base hospital and Andrews’s new commanding officer. Dunbar can hold a grudge forever.

Andrew and Maggie move into what is their first house together, a compact, cookie cutter ranch with a tiny garden. It doesn’t take them long to learn that the couple immediately next door, Grace and Hawk, are quite possibly the most obnoxious neighbors one could have.

While Andrew goes about integrating with the workflow of his job, Maggie does her best to build friends among the neighbors, starting with Grace and Hawk. While some would say that southerners have let go of their prejudices, they seem to still have feelings about Jews and about blacks. But a Jew and a black? Look out sister.

Meanwhile in Africa, an Ebola strain is running rampant and Ft. Benning is to send a medical unit to treat our soldiers and aid the locals. Dunbar assigns Andrew to travel with the team, pretty much to stick it to him. Hawk is part of the mission as well..

Life without Andrew is sheer hell for Maggie, but she makes the best of it. Grace seems to frequently get in Maggie’s way, particularly when Maggie is about to do something really stupid.

Maggie becomes quite aware of poverty-level sustenance many of the military families endure. She organizes an enterprise which creates high paying jobs and it grows quickly.

Overseas, Andrew discovers that the pharmaceutical they are using is experimental and that Dunbar is basing his retirement on the income from the company’s stock. Snooping around, Andrew and Hawk are detected and Hawk is killed protecting Andrew.

Stateside, Maggie tries to console Grace, who runs off drunk. On Maggie’s way home, a truck almost hits her car, but at the last minute, Grace rams her car into the truck to save Maggie, costing Grace her life.

Andrew returns and blackmails Dunbar for an early discharge. He and Maggie are thrilled to be moving on.

In the closing shot, Grace and Hawk move into a new home on Ft. Hood, Texas. We learn that they are merely angels charged with protecting service families, one at a time.

[Tom Adams]

Hi. I’m Tom Adams.

I’ve got about a dozen scripts under my belt ranging from dreck to ok.

I’m hoping to change the ratio.

Something interesting. It took me three tries to learn that the big red button on the right side of the forum screen that says “reply” really does very little. I’m slow, but I’m trainable.

[Tom Adams]

Tom Adams

I agree to the terms of this release form

[Tom Adams]

Excellent input, thank you, Neil. I have so much to learn! More later, but I appreciate your input very much.

[Tom Adams]

Hi, Neil. This is very interesting. Kind of the Iraq Widow syndrome on steroids. I’ll bet if your set this in the context of the Airforce, your experience will add a lot of specific detail and interest to it.

Some thoughts: In Blake Synder’s “Save The Cat” he puts a lot of emphasis on an engaging opening image, some action that is memorable and gets the readers on board in the first half page. What might that be in your story?

I did get a little confused regarding your characters, probably because it took me a while to see Sam as Samantha. Maybe for the moment, keeping her Samantha will help others to visualize that she is a woman on deployment with Bill.

And I’m not really sure what happens in the climax. Maybe the verb to “explode” open was confusing because these people are in the hospital from battle wounds. Before I figured it out, following up the explosion with stupid grins… well.

And maybe living happily ever after, back with the original spouses, is less than credible after all they have all been through. I think something more is in order to demonstrate regrets and growth.

Comedy or drama? This has a great chance to lean successfully in either direction . Good luck.

[Tom Adams]

Hi, Neil. Great idea. I follow up tomorrow, I’m in Chicago shoveling snow at the moment.

Thanks for reaching out. tom@thomaswerks.com