And you’ll also want to be continually working the dynamic of HOPE and FEAR: you want to be clear about what your audience/reader hopes for your character and fears for your character, as I talked about in Elements of Act One. A screenwriting trick that I strongly encourage novelists to look at is the filmmakers’ habit of STATING THE HOPE/FEAR AND

ASSIGNMENT: Write out premise lines for each story on your master list, and for your own Work In Progress (WIP).

The devil is walking around the halls of a Boston hospital making deals with the patients and their families. And there’s a “What would you do?” built in: “What would you give to save the life of a loved one?”

the real beauty of Four Weddings is the underlying theme that there is something magical about a wedding that opens the door to love, not just for the couple involved, but potentially for everyone who attends.

And often the hero/ine will LOSE SUPPORT FROM KEY ALLIES when s/he begins to cross the line. ESCALATING ACTIONS/ATTACKS BY ANTAGONIST

In lighter romance, the All Is Lost Scene is very, very often a scene I call THE LOVER MAKES A STAND. In this scene the Lover, the one who loves most deeply, basically says to the Loved One: “I’m not going to take your bullshit any more. Make up your mind. Either commit to me or don’t, but if you don’t, I’m out of here.”

deep down we know from the start, almost because of his fear and his unsuitability for the task, that in the final battle it will be Sheriff Brody, alone, mano a mano with that shark. And he kills it with his own particular skill set: he’s a cop, and one thing he knows is guns. It’s unlikely as hell, but we buy it, because in crisis we all resort t

It may seem completely obvious to say so, but no matter how many allies accompany the hero/ine into the final battle, the ultimate confrontation is almost always between the hero/ine and the main antagonist, alone.

ASSIGNMENT: Take a look at the dynamics of your own WIP. Who’s the Lover, and who’s the Loved One? Who’s the Pursuer and who’s the Pursued? Do those roles switch at some point?