Sublime

At the beginning of a scene characters establish themselves on fairly solid ground, pursuing a goal they believe will restore order to their world. Just when they think they might be getting somewhere, something happens to throw their world into turmoil once again.

This is identifying what the protagonist stands to lose if he doesn’t take part in the story.

He gave them a grand up front to shoot a man named Gale Collins, recent resident of the federal prison in Joliet and now living in Kansas City. The man’s sudden parole was suspiciously coincidental to the capture of an Italian American fugitive who, until recently, had been living under an assumed name in Legion, Nebraska, for the past eighteen yea

Roy and the old couple, Harvey and Rita, were the only ones left. They brought Roy to New York when he was barely twenty-five and set him up running “errands” now and again for some heavy people in Brooklyn. As a rule, they didn’t trust him with anything too complicated, on account of they didn’t think Roy was all that bright. Outside of Albert, no

tribulation,

For drama to occur, a protagonist must be confronted with an equal and opposite desire.

ego defence mechanisms are the masks characters wear to hide their inner selves;

Father grinned and winked at his visitor. Joe Kane decided that the man who confronted him was mildly insane but harmless.

Marlowe’s already here, standing on the grass. Wearing his hat and his long grey raincoat, even in this hot weather. He updates his wardrobe once every hundred years or so. It used to be doublets and pantaloons. Then it became tailcoats and powdered wigs. Since the First World War it’s been brogues, briefcase, three-piece suit. Now he’s smoking a c