**SCENE PROMPTS** - Pick one, Add one, and Write!

[Updated 21 April 2015]

Here is a list of some, but not all, of the scenes we will need in the story. Feel free to add to this list as ideas occur to you. The list is more or less chronological, but they do not necessarily need to be written in order. (We'll fix transition problems and contradictions during the revision stage.)

Pick any scene you want to write. No limits. Once your draft is completed, please publish it as a separate post OR email it to csusmstd@gmail.com. Make sure to include the header line listed below so we know which scene you wrote.

We will link each header line below to the scene drafted for it as they are received. That way we can read each other's work and see what is still left to be written. 

It might be a good idea to earmark the scene you have selected to work on in the comments. That way we don't get multiple people simultaneously writing the same scene. 

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As mentioned above, these are more-or-less chronological, but can certainly change as needed. 

SCENE PROMPTS

STATIS

1. Sarah - Emma's daily life (exposition.)

2. Kendra - Marcus' daily life (exposition.)

TRIGGER

3. Sarah - Loren gifts Emma with the Journal.

4. Sarah and Kendra - Emma shows the Journal to Marcus.

5. Kendra - Marcus tries to look up an excerpt from the Journal. Either it does not come up in the Archives at all OR it comes up as Restricted. 

6. Kendra and Liz - Marcus translates a section of the Journal that raises red flags for them: it contradicts an important commonly held belief. 

QUEST

7. Sarah - Emma contacts somebody in the Social Dark for the answer to some riddle/question/complication in the Journal. There is some risk in making the contact. 

8. Sarah - Life outside the Social Dark. Reveal the close relationship between Emma and her grandfather.

9. Liz - Marcus and Emma learn an important truth from the Journal by venturing further into the Social Dark. 

10. Sarah and Kendra - Tension builds between Marcus and Emma as he becomes more involved in uncovering the truth, and Emma resists these ideas. She doesn't want to believe them. 

11. Sarah - Emma confides some of what she has learned to Loren, who is sympathetic and tells her what she wants to hear. 

12. Liz - Marcus and Emma learn another important truth from the Journal by venturing further into the Social Dark and into danger. 

13. Daydree - Marcus and Emma inadvertently meet Emma's cousin--runner up for Elect Apparent (and also a much better candidate, though Emma won't admit it.) There is some hostility between Emma and Cousin, but there are some sparks between Cousin and Marcus. 

14. Sarah - Emma (alone, or together with Marcus) confronts her grandfather about the truths they have learned so far. 

15. Liz - Sarah - Marcus and Emma learn a final important truth--the most crucial truth--by coming into contact with the Rebellion via the Social Dark. 

16. Daydree - Marcus and Emma are caught fraternizing with the Rebellion and arrested for treason.

17. Sarah - In prison: Loren promises Emma he will do everything he can to help both her and Marcus.

18. Daydree - In prison: Marcus confronts his mother. He learns something he did not know about her, his father, or himself that challenges (but does not necessarily overturn) his preconceived notions. 

19. Sarah - Emma's release - Loren stands up for her as promised

20. Kendra - The verdict/results of the trial: Marcus is banished to the Sublinary (which Marcus believes is actually a death sentence.) Marcus fights but is overpowered. Marcus may or may not believe that Emma is behind his sentence. He finally bursts an emotional damn and lashes out. 

SURPRISE (Marcus)

21. Marcus wakes up to find he is not dead--he is in the Sublinary. He meets people and gets a dose of how things work there. 

22. An exposition scene of the Sublinary through Marcus' eyes. Very challenging/awful time for Marcus. All his worst fears realized. (May be stretched to multiple scenes as needed.)

23. Marcus meets the Rebellion.

24. Marcus discovers a huge library that has been kept in secret for centuries

25. Marcus meets his father (OPT 1: his father is part of the rebellion. OPT 2: his father objects to the rebellion on either ethical or practical grounds and thinks Marcus is a fool for believing in it.)

26. Marcus goes ALL-IN to the Rebellion. This signifies how he is learning to overcome his fears and cope with what has happened to him. In other words, he is starting to become the badass he has always pretended to be.

CRITICAL CHOICE (Marcus)

27. Marcus learns that there is a way to get back, but it will require him to compromise something important. His reasoning/choice must seem questionable/dubious. (Readers begin to question if he is turning to the Dark Side?) 

SURPRISE (Emma)

28. Daydree - Emma figures out that she is pregnant. She does not tell Loren.

29. Daydree - Emma finds that there are other cases of spontaneous natural pregnancy that have been covered up--Marcus' mother is one of them. Emma confronts Marcus' mother about Marcus' true origins.

30. Emma learns about the impending invasion

31. Loren is revealed as the mastermind/instigator behind the attack.



CRITICAL CHOICE (Emma)

32. Emma betrays the Rebellion and warns the Core Council about the invasion.



CLIMAX

33. The invasion begins.

34. Marcus and Emma come face to face on opposite sides of the conflict.



REVERSE

35. Loren sacrifices himself to save Emma. (He may even save her from Marcus.) Idea: Maybe Emma saves Loren first, and then he reciprocates?

36. Marcus' choices lead to his mother's death in a very unexpected way. Perhaps Marcus' father kills her. Marcus must reexamine his motives, his choices, and all his preconceived notions that led him to this point. 

RESOLUTION

37. The invasion is put down. Emma's Cousin may play an instrumental role in this in a way that demonstrates her intelligence and selflessness, and therefore her qualifications for leadership.

38. The aftermath of the invasion. The degree of Loren's treachery is revealed, but the impact is mitigated by recalling his final act of sacrifice. 

39. Emma realizes she lacks essential qualities of leadership and renounces her claim to the Core Council in favor of her Cousin.

40. The Core Council finally makes some progressive changes that drastically improve the quality of life for the Underclasses: remove corrupt officials, redistribute wrongly accrued wealth/resources, opening travel to and from the Sublinary(ies), and at least start talking about lifting restrictions on art/free expression

41. Emma starts a Revisionist History movement and begins correcting archived history based on new knowledge gained from texts on the Earth library. Books will no longer be recycled, but preserved for future reanalysis. This gains recognition for the importance of the Humanities, and social views on this begin to shift. Her parents, at least, approve of her decision.

42. Liz - Emma finds some kind of Postscript written directly by Kori sometime after she came to the Homeworld. This sheds light on some unanswered questions about her motivations

43. Marcus and Cousin seem to be an item now.

44. Emma gives birth to a girl, whom she names Kori.

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Guidelines for Scene Writing: Hopefully these tips will help us all stay in the right mindset for the drafting process

• Remember, these are DRAFTS! Focus on getting the ideas and images posted first. We will worry about the revisions later.
• This is not a writing competition. As these are getting posted in DRAFT format, we all understand that they will be draft quality and not representative of our actual writing skills. 
• Anyone is welcome to leave comments, questions, etc. on any posted draft. We are drafting, not revising at this point, so please keep critiques to a minimum. Questions, things you liked, and ideas for later expansion will be much more constructive at this point. 
• While we all have a certain amount of dramatic license and flexibility, DO try to stick to our established storyline, character descriptions, backstory, and working titles/names as much as possible. 
• IF you have an amazing idea that would cause a very big divergence from our established story, let's discuss it in comments or in a meeting before you invest a lot of time on it. We don't want to inadvertently invalidate someone else's work without having a chance to negotiate first. 

Originally, we talked about making Point of View a mandatory restriction. I am reluctant to regulate everybody like that--with only a couple of weeks left in the semester, I worry it might limit our productivity as a whole if we feel like certain scenes are "off limit" for us to write.

If we're all in agreement, let's leave it up to personal choice which scenes and perspective(s) you want to write. That being said, I think most of us will probably choose to favor one perspective and voice or the other. It's a helpful technique. Also, some scenes may be helpful to have Marcus versions and Emma versions, but let's try to prioritize scenes that have no versions first. 

If you notice that certain scenes or POVs are being neglected, please step up and branch out a little.