Tip 7: Remember the title of Tip 6? Let's see how Minority Report relates.

(Tip 6: How to discover the whole of your story?)

Loretta, your idea about the absolute worst moment in Minority Report was very, very close to being the answer.  You found the worst moment for him, because of all the characters in the whole movie, only he has any real idea of what is involved in halo-ing.  Good for you!!!

Loretta zeroed in on a moment that was worst for him and very hard on the wife.  Ideally,  in most two-hero stories, the worst moment would be the same for both characters.  Loretta felt that instinctively.  (Are you sure you don't want to write books on the side, Loretta?)  I think the moment she picked (had the wife been a minor character) would have been the right one.  Unfortunately, though, the flaw in the movie is that the wife is a major character (because she is needed for the resolution) and yet she doesn't appear as a hero until late in the story.  *Remind me to post, at another time, how the movie makers might have prevented this flaw without changing the movie very much at all.

It's natural to look for the worst moment for the husband because we spend a lot more time with him than with the wife.  (She still loves him, I think, and I think it's pretty clear why she had to leave him.  These things were done well, and the earlier holo pictures showed how important the wife is. But other than a few very minor scenes, we don't get to have the two of them together very often.) 

Loretta's instinctive reaction is RIGHT that the absolute worst moment for the two-hero story should happen at the same time to both of them.  Given that, she chose a moment that is the worst for him and quite bad for her.  But since this movie is flawed (as I think I said a million times too many), we have to look a little deeper.  The worst thing that can happen for him has happened.  The consequences of that worst thing continue for him.  Now, what is the worst thing that can happen to the wife???

I'm pushing so hard for exactly this worst moment in Minority Report because once you find it you will understand exactly what I mean by structuring a whole story around a worst moment for your hero (heroes), as I will - later - in carrying on with the solution to Tip 6. 

And so, I am saying that even in a flawed movie like Minority Report, we can still find one moment where things are as bad for the wife as they can possibly be, while they continue to be as bad for the husband as they can possibly be: this is the place in the movie I want you to find, okay?

Basically, you are looking for the CRISIS of the movie (writers often use that word Crisis when talking about plotting their novel.  Movie, novel.  It's just the same.  Crisis = worst possible moment for the heroes).

It'll be worth it to you, a thousand times more than you can imagine, if you can figure this place out.  Watch it over and over from the point where he's halo'd.  Eventually, you'll see it.  Try to come up with it on your own, okay?  That is, don't be too influenced by what your colleagues on this blog suggest.

I didn't mean to post for so long today.  But we've got to keep in touch, and though the workshop really is temporarily in abeyance, we can still do things like this, as long as I'm not feeling too rotten.

P.S.  Please tell your friends.  Tell your movie-loving non-writing friends.  Tell them to join us.  We're working so hard, and it's so much FUN, and they'll learn so much, invite them from me to be part of our group.

Gotta go take my morphine and lie down, now.

Hugs,

Welwyn-on-books