Technique of the photoplay (1916)

74 HOW TO GET A PLOT are you going to do about it?^ Are you going to try to free the woman from her bonds or will you require her to stand by and seek to effect a cure? You think that perhaps it will make a better story if she seeks to reform him. Probably it will. How do you intend that this shall be done? Does she argue with him or seek to shock him into a realization of his condition? Does she work alone or do others aid her? Perhaps it will work well if she seeks the aid of a physician. Probably it will help if the physician was the husband's rival before marriage. Shall he be the woman's present lover or not? It will be better and more in accord with her character if their relations are with- out reproach. You are able now to introduce the element of jealousy. The brutalized husband sees the conference. He can imagine but one reason. Without departing from the point aimed at, a new compli- cation has been added that is not a sub-plot but a part of the main theme, offering large possibilities for dramatic situation. In the same way you pass in mental review the things that might happen, discard- ing some and adopting others until you have your complete story. Perhaps the husband seeks to be revenged upon his supposed rival. He is intoxicated and lost to all sense of proportion. He goes to the house of the physician. His wife, searching for him, traces him there. You work eventually to this plot: 6. Dave Vroom and Hartley !Manley are rivals for the hand of Dora Gladden. Dave wins and, once married, gives way to the in- temperate habits he has previously kept hidden from the world. Things go from bad to worse until Dave in one of his spells strikes and so severely injures her that she is forced to seek the services of Hartley. They seek to persuade Dave to enter a cure, but Dave, in- sanely jealous, believes that they seek to be rid of him merely that they may be free to carry on the liaison. A court order is procured and Dave, evading service, escapes from his home and searches for Hartley. Hartley is out on a case and returns late in the evening, Dave comes through the window of the study and accuses him of trying to railroad him. Hartley tries to explain, but Dave is deaf to reason. He strikes Hartley and, believing that he has killed him, seeks to escape through the hall. He opens the door to a closet in- stead of the one to the hall. This contains a skeleton mounted upon a stand. The violence with which Dave opens the door causes the stand to fall forward and to Dave's disordered imagination it seems that the skeleton seeks to punish his crime. Hartley recovers and tries to interpose, but Dave, temporarily a maniac, believes him to be his ghost come to the skeleton's aid. He attacks him anew and is strangling him when Dora comes upon them. With her assist- ance Hartley overpowers Dave. Brain fever follows the excitement and Dave is nursed back to life by Dora and Hartley, the shock having cured him of his desire for drink. 7. This should make a pretty fair story, the scenes with the skele- ton supplying the sensation and also the reason why Dave changes. It may be of interest to the reader to know that the story was evolved while paragraph five was being written and that it required less than ten minutes to get the idea and to work it out. In the early stages of plot building it may take a day or two to get the idea in good form,