Thursday, February 15, 2018

Experiment #6: Falling In Love

Experiment #6: Falling In Love

For this experiment, we are to write a stageplay/screenplay about two characters that have an encounter, that meet. A meet-cute moment, perhaps. I'm going to write the edited version of the in-class mini-experiment we conducted.


(Subway Station, interior, night)

(Enter Della Howard, late twenties librarian who is bad at communication. She is beautiful but shy.)

Della: Every time I'm supposed to be able to leave work early, I end up having to stay anyways...

(Della starts to jog down some stairs leading to the lower platform.)

Della: And every time I end up having to stay, I miss the first half of my favorite show...

(Squeaking sound, Della slips.)

Della: Whoa!

(A hand reaches out to grab her as she begins to fall, but misses. Della falls down the stairs.)
--------------------------------
(Hospital, interior, early morning.)

(Della is lying in a hospital bed. There is a heart rate monitor beside her steadily beeping. Beside her sits a handsome but tired looking man.)

(Della starts to wake up. The man beside her reacts by pressing a call button.)

Clause: Doctor, she's waking up!

(Enter Doctor Finnly.)

Doctor Finely: Calm down, son. We don't want her waking up in a panic.

Della: Ugh... My head is killing me...

Doctor Finnly: Paging nurse station three, I need 10 CCs of morphine to room seven, an IV feed for the patient and... An ice pack.

(Heart rate monitor beeping accelerates. Not a lot but enough to show slight panic and awareness.)

Della: What happened? Why do I feel as though I was hit by a truck?

Doctor Finnly: Not a truck, my dear, but you fell down a flight of stairs with enough force to cause some real damage to your body.

Della: What? What happened?

(Sitting up, Della grasps her head. It's wrapped in bandages, and one of her eyes is covered with a patch.)

Della: My eye! What happened?

Doctor Finnly: Like I said, you fell down some stairs. You managed to get an acute fracture to your frontal bone, and you suffered enough bruising during your fall that we decided we needed to keep you here overnight.

Della: And my eye?

Doctor Finnly: Hit during the fall. It's bruised badly enough that we decided it needed to be covered for the time being. Given a rest, if you would.

Della: Ugh... Of course this would happen...

Doctor Finnly: It could be much worse, my dear. You haven't broken any bones. And the fracture in your skull will heal with time, but you'll need to stay home and rest for at the very least, the next week.

Della: I-I can't do that, I'm supposed to work every day.

Doctor Finnly: Then you'll have to apply for sick leave, but I can't clear you to return to work until that fracture has healed. There is just too much that can go wrong with cranial injuries.

Della: (Sighs) I'll have to see what I can do.

Clause: She seems to be fine, so I'll get going. I can't be late to the office, unfortunately.

(Clause walks over to the side of Della's hospital bed and puts his hand against her cheek.)

Clause: I'm sorry I couldn't prevent this from happening. To make it up to you, if you need anything while you're recovering, give me a call.

(He places a business card on the bed beside her and exits the room.)

(Exit Clause.)

(The room is silent for the count of 10 seconds.)

Della: And, uh, who was that?

Doctor Finnly: He's the man who brought you here. Apparently, he was trying to catch you as you began to fall, but wasn't able to. Instead, he brought you to this hospital.

Della: And he wants to make it up to me? Why? He couldn't have known I was going to fall preemptively. It's not his fault I'm clumsy.

Doctor Finnly: Ah, my dear, the matters of that man's heart are shrouded in mystery.

Della: You say that as if you know him.

Doctor Finnly: Well, I suppose I should know him. He's my son.

Della: Oh, then could you tell me his name? It's not written on this business card.

Doctor Finnly: (Laughs) You should ask him yourself. Give him a call in a few days, if you're feeling up to it. I'm sure he would appreciate hearing from you.

Della: (Sighs) I guess that's the best I can do.

(Enter a nurse with an IV drip stand and an ice pack. She walks over to the bed and begins to fasten it to Della's arm.)

Doctor Finnly: I'll let you get some more rest.

Della: (Slightly slurring her words because the morphine is putting her to sleep) Ugh, this suuuucks.

Doctor Finnly: (Chuckles) It can only get better from here, my dear.

THE END


Get it? The title's a pun. Hahahaha.

So I like watching plays and movies and I like the stories behind them, but the formatting of a script drives me up a wall. I'm sure I did this wrong. I prefer telling a story and being able to go into detail and accurately explaining everything the way I see it, which isn't exactly something that you can do with a script. I would love to take the ideas I have for this and turn it into a novel, though. I think it would be an interesting read! (It's not going to go the way I'm sure you're thinking! I hate the idea of writing a generic love story. I want to create something that causes toes to curl in anticipation and makes the reader fall in love and hate and FEEL, not just walk down a road they've walked down a hundred times before.)

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