Alters screenplay

[dianneordi.livejournal.com]

I don't have MPD / DID, but I've had two close friends with DID and have known several others.

I'm currently working on a screenplay which I'm hoping will cast multiplicity in a favorable light, and would love to get some input.

The log line: A college student with multiple personalities must make a choice between the boy she loves and the alters who've kept her safe since childhood.

Although there's no explicit sex or violence, I've tried to be very straightforward, so there may be some triggers.

The screenplay can be downloaded it at www.fileden.com/files/2006/11/5/350846/Alters.pdf

Comments can be directed to dianneordi at excite dot com. Use "Alters" as the subject.

Thank you!
Dianne.

Comments

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

Okay, calm down. This isn't week 62 of the "I wanna write about an average girl who has to get away from her evil alter" show. This is someone who wanted to write about the experience of and prejudice against a minority, did her research - including talking to multiples, that's clear in the operating system and the dialogue - and failed to grok a paradigm shift. She's smart. She's listening. If we keep the flame off, we can get her to write something good.

Now, your cliches...

#1 - The trauma origin. Okay, yeah, it's a bit cliche, but it does happen, kind of a lot. At a guess, I'd say at least one in ten of the systems even on this community started from trauma. The real problem with it is that it has nothing to do with the rest of the story, which is a bad way to start anything.

#2 - Okay, B.J.'s, what, four? Four-year-olds only get so world-weary and jaded. And anyway, little kids are hard to write. I thought it was done pretty well.

#3 - Having less sexual inhibitions than other people in your system doesn't make you a slut. Zoe seemed pretty normal, in that department, it's just that Heather was critically shy. Suzanne was a little bit trite, true, and didn't really add much. And the one who doesn't know about anyone else, yeah, okay, it's done a lot, but it's also an interesting plot twist, and it lets her get in a scene about what it's like to wonder if you're crazy, etc.

#4 - This one I can't argue with. Johnny talked about this before - it's not just a cliche, it's also harmful and false.

[dianneordi.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that no multiples ever want to be singles? Or that none of the individuals in a system ever resent the others?

Can you give me movie examples where the "me or them" storyline is used? Where the protagonist's determination to become a single actually makes her life worse? And when she gets what she thinks she wants, she realizes she's incredibly lonely and misses her family?

[mirrorbrothers.livejournal.com]

It's not that no multiples ever want to be singlets. Lots of gay people would like to be straight, too, but you'll sure as hell offend people writing about that. The point is that we're fighting the prejudice that of course we all want to be singlets, because everything is better when you're not crazy, right?

And you keep talking like you've written the multiple's Invisible Man, but you haven't. Heather gets rid of her head mates, and then gets a job, loses her jerk boyfriend on amicable terms, and marries the boy she loves. That's what you wrote in the script, it doesn't matter what you write in the thread. She decided to become a singlet, her life got worse, she was lonely, but then she got over it and everything worked out better than before. It's like you wrote Invisible Man and then set the manuscript on fire.