ACT 1: A DEEP DIVE | Ft. my FAV blue man 

I looooove Megamind. It’s one of my all-time favorites. Hahaha!! I need to watch it again after listening to you!

I can't wait to see you talk about act 2!

Nicely explained. You speak about the main character’s specific fear and how they spend the whole story trying to avoid it…but don’t forget about A.E. - “pain vs pain” 😂😂. Characters also avoid pain and they will choose and make decisions trying to avoid the more painful of two options. Emotional pain, cognitive, and situational aspects give you so many possibilities to write about. Abbie talks about “pain vs pain”but not as much as fear. I remember her example about having to get out of bed to go to the airport for an early flight and needing two hours to make the flight. The alarm goes off and you keep hitting the alarm because you “don’t really need two hours - you can do it in one and a half”. Pain of having to rush is less than leaving the warm comfy bed. Then the alarm goes off and you only have an hour! You now jump out of bed! The bed is no less comfy than before, but now the pain of getting out of bed is less than the bigger pain of possibly missing your flight. You’ll endure one source of pain to avoid a greater source of pain. It can also be choosing a more immediate pain to avoid a more lasting pain. Your brain will rewrite your perception of the current pain and the situation to allow you to flip - like when you reach the tipping point of staying in bed is no longer less painful but more painful if it costs you missing your plane while before that, staying in bed was the lesser pain (than getting up). Brain will always avoid the greater pain until the perception or situation / relativity of the two options changes. I thought it was a brilliant example for Abbie to use and I think it’s why I can grasp the prospect of plotting around “pain vs pain” easier than plotting the story using the characters’ fear. My romantic thriller is going to have the main character proactively avoiding the pain of the love interest possibly getting hurt or killed because she’s in his life by keeping her at arms length. He’ll reach a tipping point where he’ll realize the pain of not letting himself be in a relationship with her will be greater than the pain of him continuing to shut her out of his heart. There’s some fear involved in that scenario too but the internal conflict coming from the pain of his choice not to let himself fall for her vs his wanting her in his life really resonates with me. He realize he can’t live his life in fear of bad things happening and that love is too precious too pass on if you’re lucky enough to find it. I’m getting stoked. I think I might try to break my story in outline form in time to participate in NaNoWriMo this year ☺️. It would be my first time participating and it’s my first project. I was shooting for 90K total because combining genres (romance won’t simply be a B story - it will be almost equal to the thriller aspect” so I think I can get away with it being longer. Take care!

By the way, you have been blessed with the skin many celebrities would die for - flawless.

I hope you are able to talk about the other 3 acts.