Every character had their intro scene now, which brings us to the half-way point of the first act. (In case you don’t know: in a normal Fiasco game, you play out two scenes for each character, which will then finish up the first act, at which point you introduce random, terrible, elements from the tilt table to make act 2 even worse.)
Using the Writer Emergency Deck has, so far, brought in some really nice elements, I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. While the first one was relatively straight forward, causing the character to go after the wrong enemy, the second and third card were a little bit more complicated, thus changing the story quite a bit since the I first thought of the outline for it.
Scene 4 will play out about an hour before the wedding at noon, and Sarah will be once again in the centre of the narrative. We know that Nathan will storm in and reassure her that everything is cool and under control, without much context as to what was wrong in the first place. Let’s look at the card for this week, and see what else we have to consider.
Card # 19 — That Was Lucky
Let your hero succeed through pure dumb luck. Just make sure the pendulum swings both ways.
If you follow the Fiasco-inspired setup for the outline, you know that this scene is supposed to end badly for Sarah. Which means that, in context of this card, whatever seems lucky for Sarah at first, will have to end badly after all.
There’s nothing wrong with your hero catching a lucky break.
In both fiction and life, sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time. It’s often the premise — the meet-cute, the lottery ticket, the ordinary guy in an extraordinary situation. But mid-story luck only works if there really was a chance it could’ve gone badly.
At first glance, this scene might end up quite a bit more mundane than the last two, where I had to deal with metaphoric zombie attacks and secret societies. This time it’s simply about making things look like they worked out, and than showing that nothing is fine. I think this scene will not so much focus on the things that happen to her, but on the decisions she’ll make, that will come around to bite her in the ass.
Let’s do some of the exercises on the back of the card, and see where that leaves us.
Brainstorm three moments where events could go either way for your hero. What would the rewards or consequences be?
- Sarah would have to decide whether to go with Mitch and Nathan’s stupid plan to take a detour to get some real cash. Maybe they end up telling her what this is really about and how bad it would end for either for the two men should they not deliver. Going along with their stupid plan would mean a lot of cash, but might get them into serious trouble. Refusing to go with them might end up in Mitch blowing off the wedding to take care of business.
Does your hero have any rituals or superstitions? If so, how can they be revealed in the story?
- Since the scene plays in the bride’s dressing room, Sarah’s step-mother will also be there. She could be the one that wants no change of plans. Nathan could go by himself to take care of the business, but his mother won’t let him, since he’s the best man and all. This whole wedding really is Sarah’s step-mother’s big day, and she won’t let anything go wrong.
Does your hero enjoy taking chances? Look for ways to challenge both the gambler and the scaredy-cay.
- Perhaps there was a planned reception, where friends and family get to congratulate the couple. But now that Mitch and Nathan are under pressure to get going, they need to convince Sarah to blow off the party and just go for the trip. Maybe even sneak out and just disappear as to not get into more complications (like the zealous step-mother, for example).
I admit, this relatively normal card is a lot harder to think about than the somewhat crazier ones were. But I think by using the dynamics between step-mom and step-brother to swing the narrative back and forth between “Nathan’ll take care of it” and “Step-mother got it all planed and won’t let anything change” I’ll have a good concept for a scene.
Any ideas, thoughts, comments? Would you have done anything differently?
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