From: rose@cecily.UUCP (Rose M. Delckum)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.soaps
Subject: DOOL: TAN: (LONG!)Writing a Script better than the Write-errs!
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1992 18:39:10 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The New Alaska Riviera
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     *Ahem*  *scuffle*  *scuffle*  Well, ah, it's like this,,,*blush*
Do y'all remember back when Spud wrote that great thing with Africa and
Nick and Eve...?  Well, um...I kinda got ahold of her cause I kinda like
wanted to play with it and expand it and turn it into more of a script-y
type thing.  And I played with it a while and hammered out a really really
rough draft.  Majorly rough.  And sent it to Spud for approval.  And she
said it looked okay.  So, like, I decided to take my pride in my hands
and, like, post it.  I'm looking for comments/criticisms/helpful hints/ideas/
feedback...well, I'm sure you get the idea.  Anyhow, I'd like to eventually go
through several drafts and then turn it into a script-like object and send
it to someone (Vix and Lix know who I mean :-) ).  Anyhow, I just figured
it'd be a fun project, and I'd really like some input.  And please be gentle, 
it's just a baby rough draft...and don't laugh at me too hard, ok?


Well, here it is....

The Furiously Blushing Shrubbery


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Peel Productions Inc. Presents
Days of Our Real Lives...
Headwriters Spud and Guava
Editorial assistance Banana and Onion and Kiwi


We open with a long shot of the African desert.  The land is hot and dusty, and
there is a small run-down oasis in the middle of the frame.  This ia a poor, run
down looking oasis.  In the background, the song "Toy Cows in Africa" is heard.
We zoom in to the village.  In the center of the village is a small dirty mustard
yellow tent with a long line of people outside of it.  Many of these tribesman
are carrying amulets and trinkets, others are carrying or leading animals, mostly
goats and chickens, and an occasional cow.  Posted in front of the tent is a sign
that appears to have been written in red crayon.  It says "The Anthro-Shrink is IN".
Inside, we can hear voices.  One man, a short American, is seated at a desk, leaning
forward eagerly and taking notes on a third-grade tablet.  The other, a tribal
shaman, is lying on a cot.  We zoom into the interior as the music fades.
     The inside of the tent is dirty and cluttered.  There is lots of tupperware
lying around.  It doesn't seem to have been cleaned in quite some time.  The
Anthro-shrink leans forward, waving his arms eagerly, "So you mean to say that
your mother left you alone all day on a regular basis?"  The shaman looks
confused.  "Yes.  She and all village women gathered nuts and berries."
     "And your father wasn't there either?"
     "No.  He was brave hunter, went hunting with other men from village."
The shrink frantically scribbles notes on his tablet with a red crayon. "And
they never left you with a babysitter?"
     The shaman looks confused and frightened.  "Babysitter?  What is babysitter?"
He pictures and enormous animal that sits on small babies and crushes them flat.
Perhaps that is what happened to this crazy American.
The Anthro-Shrink makes more notes..."Well, what about a day care center?"
The shaman becomes more confused.  How can a mere person take care of an
entire day?  And why would they want to?  He begins looking around for a 
way out of the tent as the Anthro-shrink continues, "It sounds to me like
profound neglect during your all-important deveopmental years has led to this
problem you have with your self-image and your obsession with wearing
ornaments in your nose.
     "Self-image?  What is self-image?"  The shaman's voice begins to squeak in
fear.  The anthro-shrink continues, undaunted, "In fact, this obsession you
have with cows could very well be Oedipal.  I think I'll need to see you at
least 3 times a week."
     The shaman blinks in horror, and begins to squeak in earnest.  "Three
times?  Three times?"  He begins praying in his native tongue.  Would the 
gods mind striking this crazy American with a bolt of lightning?  And making
sure no more crazy Americans are sent?  They may have money, but this just
isn't worth it.  He begins to get up from the cot and the anthro-shrink
thrusts his hand in the shaman's face, "So, I'll see you Thursday then?
Next!"  The shaman grunts and exits the tent.
     Outside the tent the shaman stops to talk to a man holding a resigned
looking chicken.  "Let the others know.  Tonight we make sacrifice to the
gods to get rid of this crazy American.  Then we move and hide so no other
crazy American students can find us."  The other man nods and enters the 
tent.

Cut to another tent.  This one is smaller and dirtier than the last.  It is
splattered with mud and sags in the middle.  Inside, lying on a damp cot, is
Eve.  She has lost a lot of weight.  Her hair is dirty and tangled in knots. 
Her clothes are ripped and covered with mud, and she has several swollen
insect bites.  She has bitten off all her fingernails and looks desperate.
She gets up and looks around wildly as she slips out of the tent.  She
is mummbling to herself as she staggers away.  "You really did it this time
Donovan.  Everyone said someday you'd get what you had coming to you.  But
I didn't have this coming to me!  I'm trapped in the desert with the most
boring person on the face of the earth.  The camels have better personalities
and are more interesting.  I wrote letters in his 'save the african slug'
campaign...even touched a slug.  This is going too far.  No civilization, 
no restaurants, no movies, no electricity, no plumbing, no toilet.  And
no money, thanks to Jack.  I'll get you for this Jack, if it's the last
thing I do, I swear it!  I hope you're as miserable as I am!  I hope you're
living in a dumpster with five kids and that whining Jennifer and eating
the endangered African slug!"  She runs her hand through her hair.  "Oh God.
I've got to get out of here.  I can't take it anymore!"  She staggers to
the corral and grabs a camel (Abdulla) and rides off into the sunset....

End of scene, fade to hourglass...

Fade in...

It's been several days.  Eve holds her canteen upside down.  Empty.  She
puts it over her head and looks into it.  Still empty.  She looks at a 
map marked "Downtown Kalahari" but has no idea where she is.  She is just
plain lost.  She throws the map away as the camel begins to stagger.  She
begins to cry hysterically.
Later, the camel finally collapses.  Eve falls into the sand and begins
to hallucinate.

Fade to first hallucination....
It's dark out and there is a large bonfire ahead of her.  Several
tribesmen are dancing around it.  She can see MM ahead.  He's been
staked down and is being devoured by a herd of endangered African
slugs as he screams "You can't do this!  I'm an American!  Call
the embassy!"

Fade to second hallucination....
She is wearing a mink coat and silk dress.  Diamond earrings, necklace, 
bracelet and several rings.  Ahe is standing outside a large green 
dumpster.  As she watches, a dirty, smelly Jack comes out and looks
overjoyed to see her.  "Eve!  Darling!  Jen, kids!  Look who's here
to see us!"  As she watches, Jenn and at least 7 dirty kids with
runny noses crawl out after her.  Theya re all dressed in rags.  The
kids start yelling "Auntie Evie!  Auntie Evie!"  as she blows them
little air kisses.  A cute little kid walks up to her and pulls on the
hem of her mink.  Eve looks down, her lip curled in distaste.  "Don't
touch the threads kid."  The child backs off.  "Auntie Evie, what'd
you bring us, huh huh?"  Eve smiles and begins to pull out her gifts.
"Well, first of all, here's some dinner.  All the breadcrusts and potato
peels from Wings.  And there's some nice eggshells in there too."  Jenn looks
happy.  "Thanks Eve.  I really don't know what we'd do without you."
She begins to cry and goes back inside the dumpster to fix dinner.  The
kids are still standing there, looking at her.  Eve smiles her bitchy 
smile.  "Look kids, I got you all a present.  See, it's an old shoe
with the heel brokenn off it."  The kids get excited and run off yelling
"A toy, a toy!"  Jack stands there, looking at her, his eyes filling
with tears.  Suddenly he busts out crying and falls to the ground and
begins kissing her feet.  "Eve, thanks to you my family won't starve!
We owe you everything!  And after the way we treated you, you are just
too good to us!  Jenn and I are garbage.  You are a saint.  Thank you!"
Eve just smiles.

Fade to third fantasy....
Eve is standing inside Wings wearing a gold seqined dress, gold and diamond
earrings, etc.  Julie walks up to her "Eve darling, I need a favor.
Could you look over this multi-million dollar contract for me?  You're just
so much better at these business deals than I am."  Eve looks at her, "Why
of course I would Julie.  You know, so many people would be annoyed when
their protege became more rich and powerful then they are.  But you've handled
it all so well."  "Why Eve, I appreciate your saying that.  But how could
I be upset with you.  You've just got so much natural talent and I don't"
They smile at each other and Julie leaves.  Molly comes in wearing a
purple and green checked housedress and red bandanna pushing a cleaning
cart.  Eve walks over to her.  "Molly"  Molly looks surprised.  "Eve?  You're
going to say something to me?  Oh, you've just made me so happy!"  Her eyes
fill with tears as Eve says "Be sure and dust under the table legs in the office."
Molly, wiping away tears of joy, hurries off.  Eve looks around her
domain with pride.  Then, she notices something.  Just a glimpse of
a figure in black, with a black fedora....

She wakes up, and realizes she's still in the desert, and gets up and staggers
on.  Suddenly she sees something in the distance.  It looks like an oasis!
Or is it just a mirage?  She staggers on and reaches the oasis, where she
sees a building. She crawls toward it.  It's a real building.  It looks
like a bar.  She can see part of the name...XXXX's Cafe' Americain" (The first
word is obscured).  She crawls into the bar.  It's dusty, poorly lit.  There are 
some empty tables and bottles behind the bar, but no customers.  She begins
to cry, thinking it's abandoned.  But then she hears some music coming
from a piano behind her.  She turns around and sees Marty, the piano player
from Wings!  He smiles at her, and she begins laughing with joy.  "Play it, 
Marty.  Play it one more time.  Play "You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings." she
pleads.  He looks around nervously, but begins to play as she sings along.
Just then a door slams open as a figure in a white suit and fedora, obviously
drunk, staggers in, throwing a glass at Marty.  "Didn't I tell you NEVER
to play that song Marty!!!!"  Marty jerks his head in Eve's direction.  Eve
looks up at the man, and sees that it's a very surprised looking Nick.  She
faints as he catches her.

The next scene is shot from Eve's POV.  
She wakes up, everything is blurred.  There is someone bent over her holding
a damp cloth to her head and talking to her.  But she can't focus on who he
is and his words are all mixed up and fuzzy and she can't understand them.
She begins to mumble, thinking this has all been a dream, and that she's
back at her damn tent with MM.  She passes out again.

Later she awakens again.  This time everything is is focus.  There's someone
sitting by the bed, holding her hand.  She looks at him and sees it's Nick.
She gasps and tries to jerk her hand away as her turns to look at her and lets 
it go.  She struggles to sit up, looking around for a way to escape, and he
tries to calm her.
     "Eve, calm down.  You're all right now.  You're safe.  Everything's
gonna be allright."
     "What?!?  All right?  I'm stuck here with you and now you're not dead
and you're going to try to kill me just like you killed Steve and like
you were going to kill my father and you call that all right?"  She begins
crying, trying to crawl away.  He looks upset.
     "Eve, would you please just calm down and let me explain?  Please?
I promise, things aren't what they seem."
     "Oh yeah.  You're going to tell me some story about how that phone
call wasn't what it sounded like, that you weren't planning to kill my
dad!  I know better Nick!  I know what a monster you are!"
     "Evie.  Please.  Have I ever hurt you?  Would you please just
_listen_ to me?"
     "I don't have mch choice do I?"
     "No.  Sorta a captive audience, you might say.  Sorry.  Bad joke."
She looks at him, not smiling.
     "Um.. Yeah.  Well, here's what happened.  Remember when I first got
that offer from Jencon and I asked your advice, and you said to learn as
much about them as I could before going into business with them?"
     She nods, looking a little interested.  "Well, I did that.  And I
didn't like what I saw.  So, at first I was gonna tell them what they
could do with their refinery and give the land to the hospital.  But then
I started thinking.  And I realized that no matter where they got the
land they were gonna build that refinery.  And when I did all that research, 
I saw they had all sorts of EPA laws they broke, the unions didn't 
like them, they were just all-around bad guys.  So I figured I'd be just like
Super-Steve, and I'd try and stop them.  Really dumb, huh?  I called that
ISA guy, Tarrington.  I got his number from Kim.  And I explained the
situation and asked if there was anything I could do to stop these people.
And so he told me to jump on the bandwagon and go along with it.  So
I did."  
     Eve looks at him, stunned, her mouth opening and closing like some
fish.
     "Okay, I know, it was dumb and totally out of character.  But I had my
reasons.  First of all, everyone in Salem had been so nice about forgetting
my past.  At least I thought they were.  Turns out I was wrong, but...
Anyhow, I just wanted to pay them back, you know.  Also, I needed something
to keep my mind off that total disaster with April.  Sorry, I know how you
feel about her.  I'm still not sure how _I_ feel about her, you know?  And
this is the funniest reason.  I wanted to do something to make my brother
proud of me.  Is that a laugh or what?  Here I am, knocking myself out
to try and do something to impress this low-life scum of a brother of
mine, while he's running around with April behind my back..."  He takes
a deep breath.  "Sorry.  I'm just...still messed up over that whole thing.
Maybe if I broke his nose I'd feel better, you think?  Couldn't hurt
to try.  Oh well, on with the story.  I'm sure you're dying to hear the 
rest of it, right?  You say I killed Steve.  I can't believe you'd even
think that.  I'd kill myself before I let anything happen to him.  If
it wasn't for him I wouldn't even be here.  But that night, it was my
big break.  It was my chance to get into Jencon's inner circle.  They
wanted me to have the forest burned down.  I agreed.  I was wearing a
wire, we got the whole thing on tape.  I was supposed to hire some people, 
but they were gonna arrange it so it looked like the storm had put the
fire out before it spread.  But somehow Steve and Bo Brady found out
about it.  So Tarrington said to call it off and let Alamain know what
was going on...this could be a better in than the fire.  So, I called
Alamain and he said to set a bomb.  I said okay.  I called Tarrington
back and he said an ISA agent would set up a fake bomb...lots of smoke
but no actual explosion.  I still don't know what happened.  Someone set
a second bomb.  I guess they were on to me all along.  When I heard that
Steve had been hurt, I freaked.  But I couldn't let anyone know why.
Do you have any idea what it was like, knowing that he was dying there and
everyone blamed me?  Everyone kept saying "He should have just let
you die."  Maybe he should've.  Maybe if I hadn't gotten involved with
the whole thing...."  He shakes his head.  Eve reaches for his hand
but he pulls away.  "After that I was scared to death something would
happen to you.  But I wanted to be with you so bad...I didn't want to
push you away, but I couldn't live with having your blood on your
hands.  The day before Halloween, Tarrington let me know there was
a leak somewhere.  Jencon knew your dad was ISA and they wanted
him dead.  The ISA couldn't warn him without tipping off the snitch
that they were on to him or her.  That's what that phone call was
about.  Did you know I had to kick you three times before you
finally woke up?  I was afraid you'd fall back asleep and I'd have 
to wake you up and talk into a dead phone all night to make sure you
heard me.  I knew after hearing that conversation you'd run to your dad.
I figured you'd hate me for it.  But I remember all the hell you went through back
when you thought you dad was dead.  I didn't want to see you go
through that again.  Besides, your dad could never be replaced.  I could.
Of course, you could've waited a little longer, you know...."
He looks at Eve, who's cryng.  "That night, at the refinery, I was
supposed to get some important information on their operation.  I was
wearing a wire.  But then all of the damn town showed up and started
yelling and waving guns at me.  It was like a bad movie!  And I
didn't know if anyone from Jencon was watching or not, so I had to
stay in character.  I kept trying to get rid of people as fast aas I
could, but as soon as I ditched one another would just pop up and
start yelling and waving their gun at me.  Of course, I don't have to
tell you that, you were one of them...what was that you said, that I
made you sick, something like that?  And then April showed up, and
my sweet brother...I know where I stand with him now.  And, of course, 
Jo Johnson.  By that point I was willing to admit I stole the Maltese
Falcon to get the crowd out of there!  Was there a ticket booth or what?
But then she went wacko and shot me.  It wasn't too bad, went through
my shoulder clean.  But then Brady had to blow up the place.  That's
what caused the problems.  Broke my damn leg.  And I got hit on the head
with something.  Just what I needed, another bump on the head.
When I woke up, Roman Brady or John Black or whatever his name is today 
was telling me to stay still cause I was dead.  Turns out he was
in on it too.  Anyhow, that's why Josie just got six months in the 
rubber room, the ISA set it up.  And why he got community service...what
a joke!  What is it?"
     Eve is looking angry.  "You mean the ISA knew you were alive
all that time?  What about me?  What about the fact that my whole
life was ruined?  I went to jail for this Nick?  Why didn't you stop
that?"
     "Your life didn't seem that ruined to me.  You got off the hook, 
you had your husband and your boyfriend, I figure you were doing okay
there.  The arest was taken off your record.  The cops apologized on TV.
You got all my money.  What more did you want?"

Fade Out

Fade to Steve Scene

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You can blow out a candle        |      Rose Delckum
 But you can't blow out a fire,   |      rose@cecily.UUCP
 Once the flames begin to catch   |          or
 The wind will blow them higher"  |      uunet!coplex!cecily!rose
             --Peter Gabriel      |
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