This report details the writing process that led to “Nature Red,” a screenplay about an aging hippy with a successful farm co-op whose dark past comes back to haunt him in the form of a sociopathic drifter. I begin with the inspirations for this story. Then I discuss the “story-breaking” process, pre-writing, drafting, and revising. I will discuss what I learned about the story’s subject matter as well as what I learned about storytelling for film. Included are samples of prewriting and revision materials. / text

"Bored Wall Street whiz kid Donald Youngblood returns to his East Tennessee hometown and on a whim gets a Private Investigator license. Joined by his best friend Billy Two Feathers, a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, they open Cherokee Investigations and for a few years work small cases and just hang out. Then Don is summoned by the rich and powerful Joseph Fleet to find his missing daughter and son-in-law. As Don and Billy go through the motions of investigating the disappearance, a sinister plot unfolds complicated by a restless girlfriend, a New York mob boss and a killer on the loose with Don in his sights. From the backwoods of Tennessee to the coast of Florida to the streets of New York and half way around the world, Donald Youngblood, with the help of some well-connected friends and a nose for trouble, chases an elusive and deadly foe to extract the ultimate revenge and realize the chase will change his life forever."--BOOK JACKET. / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1000/thumbnail.jpg

"In Keith Donnelly's third mystery featuring private investigator Donald Youngblood (after Three Deuces Down and Three Days Dead), all the usual players return in Don's biggest case yet. His quiet home life has become a bit more complicated with live-in love Mary Sanders and quasi-daughter Lacy Malone ruling the roost. Then a father's plea for justice for his dead daughter leads Don into a maze of murder as he tries to unravel the mystery of a strange tattoo that is part of a deadly game with rules so sinister only the devil himself would approve. As the body count mounts and the murders draw national attention, Don and an old FBI nemesis close in on a deranged killer who will not stop until he is either caught or killed. Matter get even more complicated when a young mother ends up in a coma, an old friend is in bad need of counseling, and a drug kingpin calls in a favor. As Don juggles two cases with the help of partner Billy Two Feathers and a new ally, Oscar Morales, he wonders if becoming a private investigator was such a good idea in the first place."--AMAZON / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1001/thumbnail.jpg

"When Tennessee private investigator Donald Youngblood solved the Fairchild case in Three Deuces Down, he vowed never again to go hunting for a missing person. With live-in-love and Mountain Center cop, Mary Sanders, and his faithful black Standard Poodle, Don's life has settled back into its old routine. All of that is about to change. An attractive, precocious teenage girl shows up in his office one morning needing help finding her missing mother. Now, Don must track down a mother gone wrong while trying to find her abandoned daughter a proper home before child welfare gets the scent. To complicate matters, an old flame is being harassed by a former boyfriend, who is not what he appears to be, and she is begging Don to do something about it. Tracking down the missing mother with the help of his best friend and partner and Don's ever-dangerous new friend, the trail of clues leads to a Las Vegas confrontation where Don comes face to face with henchmen of a Vegas bad boy, and nearly pays the ultimate price."--AMAZON / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1002/thumbnail.jpg

"In the fourth Donald Youngblood mystery more than a year has passed since Don closed the file on the Three Devils case. His personal life is trending upward, his business is booming, and no one has come to him with a case likely to get him killed. All of that changes when Jessica Crane walks into Don's office, asking him to look into the apparent heart-attack death of her husband. Don is convinced that Mrs. Crane's request is just the delusion of a grieving widow. As he goes through the motions of his investigations, he uncovers a mysterious note and a 20-year-old photograph of a group of soldiers known as the Southside Seven. Don soon thinks the grieving widow might be on to something. The Silver Star, a soldier with a stress problem, an Army Ranger black ops mission gone wrong, a mysterious assassin, and a missing vial are all pieces to the puzzle that Don races to fit together before anyone else dies. In the desert of New Mexico, the bayou country of Louisiana, the mean streets of Memphis, and small towns in South Carolina and Kentucky, a haunting mystery unfolds as Donald Youngblood uncovers a startling secret from Desert Storm that haunted the seven men who shared it."--AMAZON / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1003/thumbnail.jpg

"Outside the small town of Saddle Boot, West Virginia, a bulldozer uncovers a long-buried body. Only four living people know it's that of drifter Johnny Cross. But Johnny Cross was not who he appeared to be. In the early-morning hours a few days later, in Mountain Center, Tennessee, a body is dumped in a downtown back alley, a young female dead less than twenty-four hours. Over the next few weeks, two more dead females turn up in East Tennessee. A serial killer with an unusual signature is on the loose. The only thing that connects these events is private investigator Donald Youngblood. Don knows the identities of the body in West Virginia and the dead women dumped in East Tennessee. He also knows the bodies are personal messages for him from a killer seeking revenge. A new and deadly game has begun. In this unique double sequel to Three Days Dead and Three Devils Dancing, Youngblood wrestles with two separate and distinct cases: finding the true identity of Johnny Cross and tracking down a serial killer who seems to be in a big hurry for a final showdown."--AMAZON / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1004/thumbnail.jpg

The research undertaken as the requirements of the degree is an analysis, evaluation and application of the usefulness of the substructures contained in the classic Thriller screenplay. The research identifies tools and techniques that the screenwriter can apply to the construction of a classically structured Thriller. These tools and techniques have been applied to the creation of an original feature length screenplay entitled Magnetic Fields. The substructures explored in this exegesis are those identified by screen theorist Dr Lisa Dethridge as being essential to the screenplay form, irrespective of genre. They are the premise, protagonist, dramatic problem and plot. The research identifies and defines each of these elements and examines for how they operate in the classic Thriller screenplay. Screen theorist and Thriller genre expert Neill D Hicks provides the theoretical structure for the classic Thriller. A case study, Heavenly Creatures (1994) written by Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson, illustrates the discussion of these substructures. The theories of Dethridge and Hicks are compared and evaluated for their usefulness in the construction of the original screenplay, Magnetic Fields. The story is loosely based on a true crime and the challenge in construction this screenplay was the process of identifying and employing the key conventions and techniques of the Thriller genre. Operating within the conventions of the classic Thriller enables the writer to address the requirements of both industry and audience. The film industry requires that a screenplay adhere to a number of standards relating to its format, length and the organisation of content. The audience, or the reader of the screenplay also has expectations. If a film is labelled a Thriller, the audience expects the story to provoke suspense and fear. They will expect to be thrilled. For the screenwriter to achieve this effect the research aims to prove the benefits of adhering to the structural conventions of the classic Thriller film.

He was an alcoholic TV star until he was accused of a heinous crime. Now he's a sober bottom-rung private eye scouring the gutters for a paycheck. When his daughter goes missing, the trail leads right back to the same corrupt Hollywood system that destroyed his life.

Written in the tradition of the classic spy novels of Ian Fleming and the detective novels of Raymond Chandler, The Agolmirth Conspiracy represents the return to the thriller of its traditional elements of romanticism, humanism, fast-moving action, and taut suspense, and a move away from its cynicism and dehumanization as currently practiced by authors such as John Le Carre' and Tom Clancy. Stanford Torrance, an ex-cop raised on "old-fashioned" notions of uncompromising good and naked evil and largely ignorant of computer systems and high-tech ordinance, finds himself lost in a "modern" world of shadowy operatives, hidden agendas, and numerous double-crosses. He is nevertheless able to triumph over that world when he puts his own honor, his own dignity, and his very life on the line, proving to himself and to his adversaries that such things can still make things easier to see amid today's swirling moral fog.

This report includes the process of developing and writing the feature length screenplay Derailment, a thriller about Vietnamese mail-order brides murdered in Taiwan. In addition to the evolution of the screenplay, I have offered the summation of my learning experience in the UT screenwriting M.F.A. program / text