classic template

It can be tedious and excessive but since the synopsis is the form where there is no witty dialogue to hide behind and where it is least forgiving, I'm going through all of my scripts now and reconstructing the synopsis point for point against this variation on the familiar template:

Act I: Separation

1. Ordinary World
Limited Awareness /inciting incident
Hero’s lack

2. Call to Adventure
Temptation
Increased Awareness

3. Refusal of the Call
Reluctance to Change
Consequence: Plot Point I :

Act IIA: Descent into Special World

4. Meet Mentor/Antagonist
Overcoming
Supernatural aid misdirects

5. Secret Door
First Threshold
Commitment to Change
New Rules

6. Tests
Enemy’s mind
Inmost cave
Courtship leads to turning point
Passage into night and Belly of the Beast

ACT IIB: Initiation

7. Apparent death
infancy regained / Elastic Emotion
Meet Goddess

8. Temptress
Villain hero of own story
Clue Thread
Binding back.

9. Greatest Fear/Full Commitment
Atonement, Seizing the Sword

PLOT POINT II: WORST HAPPENS: Final Attempt to Take Control
ACT III: Return

10. Distraction
Theft
Set backs
Love Scenes
Consequences
Chase

11. See through Deception:
New Perspective
Refusal of Return; Common Responsibility

12. Flight
False Claimant, Proof disappears
Give up old way; Incorporation:
Prove able to live without it/deserve it
sharing; Nature and Function of Boon=Freedom to Live.
______ wins _______ because _______.

For each point I ask myself, even looking back at finished drafts "what have I got that illustrates this principle?" and then "What COULD I have?" I shouldn't even admit doing this, because it is so basic. Better to pretend everything is original. But this is a challenge to find the spine. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but so far I think The Fashion of the Christ is okay as is. Maybe someone will tell me I'm wrong; it's one of the few I haven't gotten around to deliberately holding against this classic little guide.

Some of it comes from a book on character, some of it from Joseph Campbell, a dash of Sid Field, and so on.