FRIDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:
CLEAR OBJECTIVES
Are the objectives of your lead character easy to understand? Your lead character is setting out to *do something*. Achieve a specific goal. Something we can see, because film is a visual medium. In William Goldman's GHOST AND THE DARKNESS Val Kilmer's character is trying to build a bridge across a river in Africa. The audience can easily understand building the bridge - it's not an abstract goal. We can see the river, and the end of the railroad tracks on either side. By the end of the film, we can see the result of Kilmer's character's objectives: The bridge spanning the river, connecting the two sets of tracks.
Are the objectives physical? Concrete? A vague goal like "World Peace" won't work. An internal goal like "Finding Myself" or "Finding A Purpose In Life" won't work, because we can not see inside a character's head. We don't know what they feel. Film is a visual medium, and the goal needs to be something we can see. How can we tell world peace has been achieved? A montage of people who hate each other hugging? Sharon hugs Arafat, a Klansman hugs an African American, a Serb hugs a Croat, a cowboy hugs an Indian, I hug Pauley Shore movies? Does that really show World Peace? How do we know someone isn't fighting somewhere? We'd have to see everyone in the whole world hugging (and even then we don't know if they're just pretending to like each other so that their enemy will let their guard down). Your protagonist's objectives need to be something we can see - something physical. That way there's no question about what the goal *is* and no question that the protagonist has achieved it.
Eight time Oscar nominated screenwriter Billy Wilder says, "Develop a clean line of action for your leading character."
In THE FUGITIVE, Dr. Richard Kimble is searching for the One Armed Man who killed his wife. A specific person. We can *see* that he has only one arm, and *see* that he is the same man Kimble fought with at the murder scene. It would not be enough to have Kimble's goal just be to evade the police. That's not concrete enough. Not visual. How can we tell he's evaded the police? The lead character's goal has to be something the Director Of Photography can focus his camera on. Something we can see. One single thing.
CHANGING GOALS?
Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor’s DOWNSIZING has a stand out performance by Hong Chau, but despite starring Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz and being from the writer-director team behind ABOUT SCHMIDT and SIDEWAYS and THE DESCENDANTS and ELECTION, the film seems to have failed at the box office and failed with critics as well, getting only a 50% on Rotten Tomatoes from Top Critics. What happened? No clean line of action for the lead character, and a constantly changing storyline. Rookie mistakes!
DOWNSIZING starts off with a great high concept – scientists discover a way to miniaturize humans, and instead of sending doctors inside a patient in a submarine like in FANTASTIC VOYAGE, they decide to use the technology to minimize the human environmental footprint by miniaturizing humans. Of course, they don't sell it that way – they tell people that they can live like billionaires, because what is a huge mansion on a huge estate to a miniature person doesn't take up much land or building materials. The huge steak that will set you back almost a week’s pay in some fancy restaurant costs about what a Big Mac meal costs. And imagine the massive diamond you could buy for the wife on your anniversary! But the scientists, lead by Dr. Asbjornson (Rolf Lassgård), see it as a way to make the human race environmentally sound and put off climate change and all of the other side effects of out modern life.
Our protagonist Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) (yes, all of the names are completely impossible in this script and film, and they add to it by having everyone mispronounce Paul’s last name in a variety of different ways) is an occupational therapist who works for ConAgra dealing with work related injuries at their Midwest factories. He wanted to be a surgeon, but typical life complications lead him to this job, where the pay is okay and he and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) own a modest house in the suburbs. After talking with some friends who got small, they decide to check out Leisure World, a miniature luxury housing development. They make arrangements to buy a McMansion with the works, and shrink themselves down to 5 inches tall.
But already, there is a strong prejudice against small people growing in the country, and this is set up as a big conflict that must be dealt with. Audrey’s family is against the idea of miniaturization, and are afraid they will never see her again (unless they accidentally step on her). People at Paul’s job are against him shrinking down. Paul gets into a fist fight with a prejudiced drunk in a bar, defending small people. At this point in the story, our “clean line of action” for Paul seems to be dealing with the prejudice against small people once he and his wife have been shrunk down to 5 inches.
LET’S GET SMALL!
Paul and Audrey sell all of their things and then go to Leisure World to be shrunken and re-introduced into society... but small society. Paul wakes up after the procedure and gets a phone call while he’s still in the recovery room... from Audrey. She has decided at the last minute *not* to procedure... leaving 5 inch Paul married to a full sized woman. So now we’ve switched gears and set up this story about a full sized woman and a miniature man. This is an element of the story in Richard Matheson’s novel THE SHRINKING MAN, made into a great flick in 1957. In the book (but not the film) they get into the sexual issues of a man who is shrinking in a marriage where the couple has an active sex life. Hey, that would make a great comedy premise! So now our “clean line of action” appears to be how their relationship will work now that he’s pocket sized.
Except as soon as we get ready for that storyline, they get divorced! Now Paul is living in miniature Leisure World in a huge McMansion and Audrey is living in full sized world... and he loses just about everything in the divorce. But two big things happen with this change in plot: because Audrey is no longer part of the story, Paul no longer has any contact with the outside world and the story is about miniature people living in a miniature world, and that becomes regular people living in a regular world. We have lost the high concept of miniaturization because we have no regular sized characters or world for contrast. Sure, there are a couple of gags where large sized props play a part, but 98% of the time miniaturization no longer has anything to do with the story itself. The high concept is gone, and we are left with...
LET’S GET REGULAR SIZED!
Paul moves to a condo that he can barely afford, now, and enters the dating world. Our new “clean line of action” is a pretty normal story about a middle aged guy who has been out of the dating world for decades trying to find love. There really isn’t anything in this storyline about being miniature (though he does bring a single regular sized rose to a date at one point). It’s basically like a million other comedies about divorced guys entering the dating world - like the Burt Reynolds & Jill Clayburgh comedy STARTING OVER from 1979. In fact, that’s a much better movie. The woman Paul ends up dating, Kristen, is a single mom who complains about everything, and eventually dumps him.
Meanwhile, in typical sitcom form, Paul has an issue with his upstairs neighbor Dusan Mirkovic (Christoph Waltz) who throws loud wild parties almost every night. When Paul goes upstairs to complain one night, he’s invited into the party where Dusan offers to show him the ways to get laid and have a great time in the process. The party is filled with drugs and women and semi-celebrities like “Little Ronni” (Cameron Geddes) the first miniature baby (now in his 20s). Hey, I’ve seen this movie, too! The suddenly single guy who finds the wingman who shows him how to live? So that becomes or story for a while - nothing to do with miniaturization, it’s a middle aged guy looking for a good time with a little help from an expert in partying. Part of this story is that Paul wants Dusan’s praise - he doesn’t want to look like a loser (who now works in a cubicle doing customer service). But the more he gets to know Dusan and his pal Konrad (Udo Kier), the more he begins to suspect that his new best friends might be gangsters of some sort...
That could be a whole movie - and it has been. But DOWNSIZING switches stories (and those "clean lines of action", also known as “thoughlines” and discussed in the Outlines & Thematic Method Blue Book) every ten or fifteen minutes! Just when you think you know what the story is, it changes into something else! Miniature humans? Not anymore!
THE MAID DID IT!
One morning after a wild party, Paul wakes up at Dusan’s when the door opens and maid service arrives. When Paul goes into the bathroom, he sees one of the Maids stealing drugs out of Dusan’s medicine cabinet! By this point we know that Dusan and Konrad are smugglers who bring in contraband from the outside world and sell it in Leisure World. And this Maid may be in big trouble if she’s caught. Will Paul tell Dusan what he’s seen?
Hey, just when you though that might be the plot, Paul recognizes the Maid as Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau, who steals the film), a Vietnamese dissident who was arrested and miniaturized by the Viet Namese government, but escaped to America with a box-load of other prisoners... she was the only survivor, and lost a foot. She now has a terrible prosthetic foot and a pronounced limp. Paul thought she would be famous, but instead she’s working as a Maid in Leisure World. Paul’s occupational therapist past swings into action and he helps her with her pain, and recommends she get a new fake foot. But she can’t afford it.
This kicks off a whole new plot which has nothing to do with miniaturization, divorce, re-entering the dating scene, trying to win the favor of a gangster, or learning how to party... Ngoc takes Paul across town and through the wall that surrounds Leisure World to the tenements where the Maids and Gardeners and other service people live. A slum. Paul is shocked that such a place exists. There are poor people? How did that happen?
I was going to go straight to Paul becoming the doctor for all of the people in the slums, but that would be leaving out the lengthy story where Paul accidentally breaks Ngoc’s prosthetic foot and has to take over her job as a maid, plus carry her on his back all day, and he ends up cleaning up Dusan’s apartment after a couple of parties, and Dusan spots him and is disappointed in him for falling so low that he’s become a maid....
But eventually the story shifts to Paul becoming the doctor for the slums. He’s like a missionary - treating children and delivering babies and taking care of old people and all of the other things that you’d find in a story about a semi-privileged guy who finds his calling helping heal the poor. Heck, in the 1970s there were a half dozen TV series with this plot, and they took a couple of seasons to exhaust the story. But here?
LET’S GO TO NORWAY!
Yes. Norway.
It seems that Dusan and Konrad have a special delivery to make to the original miniaturized colony in Norway and want Paul to go along. The original colony is legendary, because it contains all of the scientists who discovered miniaturization a couple of decades ago. It a land of geniuses! Paul wants to go!
But Ngoc says if Paul goes, she has to go! And that means Paul has to talk Dusan and Konrad into taking her. So that means they all end up on a (miniature) yacht sailing to Norway on an amazing adventure!
Have we had enough completely different stories, yet? What is the “clean line of action” for Protagonist Paul? He seems like a pinball quickly bouncing between different storylines and as soon as you think he might score one specific story some flipper knocks him in the opposite direction.
Once they get to Norway and the legendary original colony, they discover it’s a hippie free love cult run by Dr. Solveig Edvardsen (Margareta Pettersson) and just weird. The scientists are more concerned with body than mind, and Dusan and Konrad are delivering contraband booze and drugs. Thus ends the plot about Paul visiting what he thought was the Promised Land. Which means it’s time for a new plot!
They meet Dr. Jorgen Asbjørnsen who created miniaturization, and he tells them that the world is going to end. It seems they were too late to save the world from climate change and a methane leak from the melting polar icecaps in Antarctica will kill everyone on Earth... eventually. So it’s the end of the world, let’s all party like it’s 1999!
END OF THE WORLD!
Except they have a plan: those Norwegians have built a huge (to miniature people) bunker in the side of a mountain and filled it with food and water and everything else. It’s Noah’s Ark for the upcoming end of the world. They will stay inside for 8,000 years and wait out the climate change and methane and then re-emerge into the new world! And at sundown tonight they will all go into this bunker and time locks will seal them inside until the time locks pop open the doors in 8,000 years.
Dusan and Konrad think these Norwegians are crazy - that the world will probably go on... and even if it is going to end, that may be in a hundred years! They’ll be long dead. Why not live *every day* like it’s 1999? Live *every day* as if it’s your last?
Paul is faced with a choice - go into the bunker with te Norwegians and be some form of Adam when the bunker doors open in 8,000 years... or get back on the boat and return to Leisure World with Dusan and Konrad and Ngoc. He picks the bunker and says his goodbyes...
But moments before the doors close for 8,000 years, Paul runs out of the bunker (there’s a ticking clock here, but it doesn’t manage to generate much excitement), and reunited with Ngoc and his friends! He goes back to being a doctor in the slums, and shacks up with Ngoc (because he has realized he loves her), the end.
I counted something like 23 different plots in there, and so I ask you: What is the “clear line of action” for Paul in this film? What is his objective that ties each scene to the next?
While you're thinking about that, let's look at another big prestige movie... now completely forgotten.
FEATHER GOALS
The remake of FOUR FEATHERS (2002) had the same problem and failed because we had no idea what the protagonist's goal was - and the film became a directionless mess. The late Heath Ledger played a young Army officer who resigns his commission the day before his squad ships out because he's afraid of being killed in battle. His best friend Wes Bentley tries to defend his honor - but Ledger really is a coward. Three members of his squad give him feathers that symbolize cowardice... as does his fiance, Kate Hudson. The feathers are something we can see - they are symbols of his cowardice. But that's the last time we get something concrete in this film. After his squad ships out, Ledger decides to follow his squad to the battle in Sudan. We don't know what his objectives are... and become even more confused when he catches up with his squad but doesn't join them. In disguise, he works as a native porter carrying their equipment. Why keep his identity a secret? Why not put his uniform on and fight by their side?
We don't know why he has followed his squad - at first I thought he was going to put on his uniform and give back the feathers... but when he hides his identity from them, I was confused. What was he trying to do? Was his goal to carry luggage for the British Army? If his goal was to prove that he isn't a coward, how does carrying luggage for the Army get him any closer to that goal?
Adding to the confusion are a number of subplots which have us wondering if they are part of his goal. He is rescued by a runaway slave played by Djimon Hounsou who becomes his sidekick - they trek across the desert together and Hounsou risks his life many times to help Ledger. There's a love triangle between Ledger, Bentley and Hudson that takes place mostly through letters. There is an enemy spy in the British camp who has the same hairdo as Sideshow Bob on THE SIMPSONS. There are scenes where Ledger discovers that a British fort has been taken over by the enemy, is mistaken for an enemy soldier, and ends up attacking his own squad (the most confusing scene in the film as far as protagonist's objectives are concerned). When he finds out that a member of his squad has been sent to a prisoner of war camp, Ledger allows himself to be captured and sent to the same camp... without any plans to rescue his friend! What is his goal - to suffer with his buddy and become embroiled in POW camp politics? We're never sure what Ledger is trying to do, so we have no idea if he does it or not. If we don't know what the goal is, his actions are confusing and uninvolving. In a good script, we know what the protagonist's objectives are, and our involvement in the story comes from the hope he will achieve his goal and the fear that he will fail. In movies like FOUR FEATHERS and DOWNSIZING we have no idea what the protagonist’s goal is, and the goal seems to constantly be changing which just adds all kinds of confusion. Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern said DOWNSIZING “Is a movie in which too-muchness ends up being not-enoughness, since the script lacks a vital center.” Hey, who says critics don’t know what they’re talking about?
Thinking back on DOWNSIZING, I think Paul’s goal is “to find himself” - which is internal and emotional, so it doesn’t work in the visual medium of film. We can’t see that goal, so it doesn’t exist. There’s a huge speech on page 116 of the screenplay where Paul explains how each of these different stories was a step on his way to this final destination (which is going into the bunker... not his final destination at all), but that speech is locking the barn door after the horse has escaped. The thing has been a big pile of confusion up to that point, and there’s no way that speech can save it. But even if some version of Paul’s speech had been near the beginning and we *knew* he was trying to find himself, it still wouldn’t work. That “clean line of action” would still not exist. The *action* in the story would still be an episodic mess, and confusing as hell.
If you can't *see* your protagonist's objectives, or if the protagonist has so many objectives that we aren't sure what's important and what is trivial, you may want to rethink or redefine your screenplay. If the camera can't focus on a goal and the protagonist can't focus on a goal... there is no goal. You need something a camera can focus on.
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Shoeboxing to How To Give And Receive Notes to 15 Solutions If Your Script’s Too Long! and 15 Solutions
If Your Script’s Too Short! to Finding The Cause Of A Story Problem to Good Notes Vs. Bad Notes to Finding
Beta Readers to Avoiding Predictability to Learning To Be Objective About Your Work to Script Killer Notes and
Notes From Idiots to Production Rewrites and What The Page Colors Mean? and a Complete Rewrite Checklist!
The complete book on Rewriting Your Story!
Only $4.99 - Kindle Version

Want To Look Like An Expert?
*** RESEARCH & WORLD BUILDING BUILDING! ***
Using movie examples like TOP GUN, HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, BLUE CRUSH, ADVENTURE LAND, several of my produced films,
JOHN WICK, the novels of Donald E. Westlake and Thomas B. Dewey, SPY KIDS, the LORD OF THE RINGS movies, SOYLENT GREEN
(which takes place in the far off future of 2022), and many others we will look at researching stories and creating worlds.
The 8 Types Of Research, the 10 Types Of Information To Look For, 12 Important Elements Of World Building. Plus chapters on How
To Rob A Bank and Commit Murder And Get Away With It for those of you interested in crime fiction, and Researching The Future
for those writing science fiction, and Levels Of Reality if you are writing about a version of the real world.
Only $4.99 - Kindle Version

All About LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING!
*** LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING! ***
You have written a brilliant 110 page screenplay, but how do you get anyone to read it? You need to distill
it down into some form of verbal moonshine or story rocket fuel that will ignite that bored development executive
or manager or agent and get them to request your screenplay. But how do you shrink those 110 pages into a 25
word logline or a 2 minute elevator pitch or a one page synopsis or a short paragraph? This 100,000 word book
shows you how! Everything you need to know! From common logline mistakes (and how to solve them) to how
your pitch can reveal story problems to the 4 types of pitches!
ONLY $4.99! - Kindle version.
READY TO BREAK IN?
*** BREAKING IN BLUE BOOK ***
Should really be called the BUSINESS BLUE BOOK because it covers almost everything you will need to
know for your screenwriting career: from thinking like a producer and learning to speak their language,
to query letters and finding a manager or agent, to making connections (at home and in Hollywood) and
networking, to the different kinds of meetings you are will have at Studios, to the difference between
a producer and a studio, to landing an assignment at that meeting and what is required of you when you
are working under contract, to contracts and options and lawyers and... when to run from a deal!
Information you can use *now* to move your career forward! It's all here in the Biggest Blue Book yet!
Only $4.99 - Kindle version.

STORY IN ACTION SERIES!

THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES
NEW: Updates On Films 7 & 8 Casting!
The First Six Movies analyzed! All of the mission tapes, all of the “that’s impossible!” set pieces and stunts, the cons and capers - and how these scenes work, the twists and double crosses, the tension and suspense (and how to generate it), the concept of each film as a stand alone with a different director calling the shots (broken in the sixth film), the gadgets, the masks, the stories, the co-stars and team members (one team member has been in every film), the stunts Tom Cruise actually did (and the ones he didn’t), and so much more! Over 120,000 words of fun info!
THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES - 347 Pages -
Only $3.99 ! - Kindle Version
*** THE BOURNE MOVIES
All five "Bourne" movies (including "Legacy" and it's potential sequels) - what are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? Reinventing the thriller genre...
or following the "formula"? Five films - each with an interesting experiment! A detailed analysis of each
of the films, the way these thrillers work... as well as a complete list of box office and critical
statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just fans of the series.
Only $3.99 - Kindle version
Over 240 pages!
*** THE TERMINATOR MOVIES ***
He's back! The release of "Terminator: Dark Fate" is set to begin a new trilogy in
the Terminator story... 35 years after the first film was released. What draws us to these films about
a cybernetic organism from the future sent back in time? Why is there a new proposed trilogy every few
years? This book looks at all five Terminator movies from a story standpoint - what makes them work
(or not)? What are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? How
about those secret story details you may not have noticed? Containing a detailed analysis of each of
the five films so far, this book delves into the way these stories work... as well as a complete list of
box office and critical statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just
fans of the series.
ONLY $3.99 - Kindle Version
HITCHCOCK FOR WRITERS!
Strange Structures!
*** HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR! ***
Contained Thrillers like "Buried"? Serial Protagonists like "Place Beyond The Pines"? Multiple Connecting Stories like "Pulp Fiction"? Same Story Multiple Times like "Run, Lola, Run"?
HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock's 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock's *silent* films! We'll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
Only $5.99 - Kindle Version

LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
*** HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE ***
Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the *Master Of Suspense*; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
Only $5.99 - Kindle Version
FICTION
Featuring Shelly Steele !
*** THE SHOTGUN APPROACH ***
A Pop Star is murdered on the VIP floor of a luxury hotel by a shotgun blast to the face... completely ruining an original piece of art
on the wall behind him. Violent SFPD Homicide Inspector Shelly Steele must find the murderer... without killing anyone in the process.
That won't be easy! A locked room, A handful of clues. A chase and shootout on the hotel's fire stairs.
Who is the killer? His ex-Partner? His ex-Wife? His ex-Record Label Owner?
THE SHOTGUN APPROACH 105 pgs!
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
Featuring Smart & Final !
*** A FINE UPSTANDING CITIZEN ***
25 years ago Senator Milano killed a man. Now he's one of a dozen suspects in an information leak.
Being interrogated in the executive boardroom on the 30th floor of an office building...
The informant will not be leaving by the elevator. Can he solve the crime before they discover his secret?
Fnd the rat before the trap springs on him?
A FINE UPSTANDING CITIZEN (CRIME TIME THRILLER) 86 pgs!
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
Crime Time Thriller !
*** FOLLOWED HOME ***
Bowden knew the best place to find a victim is somewhere they feel safe. Diane Taylor would be his next victim...
It began with a car jacking at an upscale grocery store, but fresh out of prison Bowden decided to take everything -
forcing Diane to drive him her her luxury home. Trapped in her SUV with a violent man, can she find a way to turn the tables on him and survive?
FOLLOWED HOME (CRIME TIME THRILLER)
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
Featuring Smart & Final !
*** PRIME RATE ***
Chuck Skinner brought his father's failing butcher shop back into the black with the help of modern day cattle rustlers. Nice story if it ends there...
But now the head of the MaryAnn Mob of cattle rustlers suspects him of cooking his books, and has brought in an "accountant"
nicknamed Smart & Final... to hold him accountable. Can Chuck talk his way out of this?
PRIME RATE (CRIME TIME THRILLER)
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
MITCH ROBERTSON MYSTERIES
Mitch Robertson #1
*** THROUGH THE RINGER ***
Screenwriter Mitch Robertson just wants to sell a script, but ends up solving the mystery of a whiz kid writer whose new script stinks.
From an upscale vodka bar in Beverly Hills to the Writer's Guild Library to an old mansion in the woodsy Brentwood district, Mitch follows
the clues to uncover the secret of the hot new writer who has suddenly turned cold.
THROUGH THE RINGER
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
Mitch Robertson #2
*** THE FAMILY'S JEWEL ***
"The Presidential Suite of the Hollywood Hoover Hotel looked like a bloody battlefield: bodies everywhere, furniture broken, red liquid dripping from the walls, dead soldiers littering the elegant Berber rug as clouds of smoke overhead bounced between two air conditioning vents.
Mitch Robertson stepped over the body of an ex-child star turned sex tape star turned pop star and entered the room, spotted a gun on the floor and picked it up... careful not to spill his coffee with three pumps of mocha syrup from Penny’s Coffee Shop. That coffee was gold, the only thing keeping him going in this dazed state of wakefulness. The gun felt light. Holding it, he saw the silhouette of an 80s action star sitting sideways on a tipped over chair. Motionless. Was he dead? Mitch was still hung over from the Awards Party the night before, and wondered whether this was all some sort of crazy nightmare that he would wake up from... but when he tripped over the brown legs of a bottomless Superhero, flaccid junk encased in a condom but still wearing his mask, and hit the edge of the sofa, gun skittering and coffee spilling, he realized that it was all very real. What the hell had happened here?"
Short Novel. Only 99 cents! - Kindle Version
Mitch Robertson #3
***
THE UNHAPPY MEDIUM ***
When Warren Moultie, the "Psychic To The Stars", private files, with dirt on everyone in Hollywood, are stolen, Mitch must find them and the
thief before the blackmail begins! But when studios and movie stars and pop music stars and TV stars begin receiving demands for millions
typed by an ancient typewriter on cheap paper, the entire Entertainment Industry is depending on him. Who stole the files? The Psychic? His wife?
His mistress? One of his famous clients?
Novella. Only 99 cents! - Kindle Version

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