Page 27 of How To Plot a Payback

“What if there is no tender moment here? What if, instead of her encouraging him, she slams the door in his face?”

It’s not the kind thing to do.

It’s not the adorable thing to do.

But for Pete’s sake, it makes sense.

The room goes silent.

Somebody clutches her chest as if I’ve just suggested Ashley Krane stab him.

Their mouths aren’t just frowning; they’re curling down like wire hangers.

“You do realize this is a sitcom,” a man says, as though I’ve stumbled into the wrong writers room. “Lavender Rhodes, specifically. In a sitcom.”

He has the audacity to roll his eyes toward Mr. Goodwin, like Did you really hire him? Him?

But his expression falls as it lands on Mr. Goodwin.

Who is peering over his glasses.

At me.

He mops his mouth with his hand.

Leans back in his chair.

“An intriguing thought, Masters. Something nobody expects. And what exactly would she say?”

This was it.

Barely five minutes in the room and already here I sit before the group, taking the test that will ultimately decide their opinion of me. It was a risk, jumping in so quickly with an idea about expanding the one-dimensional stick-figure character who has put the show at the top of the charts. But that’s what Goodwin hired me for. And sure, slamming the door would be a mistake for her, something below her character. Still, that’s how a story grows: from mistakes that cause consequences that cause realizations. And from digging out of holes. Or better yet, digging into and out of various tunnels. And—since it’s a sitcom—funny, chaotic tunnels, going in all directions, while your character tries every which way to deal with the problem he or she caused. All in the name of growth and character development and story arc. Why?

Because people can admire the sketch of a perfect person on paper, but they relate to, they love, they hate, they weep for, they root for three-dimensional people with both virtues and vices who grow out of the page.

Ashley Krane was too perfect.

She needed to become alive.

And what would a woman who had been tossed aside by the man she’d been seeing the past decade say? After watching him hop from obsessing over her to obsessing over every female who had ever wandered into his line of sight?

The postwoman. The florist. The barista. The third cousin twice removed. The new neighbor.

“‘I hope you choke on them.’ And then,” I shrug, “I don’t know. Maybe she throws her ring at him.”

The room gasps.

Actually gasps.

“Lavender Rhodes would never throw the ring he won for her at the season 5 carnival—” a woman sputters, but the lift of Mr. Goodwin’s finger stops her.

“What then?” he says.

I ignore everyone’s stares.

“Then,” I begin, “I suppose she hangs her head for a bit. And next episode, she picks herself up by the bootstraps. Determines to find a date of her own. Maybe even goes apartment hunting. Heaven knows she wouldn’t want to be near the two of them ever again.”

The man beside Paula snorts. The woman on the other end of the table looks like she’s been holding her breath the past three minutes and is about to pass out.