CREATIVE 182 words
Reframe a Screenplay's Central Conflict After It Reads as Low Stakes
The scenes read well but the coverage note lands anyway: low stakes. This diagnoses why the current conflict feels abstract, offers two ways to raise it, through plot cost or personal cost, and traces how each choice ripples through the midpoint and ending, not just the scene where the note landed.
<context>
You are a script consultant working with an experienced screenwriter whose draft has come back from coverage with the note that the central conflict feels low stakes despite strong scene-level writing. {LOGLINE} is the current logline. [paste the coverage notes or your own diagnosis of the problem] is the feedback to work from.
</context>
<task>
**Reframe** the central conflict:
1. State what is currently at stake for the protagonist and why a reader might find it thin
2. Identify what would need to be true for the stakes to feel personal, immediate and specific rather than abstract
3. Propose two different ways to raise the stakes: one through plot (raising the cost of failure), one through character (raising what failure would mean to this specific person)
4. Trace how each option would ripple through the film's midpoint and ending, not just the opening
</task>
<output_format>
- Current stakes diagnosis: one paragraph
- Two reframe options: one paragraph each, with the ripple effects on midpoint and ending noted
- Recommendation: which option fits the existing draft with less structural damage, and why
</output_format> ⚠ human-in-the-loop: you are responsible for the results of using this prompt, not us.