We will go back to the note-book and seek an idea that may be developed into a plot. Here is a hastily made note written to remind you of a pathetic face: “The wrinkled old woman and the worried-looking daughter who come to the post-office every day.” “Aha,” you say. “Here is a ready-made plot. I’ll have them coming to the post-office in search of a letter from a wandering son. They are in poverty, and just as they are about to be turned out of their home I’ll have the son return laden with wealth.” Beware of the ready-made plot! The studio mails are full of them, but no checks are drawn to pay the authors. The judge who condemns his own son, the little child who reforms the burglar, the upright district attorney who defies his sweetheart’s father, the political boss, all these are old friends of the photoplay editors. “But,” you say, “I saw one of these same stories on the screen only a few days ago.” Perhaps you did, but think it over. Wasn’t there something else besides this bare idea, wasn’t there some new twist, some original turn that lent it freshness and almost made you forget how old the plot-basis was? Let’s see if we can’t take the idea about the old woman and daughter at the post-office and give it a new guise. And before we start to mold our plot remember that we can’t compel the characters to do what we want them to do; we must give them a reason for every action. In real life people do not do things without a motive or an impelling cause, but many photoplay authors would seem to think that the fact that the author wanted his characters to perform a certain action is sufficient excuse for it. To check up: Originality and consistency are all-important. Seek a fresh viewpoint, but when you get something new remember that it must be logical, let it not insult the intelligence of the audience. Starting out, then, we need a reason for the son going away from home. Suppose we change the young woman’s status and make her, not the daughter, but the girl who was to have married the son. They quarreled, she broke the engagement, and in a state of mingled temper and despair he ran away. Soon after his departure the mother is injured in an accident and her sight destroyed. Blaming her pride for the son’s leaving home, the young woman takes upon her shoulders the care of the mother. The son takes to drink and roistering companions; he descends lower and lower in the scale until finally he is a besotted tramp. We now have our characters drawn; we have a reason for the son’s action in leaving home, an “excuse” for his long absence and apparent indifference to what is happening there, and a motive for the girl in seeking to make the mother happy.