I need a "Screenplay Disease." LOL. Any FReeper doctors available?

self | 12-7-03 | geedee

[geedee]

Come one, come all. I'll credit anyone who can help.

Thanks, geedee.

[hellinahandcart]

Just make one up. They've been doing that on the soaps for decades. See "suspension of disbelief". ;D

[geedee]

Do you know where I might get some help on this? I know you're not a doctor but you've been around FR longer than moi.

[BibChr]

...a disease where a dying female offspring requires a bone marrow transplant where a parent, preferably the father, is the ideal donor. ...the key is the father MUST be able to donate what's required and remain conscious. ...the father is the boogie man and the mother is the heroine and the father blackmails the mother to do as he wishes AND in return he promises to be the donor.

Except for the "bone marrow" specific, a feminist might suggest that the disease you're looking for is called "family."

Dan

[dighton]

The people of Soapland are subject to a set of special ills. Temporary blindness, preceded by dizzy spells and headaches, is a common affliction of Soapland people. The condition usually clears up in six or eight weeks, but once in a while it develops into a brain tumor and the patient dies. One script writer, apparently forgetting that General Mills was the sponsor of his serial, had one of his women characters go temporarily blind because of an allergy to chocolate cake. There was hell to pay, and the writer had to make the doctor in charge of the patient hastily change his diagnosis. Amnesia strikes almost as often in Soapland as the common cold in our world. There have been as many as eight or nine amnesia cases on the air at one time.

-- James Thurber, Soapland.

[geedee]

Just make one up. They've been doing that on the soaps for decades. See "suspension of disbelief". ;D

LOL. Good point.

But my screenplay has several time-sensitive topics that I meticulously spent months and months researching so I'd like to leave your option as the one of last resort.

By the way, since it's been awhile since I started a thread, did I do this one right? Did I put it in the "Vanity" area properly?

[LibWhacker]

Don't have a clue and not sure if this is helpful, but when I searched Google on the phrase "father donated his bone marrow," I got one hit that told the story of a 4-yr-old girl who had "severe combined immune deficiency (SCID), which many people know as the 'boy in the bubble' disease."

[geedee]

Hey thanks! Dumb 'ol me didn't even think of searching like that.

[bert]

Well, how about Concus laboncus. I used this disease on excuses for college professors for four years and was excused ever time..... Even on major exams.

As a kicker, add a little drug reaction as with penicillin or such.

[Gman]

Liberalism comes to mind as an apropos disease...

[veronica]

Well . . . that's why I'm asking for your help! So if anyone can help this writer-wannabe -- it is a helluva story by the way -- I sure need it. This is all I need before I can call the screenplay complete and join the gazillion other dreamers pitching their naive ideas to a shark-dominated Hollyweird.

You have FReepmail.

[geedee]

Oh man! That Brenan is a gorgeous little girl, isn't she? And it was a great Sunday-morning read since her story ended successful.

Thanks for the help . . . but sadly my eleven-year-old girl, to match my story requirements, has to be actively-involved with her mother in warding off the boogie man -- her father. A little tease, he's in prison and escapes when he's taken for the transplant. So the mother and child are on the run.

Other than that requirement, your idea would've been perfect.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Can you make it a Grandmother as the reluctant donor instead? I just have grown to dislike, "Daddy as the Villain" type of stories. They are so cliched. But here is one group of diseases you might consider.

Bone marrow transplantation is the only known treatment for a variety of genetic diseases sometimes called "inborn errors of metabolism" or "storage diseases." Each of these diseases is due to the deficiency of a specific substance in the body called an enzyme, which results in the accumulation of toxic chemicals inside the cells. Depending upon the enzyme abnormality and the chemicals that accumulate, specific patterns of tissue damage and organ failure occur. These include central nervous system deterioration, growth failure, bone abnormalities and joint disability, enlargement of the liver and spleen in the abdomen, heart disease, airway obstruction, lung disease, corneal clouding and hearing loss. The eventual organ damage and outcome of the different diseases is quite variable, although the ones in which BMT has been evaluated are those that have a naturally progressive downward course ultimately ending in death in childhood.

I am thinking the father as the carrier and he got the gene from his father but his mother would not have the gene.

(I am not a doctor and I do not play one on TV)

[MadelineZapeezda]

I know you're not a doctor but you've been around FR longer than moi...........

Maybe you shoulda stayed at a Holiday Inn Express or something!

[sonofatpatcher2]

Gad, a fellow screenwritier here. You know, of course, we'll never get our work bought, much less filmed unless we hid our politics.

BTW, been to Zoetrope yet? One of my scripts was rated among the three best one month and not a single offer came my way. Guess you cannot have God and family values a vital part of a script nowadays, eh?

[LibWhacker]

I figured the bubble thing might require a major re-write, lol.

[expatpat]

Does it have to be bone marrow? Wouldn't a kidney transplant work just as well?

[Tijeras_Slim]

YAWS.

[geedee]

LOL. Sadly, "liberalism" is fatal 100% of the time.

[blau993]

organ transplant compatibility is not family -specific.