Plotters, these are your ten commandments:
1. Premise. Louis is in New York City, searching for his sister Zelda. In general, your job is to put obstacles in Louis's way--but not obstacles that would prevent him from attaining his goal, e.g., killing her off or crippling him. He must be able, at some point, to find Zelda.
2. Focus. This is Louis's story, his quest.
3. Continuity. Every episode is a continuation of the episodes that come before it. Consult previous episodes. We encourage you to end your episode in the middle of the action, and let the next plotter continue where you left off. That way we remain in suspense.
4. Time and place. The maximum time span of any episode is 24 hours. Except for episode one, the story takes place exclusively in New York City.
5. Louis's clumsiness. Louis is prone to breaking things. He must break one thing, and one thing only, in every episode. You decide what this thing is and under what circumstances it is broken. The thing broken must be physical and not metaphorical.
6. Characters. Louis has a list (List A) of people who know Zelda and who might be able to help him track her down. There is another list (List B), of characters whom Louis stumbles upon as he looks for his sister. Only characters from List A or List B may be introduced into the plot. You may, however, invent incidental and nameless characters: extras. No more than three new (named) characters may be introduced per episode.
7. Character exclusion. For every character in List A and B, there are certain episodes in which he or she may not appear. These episodes are listed under every character.
8. Zelda's entrance. Louis may not find Zelda--if he finds her at all--until episode 20.
9. Narrative time. The future does not concern us. Your job is to relate what is happening now, in the present of the story: Louis in New York, looking for his sister. As for the past, it surfaces only through the stories the various characters tell Louis about his sister.
10. Genre. Avoid the supernatural. Observe the rules of contemporary, everyday reality (e.g., gravity and iPhones, as opposed to levitation and magic rings). Avoid explicit sexual content.
