'And best screenplay by a computer goes to...'

Today, Mr. C. unveils the secret weapon behind his confidence: the story engine. It churns along beneath the scenes, nabbing every tidbit I type, and, like some giant, cyber-kaleidoscope, reshapes and refocuses the information into some cohesive form.

It takes my answers to questions such as this: "Does Joli resolve her problems and feel good (like Luke in 'Star Wars') or not resolve them and feel bad (like Clarice in 'Silence of the Lambs')?"

Joli resolves her problem, I tell him, but ends up feeling bad because what she achieves is morally dubious.

Oops, up pops a little story window. Mr. C. screams in computer language, "No! She has to resolve it externally, as in being a do-er," doing something external. She can't be a be-er, meaning adapting to something in her thoughts.

But I want Joli to be a be-er! I tell him. Please?!

"Nope," says Mr. C. The story engine has already figured this bit out. Joli, he says, must be a do-er. Find something for her TO DO, not think. No conscience, remember?

These days pass in a haze of testy exchanges with my writing buddy. On Day 9, we hit our creative low, when I try to have my townsfolk worry about the past as well as the future.

Mr. C gives me the computer's version of a raspberry by flatly refusing to record my keystrokes. The screen is jiggling with the force of my pounding fingers, but not a character appears.

"Why not?" I ask. "Can't they hold more than one worry in their tiny heads?"

I can almost hear Mr. C. speaking: "As with the executives who assign this software to new writers, the answer is an emphatic 'No!' "

Mr. C. pronounces me ready with a rough draft, at which point I graduate to the actual writing of a treatment.

He offers all sorts of advice here: Be creative, have fun, and then, put the story in your drawer for two months and go on vacation.

Then, presumably after a Hawaiian cruise has mellowed you sufficiently to take the heat, show it to some friends.

In a refreshing bit of wisdom for software that presumes that if you can move a mouse, you can write a movie, Mr. C. says, "Don't worry, they'll hate it."

Sooo, what to do when this prediction comes true? Remember all those story forms Mr. C. has in his little story engine? Simply click the brainstorming box and ask Mr. C. either to generate some new (presumably, better) characters or "Spin-the Model" for a new form.

I click the character-generator button and get eight new characters, with swell names like Linsy, Vianney, Bristol, and Anirudh. (Am I writing a "Dune" prequel now?) Then I re-sex Mayor Bob, who becomes the groovy Alondra (complete with Penthouse-worthy cartoon icon). Dodson becomes Joycelyn, and Joli becomes Jacob - an 80-year-old black man. Somehow, his (her?) motivations remain the same.

Now, how about a new form? The box promises it will "find a story form that matches questions you've already answered." (Translation: a whole new screenplay at one click of a mouse.) I wind up with story form #25,192, in which all the characters have new goals, new motives - essentially new lives. According to #25,192, Joycelyn (Dodson, rest in peace) has a new flaw: hope. Whoa! Hope is a flaw?

Only 32,766 forms left to try. Call me if that chimp ever gets his hands on a mouse.

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