Spoken drama — beat sheet + line rules
Runtime target 2:00-4:00 (≈ 390-830 spoken words at ~3.2-3.5 wps effective incl. dialogue gaps; vo_check DIALOGUE floor 2.9 overall). Percentages are of runtime; beats are pack-line ranges, never mid-sentence.
| # | Beat | % | Lines | Speakers | Job | Line rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Accusation hook | 0-5 | 1-3 | ACCUSER or MOM | Name her situation in action; stakes on her | Line 1 ≤12 words; the accuser's words verbatim from VOC/stake bank; no backstory; no product |
| 2 | Her world | 5-25 | 4-18 | MOM (+KID mumbling 1 line max) | Prove she IS the alarm | Concrete counts/times are allowed in VIDEO (the statics qualifier ban doesn't apply here), from VOC; failed solutions generic (louder alarms, phone across the room, lights on) — never brand names, never bed shakers |
| 3 | Escalation | 25-40 | 19-27 | MOM + AUTHORITY/WITNESS | The blame goes public and costs her | One new person sees it; the cost is concrete (letter, mediation, a fight in front of the kid) |
| 4 | The test | 40-60 | 28-40 | MOM ↔ ACCUSER | Hand the mornings over; he fails | Dialogue turns short (≤8 words each); show 2-3 failed mornings fast; humour from the failure, not from mocking him |
| 5 | Explainer | 60-72 | 41-47 | EXPLAINER (+MOM reacting) | Root cause | ≤3 explainer lines; Fish's ruled root-cause line verbatim; one picture (a brain asleep under the noise) |
| 6 | Discovery | 72-82 | 48-55 | MOM / EXPLAINER | Mechanism + product | Touch gets through; silent to everyone else; keeps going until he turns it off; product named once here |
| 7 | Vindication | 82-95 | 56-63 | ACCUSER or KID → MOM | Payoff on HER | The accuser concedes in his own voice OR the authority clears her OR the kid says he woke himself; her one-line reaction last |
| 8 | CTA | 95-100 | 64-66 | MOM | Offer | Product name + 60-night trial; spoken, then end card (optional, --end-card; off by default per Fish 10-06) |
Line rules (all beats)
- One sentence per pack line, 5-12 words; dialogue turns ≤8 words.
- Said-out-loud test on every line; pronoun-first for MOM; no "babe/hon" filler unless it's in VOC.
- Every number spelled with spaces for EL ("six thirty"), vo_check spells out the rest.
- Accuser is reasonable and wrong, never cartoonish. Mom is never the butt of the joke.
- A line that only works on screen as a close-up of the speaker gets rewritten or re-staged.
Structure example (ILLUSTRATIVE — shows the shape only, not shipping copy; real lines come from VOC and Fish's approval)
- [EX] "Your attorney should know the tardies are on record." (accusation hook, mediation room, staged on MOM's face)
- [MOM] "Fourteen late mornings. He brought a printout." (her world starts) …
- [MOM] "Then you take the mornings. One week." (the test)
- [EX] "Fine. How hard can it be?" …
- [NURSE] "His brain isn't ignoring you. Sound doesn't reach it in deep sleep." (explainer) …
- [EX] "Okay. It wasn't you." (vindication, staged from behind him, MOM's face in the frame)