Free The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle Page B

center of the floor and hold a stick of deodorant up to it to give the room a “clean scent.” Which apparently really stuck with me, ha. Ricky had a photo of the Hollywood sign taped to the sloped wall. He drank a lot of green juices and was always smiling, and he was never loud and never sad.
    I wouldn’t have consciously known Ricky was gay, but he must have been. Please , he ate raw almonds before it was trendy to, he didn’t have a beer gut, and when he cried at the end of The Shawshank Redemption , he didn’t wipe away his tears. I was embarrassed for him, and then I wasn’t.
    I fell in love with movies that summer.
    I mean, if Ricky had been in love with dentistry, I’d have a whole other story. Maybe I wouldn’t even see my life as a story at all, but I do. Ricky showed me how.
    We started by screening the basics, something I’d never done with Dad. Classic films like Old Yeller . Man, how I bawled at that one. I guess I used to let people see me cry. While Annabeth and Tiffany were busy downstairs playing “fashion runway” or “house” or whatever, Ricky and I would go to the attic and watch like ten movies a weekend.
    Nothing about it was creepy, so get your mind outta the gutter.
    He taught me about this mythic story structure that a lot of screenwriters use. I was comforted by the idea of a time-tested way of telling a satisfying tale—because that was the summer when Mom and Dad started openly fighting, and when Annabeth became obsessed with “achievement” as a general concept, and when my A.D.D. began showing up in all sorts of mysterious and charming ways. That was the summer, I mean, when I started to not like the way my life story was going.
    But if I used Ricky’s time-tested method to plan out my plots, I’d always be able to find my way back home again.
    Ricky printed out his version of the Hero’s Journey for me once, and from then on out, whenever we’d hit a mythic story beat in a movie we were watching, he’d pause it and go, “See! That’s the hero ‘deciding to go.’ That’s the hero’s journey, Quinny.”
    He made me promise to keep it safe.
    RICKY DEVLIN’S HERO’S JOURNEY
    We meet the hero in his ordinary world (at home, at school, etc.).
    Hero gets called to action (aka the inciting incident).
    Hero refuses the call to adventure (stays at home, makes excuses, plays video games instead, etc.).
    Hero decides to go because: whatever.
    Hero gets into a ton of trouble, but also has adventures and meets allies.
    Shit happens.
    Worse shit happens.
    The worst shit happens and the hero’s life is basically over.
    But then the hero thinks of something amazing to break into the third act of the screenplay.
    And he does.
    And he learns something vital and true that he didn’t even know was possible.
    And he goes home smarter, if a little beaten up.
    And I’m using “he” generally, but obviously a hero can be a she.
    And if it’s written really well and comes in under 110 pages, the screenwriter gets a house in the Hollywood Hills with a small pool.
    â€œSo does everybody have a pool in Hollywood?” I became enamored of the idea of having my own little pool. I was going to make it in the shape of a Q , and the slash at the bottom of the Q was going to be the hot tub.
    â€œNot everybody,” Ricky said. “Only people who sell screenplays.”
    And so I started making up little scripts for movies, basically because I wanted a hot tub, ha. “These are good,” Ricky said. He’d shown me how to format them on Mom’s clunky old laptop, from the days when she worked for Alcoa, before she got injured and the disability checks starting rolling in. “But you need somebody to film them for you!” Ricky said. “Otherwise it’s just words, and not a movie.”
    He wouldn’t help me film the movies, himself. He was busy