1. STORY STATEMENT: “In 1974, A young girl wrangles free of Chile’s Colonia Dignidad cult; decades later her daughter ensures that its perpetrators pay for their sins.”
1974: When love opens her eyes, a young woman realizes the cruelty of the oppressive cult life she has always known and plans to break free. When she discovers she’s pregnant, she sacrifices everything to ensure her child never knows the cult’s cruelty.
2010: Decades later, her adult daughter returns to the cult to connect with her roots, unwittingly uncovering a murder mystery. She confronts natural disasters, the cult’s impenetrable secrecy and betrayal within her own family to secure justice.
2. ANTAGONIST:
Grand Uncle exerts absolute control over life inside the Colonia Dignidad cult. When Greta manages to evade his grip, he will stop at nothing to reclaim her.
Grand Uncle hears the voice of God and claims to be the only one who can keep his commune of three hundred Germans safe from the perils of communism and impending war, which spurred them to flee Germany in the 1960s and resettle in this remote part of Chile. He requires absolute devotion, brutally punishing anyone who disobeys or strays from his strict creed of work and austerity, lest the devil find a foothold to enter and corrupt them all. In the Colonia’s early days, more than a decade ago, he separated families so the bonds of spouses, parents and children would not overshadow the community’s ties. Now, he teaches that the Colonia Dignidad is a single family where children have dozens of “aunties” and “uncles” instead of parents, and women and men cannot even speak to one another lest temptations of the flesh dull their fervor for him. Meanwhile, it’s an open secret that he sexually abuses young boys regularly.
By 2010, Grand Uncle is an old man rotting in prison, his cult improbably transformed into a Bavarian-style tourist destination. When Alyssa arrives to the site of the former cult to investigate her birth mother’s death there, she encounters Grand Uncle’s sinister influence in her grandfather, who still lives in the former Colonia and maintains his loyalty to Grand Uncle’s teachings. The grandfather denies participating in his own daughter’s murder, and Alyssa must knock down the former colony’s walls of secrecy, fear and lingering evil in order to secure justice for her mother before it’s too late.
3. TITLE:
-AND THE WALLS CAME CRUMBLING DOWN
-WANDERING STARS
-LET THE BONES SPEAK
4. COMPS:
Like ORPHAN TRAIN by Christina Baker Cline and BEFORE WE WERE YOURS by Lisa Wingate, this plot-driven novel toggles between past and present to shed light on a little-known past tragedy and solve a family mystery.
**Story-wise, these comps are ideal, but if they are too old, I am also considering the 2022 releases THE PROPHET’S WIFE and ON A NIGHT OF A THOUSAND STARS.**
5. LOGLINE: "Raised in an abusive cult, a young woman defies the only world she knows to protect her unborn child. Decades later, her unmoored adult daughter returns for justice, confronting the family members who permitted her mother’s murder."
6. INNER CONFLICT –
GRETA- Greta has longed for true connection for as long as she can remember, nurturing a forbidden friendship with her kind bunkmate, Sabine, and refusing to give up hope that Mutti will once again treat her as a daughter. When Greta falls for Franz, the first flickers of love contrast starkly with her isolated life in the Colonia, and she realizes just how small and cold their lives there are.
Greta longs for a real relationship – a family – with Franz. At the charitable hospital where she works as a nurse, she sees that in the outside world couples their age can marry and have children. She can’t understand why Grand Uncle bans such a thing. On her first trip outside the Colonia’s walls, she sees that the world out there is not dire, as the elders claim, and she dares to imagine a life there for herself and Franz. She’ll do anything in her power to get them both out of the Colonia and on a path to a life of family and love. When Franz refuses to cooperate (out of fear), Greta shifts her determination to creating such a life for her unborn child, desperate to keep the baby as far from Grand Uncle as possible even if it means giving her up for good.
ALYSSA –
Alyssa longs for true connection, especially now that her adoptive parents have passed away, leaving her feeling rootless and unmoored. She decides to search for her birth family, hoping that getting some answers about her past helps her to feel more settled in the present. The discovery that her mother’s bones were unearthed in a mass grave in Chile shocks her and creates a new conflict – How far will she go to reach the truth, and what if that truth is something she doesn’t want to face? Is attempting to make connections even worth it, if the price is confronting sinister secrets? Alyssa must confront her own fears, doubts about her worth, and the pesky voice in her ear that insists she’s not worthy of love if she is to discover who murdered her mother and secure justice for her and others.
SECONDARY CONFLICT
GRETA -Greta is restricted in every way by the rules of the Colonia. She cannot bathe or urinate unobserved, cannot warm her arms under a blanket without being accused of touching herself inappropriately, cannot smile in friendship, cannot hug or show affection, and she certainly cannot speak her mind. Even when she is sent on official business outside of the Colonia, its rules and rule-enforcers stalk her.
She is also in conflict with those she loves. Franz is as fed up with life inside the Colonia as she is, but he is too fearful to plan an escape. Sabine wants friendship too, but she is unwilling to accept how unjust and cruel the Colonia really is. Mutti believes she is doing right by enforcing the rules, yet her blind obedience feels like a betrayal. Vater is the gatekeeper who finally gives Greta a chance at an outside life, only to permit her undoing when she is forced to return.
A major conflict is her childbirth experience, which leaves her at the brink of life and death and forces her doctor to return her to the Colonia hospital, where Grand Uncle eventually ends her life.
ALYSSA- The setting itself is Alyssa’s first major conflict. She travels to Chile and faces an uphill battle for understanding as she navigates an unfamiliar culture, attempts to contact people who may have known her mother and argues with the police over her role in the case they’ve been ‘working on’ for years. Shortly after she arrives in Chile, a major earthquake strikes, completely upending her budding investigation. She journeys to the heart of the earthquake zone anyway in order to uncover the truth about her mother, skirting the quake’s damage as best she can.
Grand Uncle’s legacy is the second major conflict. Former residents of Colonia Dignidad are still fearful and do not speak openly of the past. Even worse are those who still believe Grand Uncle’s teachings. Greta discovers that her own grandfather was a perpetrator of crimes, among them his own daughter’s death, and yet he justifies his role in that and other atrocities, claiming that he and other leaders had their best interests at heart. If she’s going to secure justice for her mother and others, Alyssa must somehow persuade her grandfather that confessing the truth really will set him free.
7. SETTING:
1974: Nestled in the shadow of the Andes mountains, hours away from the bustle of Santiago, the Colonia Dignidad exists as a world apart. Tidy landscaping, bright flower beds and the gleam of rural life co-exist alongside thick concrete walls topped with barbed wire, which run for kilometres. The walls encircle a community of three hundred German immigrants who sailed here more than a decade ago following the promises of Grand Uncle, a charismatic spiritual leader who hears the voice of God and promises atonement for the sins of Hitler’s War to all those who devote themselves to him. The community’s quest for self-sufficiency led them to sacrifice freedom and family ties in favor of Grand Uncle’s vision. After relentless work, the community has a thriving farm, small factories, a bakery, charitable hospital, community school and even an airstrip. (Unbeknownst to most colonists, they also have secret torture chambers, a weapons cache, and sophisticated spy equipment used in support of Pinochet and his military government.)
2010: From bustling Santiago, Alyssa travels to the rural village of Parral, which is partly in ruins after a major earthquake damaged countless adobe homes and historic structures. She stays at the sprawling hacienda owned by the family who facilitated her adoption decades ago, but spends her days helping with rebuilding efforts and making inquries about her mother’s death. Her inquiries take her to several homes in Parral and also to the former Colonia Dignidad, now a tourist destination called Villa Baviera. Although rustically inviting on the surface, the Villa is still home to victims and perpetrators of cult violence, and it masks the lingering influence of Grand Uncle’s sinister teachings.
New York Pitch Assignments - March 2022
in New York Write to Pitch 2023 and 2024
Posted
New York Pitch Conference Assignments 1-7
1. STORY STATEMENT: “In 1974, A young girl wrangles free of Chile’s Colonia Dignidad cult; decades later her daughter ensures that its perpetrators pay for their sins.”
1974: When love opens her eyes, a young woman realizes the cruelty of the oppressive cult life she has always known and plans to break free. When she discovers she’s pregnant, she sacrifices everything to ensure her child never knows the cult’s cruelty.
2010: Decades later, her adult daughter returns to the cult to connect with her roots, unwittingly uncovering a murder mystery. She confronts natural disasters, the cult’s impenetrable secrecy and betrayal within her own family to secure justice.2. ANTAGONIST:
Grand Uncle exerts absolute control over life inside the Colonia Dignidad cult. When Greta manages to evade his grip, he will stop at nothing to reclaim her.
Grand Uncle hears the voice of God and claims to be the only one who can keep his commune of three hundred Germans safe from the perils of communism and impending war, which spurred them to flee Germany in the 1960s and resettle in this remote part of Chile. He requires absolute devotion, brutally punishing anyone who disobeys or strays from his strict creed of work and austerity, lest the devil find a foothold to enter and corrupt them all. In the Colonia’s early days, more than a decade ago, he separated families so the bonds of spouses, parents and children would not overshadow the community’s ties. Now, he teaches that the Colonia Dignidad is a single family where children have dozens of “aunties” and “uncles” instead of parents, and women and men cannot even speak to one another lest temptations of the flesh dull their fervor for him. Meanwhile, it’s an open secret that he sexually abuses young boys regularly.
By 2010, Grand Uncle is an old man rotting in prison, his cult improbably transformed into a Bavarian-style tourist destination. When Alyssa arrives to the site of the former cult to investigate her birth mother’s death there, she encounters Grand Uncle’s sinister influence in her grandfather, who still lives in the former Colonia and maintains his loyalty to Grand Uncle’s teachings. The grandfather denies participating in his own daughter’s murder, and Alyssa must knock down the former colony’s walls of secrecy, fear and lingering evil in order to secure justice for her mother before it’s too late.
3. TITLE:
-AND THE WALLS CAME CRUMBLING DOWN
-WANDERING STARS
-LET THE BONES SPEAK
4. COMPS:
Like ORPHAN TRAIN by Christina Baker Cline and BEFORE WE WERE YOURS by Lisa Wingate, this plot-driven novel toggles between past and present to shed light on a little-known past tragedy and solve a family mystery.
**Story-wise, these comps are ideal, but if they are too old, I am also considering the 2022 releases THE PROPHET’S WIFE and ON A NIGHT OF A THOUSAND STARS.**5. LOGLINE: "Raised in an abusive cult, a young woman defies the only world she knows to protect her unborn child. Decades later, her unmoored adult daughter returns for justice, confronting the family members who permitted her mother’s murder."
6. INNER CONFLICT –
GRETA- Greta has longed for true connection for as long as she can remember, nurturing a forbidden friendship with her kind bunkmate, Sabine, and refusing to give up hope that Mutti will once again treat her as a daughter. When Greta falls for Franz, the first flickers of love contrast starkly with her isolated life in the Colonia, and she realizes just how small and cold their lives there are.
Greta longs for a real relationship – a family – with Franz. At the charitable hospital where she works as a nurse, she sees that in the outside world couples their age can marry and have children. She can’t understand why Grand Uncle bans such a thing. On her first trip outside the Colonia’s walls, she sees that the world out there is not dire, as the elders claim, and she dares to imagine a life there for herself and Franz. She’ll do anything in her power to get them both out of the Colonia and on a path to a life of family and love. When Franz refuses to cooperate (out of fear), Greta shifts her determination to creating such a life for her unborn child, desperate to keep the baby as far from Grand Uncle as possible even if it means giving her up for good.
ALYSSA –
Alyssa longs for true connection, especially now that her adoptive parents have passed away, leaving her feeling rootless and unmoored. She decides to search for her birth family, hoping that getting some answers about her past helps her to feel more settled in the present. The discovery that her mother’s bones were unearthed in a mass grave in Chile shocks her and creates a new conflict – How far will she go to reach the truth, and what if that truth is something she doesn’t want to face? Is attempting to make connections even worth it, if the price is confronting sinister secrets? Alyssa must confront her own fears, doubts about her worth, and the pesky voice in her ear that insists she’s not worthy of love if she is to discover who murdered her mother and secure justice for her and others.
SECONDARY CONFLICT
GRETA -Greta is restricted in every way by the rules of the Colonia. She cannot bathe or urinate unobserved, cannot warm her arms under a blanket without being accused of touching herself inappropriately, cannot smile in friendship, cannot hug or show affection, and she certainly cannot speak her mind. Even when she is sent on official business outside of the Colonia, its rules and rule-enforcers stalk her.
She is also in conflict with those she loves. Franz is as fed up with life inside the Colonia as she is, but he is too fearful to plan an escape. Sabine wants friendship too, but she is unwilling to accept how unjust and cruel the Colonia really is. Mutti believes she is doing right by enforcing the rules, yet her blind obedience feels like a betrayal. Vater is the gatekeeper who finally gives Greta a chance at an outside life, only to permit her undoing when she is forced to return.
A major conflict is her childbirth experience, which leaves her at the brink of life and death and forces her doctor to return her to the Colonia hospital, where Grand Uncle eventually ends her life.
ALYSSA- The setting itself is Alyssa’s first major conflict. She travels to Chile and faces an uphill battle for understanding as she navigates an unfamiliar culture, attempts to contact people who may have known her mother and argues with the police over her role in the case they’ve been ‘working on’ for years. Shortly after she arrives in Chile, a major earthquake strikes, completely upending her budding investigation. She journeys to the heart of the earthquake zone anyway in order to uncover the truth about her mother, skirting the quake’s damage as best she can.
Grand Uncle’s legacy is the second major conflict. Former residents of Colonia Dignidad are still fearful and do not speak openly of the past. Even worse are those who still believe Grand Uncle’s teachings. Greta discovers that her own grandfather was a perpetrator of crimes, among them his own daughter’s death, and yet he justifies his role in that and other atrocities, claiming that he and other leaders had their best interests at heart. If she’s going to secure justice for her mother and others, Alyssa must somehow persuade her grandfather that confessing the truth really will set him free.
7. SETTING:
1974: Nestled in the shadow of the Andes mountains, hours away from the bustle of Santiago, the Colonia Dignidad exists as a world apart. Tidy landscaping, bright flower beds and the gleam of rural life co-exist alongside thick concrete walls topped with barbed wire, which run for kilometres. The walls encircle a community of three hundred German immigrants who sailed here more than a decade ago following the promises of Grand Uncle, a charismatic spiritual leader who hears the voice of God and promises atonement for the sins of Hitler’s War to all those who devote themselves to him. The community’s quest for self-sufficiency led them to sacrifice freedom and family ties in favor of Grand Uncle’s vision. After relentless work, the community has a thriving farm, small factories, a bakery, charitable hospital, community school and even an airstrip. (Unbeknownst to most colonists, they also have secret torture chambers, a weapons cache, and sophisticated spy equipment used in support of Pinochet and his military government.)
2010: From bustling Santiago, Alyssa travels to the rural village of Parral, which is partly in ruins after a major earthquake damaged countless adobe homes and historic structures. She stays at the sprawling hacienda owned by the family who facilitated her adoption decades ago, but spends her days helping with rebuilding efforts and making inquries about her mother’s death. Her inquiries take her to several homes in Parral and also to the former Colonia Dignidad, now a tourist destination called Villa Baviera. Although rustically inviting on the surface, the Villa is still home to victims and perpetrators of cult violence, and it masks the lingering influence of Grand Uncle’s sinister teachings.