Soon after leaving her daughter’s home, Virginia becomes aware of a car with an askew right headlight following her. She dies when she tries to escape the stalker by climbing a ladder, but she dies happy knowing that her art studio and the secret inside it are safe–––her husband, Gordon, didn’t die in vain.
Two months later, Virginia’s daughter, Audrey and her granddaughter, Stephanie, believing that Virginia died in an accidental fall, discover the hidden art studio, containing numerous forgeries painted by Virginia of a stolen 1917 Burman Main Street painting. They examine each painting hoping to find a clue to Virginia’s obsession with the painting which began after Audrey’s father died in a car accident. Then they notice one woman, Frances Hames, in the Main Street scene, wearing pants and writing in a journal next to a bicycle and decide to find out more about her. Before they realize that France’s journal is in the house, someone steals it. Then the forgeries are stolen, and they discover that the original painting contains a dangerous secret linked to World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic. Why was Virginia painting these forgeries? Where is the original painting and what secret is it hiding?
Assignment 2:Antagonist Sketch
A mysterious man in a blue shirt seems to be the antagonist for much of the story. Audrey sees him at the post office, and he follows her from the town where she lives to her hometown of Berman. When Audrey’s daughter, Stephanie, goes with her to the library, he follows them into the archives. Audrey doesn’t realize that the real danger is Bjarte, the amiable owner of a small-town sea food restaurant, who is the main force behind the break-ins and murders in Burman until Audrey and her friend, Lynne discover him holding the library’s archivist hostage in her own home. Then they discover that he is a sadistic, megalomanic, capable of killing without compunction.
Assignment 3:Breakout Title
Behind the Silver ‘U’
The Chemist’s Diary
The Artist and the Woman on the Bicycle
Assignment 4: Comparables
Heart Trouble by Kathy Hogan Trocheck
This is a mystery that takes place in a small Georgia town.
The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk
A valuable manuscript is stolen from a library archive and the archivist is determined to find it.
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
An investigation into the abandonment of a young girl taken up a century later by her granddaughter.
Assignment 5:Hook Line with Conflict and Core Wound
Audrey is a widow and feels depressed and alone without the husband that she loved. Her daughter, Stephanie, is a busy entrepreneur with a flourishing craft store in Atlanta, who doesn’t spend significant time with her. When Stephanie writes Audrey insisting that the two of them go to Audrey’s small hometown, Burman, to clean out Audrey’s deceased mother’s house, Audrey is reluctant. The disturbing years she spent with her enigmatic, widowed mother have left her apprehensive about a return to the house of her youth, but she wants to spend time with the only value she has left in her life, Stephanie. When they arrive and discover that Audrey’s mother spent her time repeatedly painting the same painting in a hidden art studio, Audrey is determined to uncover the reason her mother gave up the close relationship that they shared before her father died. Then she discovers that both her father and Virginia were murdered trying to keep a World War I secret safe from dangerous people.
Assignment 6:Protagonist’s Inner Conflicts
Audrey, unable to recover from the loss of her husband, Simon, swings from anger to sorrow and depression and has been unable to move on with her life for two years. The only person that makes her life worth living is her daughter, Stephanie, but Stephanie is a busy entrepreneur with a thriving craft store to run and can’t spend enough time with her. When Stephanie offers to take time away from her store to help Audrey clean out her deceased mother’s house, Audrey is reluctant. Her father died in an accident when she was ten years old, and the close, fun relationship that she shared with her mother dissolved, causing her to associate the house with anxiety and fear. But her desire to grasp onto the only possibility of healing, inspires her to acquiesce and return to her hometown and the house she fears. She’s surprised when the road to healing begins with a drawing that she made with her mother at the age of ten.
A secondary conflict involves Stephanie. She is a career driven entrepreneur who has had to take control of situations. She doesn’t ‘suffer fools gladly.’ Making her way in the business world has made her dubious of inconsistencies and wary of men, who believe that their charm will enable them to take advantage of her in the business world. From their first meeting, she is aware that she has an attraction for her grandmother’s handsome next-door neighbor, Byron, and puts up her guard, instantly suspicious of him. Byron reminds Audrey of her husband, Simon, and she imagines Stephanie happy with Byron as she was with Simon. These opposing viewpoints of Byron produce conflict between Audrey and Stephanie.
Assignment 7:Sketch Your Setting in Detail
The story begins in Hulart a fictitious town south of Atlanta. The population is large enough that everyone doesn’t know your name, but Audrey is familiar with the postmaster of her local post office, Lynne, and they are friends. Lynne notices the man outside the glass front of the post office but, though wary, is quick to trust and slow to determine that his behavior may be suspicious enough to warrant a warning to Audrey after all.
Audrey goes with her daughter, Stephanie, to her hometown of Burman, a small Southern town west of Atlanta where the locals are all familiar with each other. The streets are traveled but for the most part quiet. The perfect place for evil to hatch and grow unnoticed. Burman has a couple of restaurants one is The Master Maid, a seafood restaurant named after a Norwegian folktale. The restaurant is colorfully and comically decorated with silly sea creatures painted on the walls and sitting on the tables holding fake candles. A contrast to the dark evil that is discovered in its owner, Bjarte.
Audrey’s mother home had been awhite clapboard bungalow with a medium-sized oak tree in the front yard when she moved there as a child. In recent years, her mother, Virginia, has painted the house, changing it to eggshell with tan trim and colonial blue shutters. As for the oak tree, it would take two people holding hands to encircle its trunk.The house gives the appearance of the place a typical happy family would live. No one would suspect that this innocuous house contains a hidden art studio or that once it housed a chemist who formulated a dangerous chemical weapon. Even apart from the house’s secret, Frances was unhappy there, anxious for her brother the soldier, and decades later, the young Audrey was anxious and unhappy there. Audrey’s unhappiness was connected to Frances even though she had no idea that Frances ever existed or had lived there before her. Now, as the house color has changed and the oak tree has become bigger and stronger, so will Audrey change and become stronger.
New York Pitch Assignments - March 2022
in New York Write to Pitch 2023 and 2024
Posted
“Behind the Silver ‘U’”
Assignment 1: Story Statement
Soon after leaving her daughter’s home, Virginia becomes aware of a car with an askew right headlight following her. She dies when she tries to escape the stalker by climbing a ladder, but she dies happy knowing that her art studio and the secret inside it are safe–––her husband, Gordon, didn’t die in vain.
Two months later, Virginia’s daughter, Audrey and her granddaughter, Stephanie, believing that Virginia died in an accidental fall, discover the hidden art studio, containing numerous forgeries painted by Virginia of a stolen 1917 Burman Main Street painting. They examine each painting hoping to find a clue to Virginia’s obsession with the painting which began after Audrey’s father died in a car accident. Then they notice one woman, Frances Hames, in the Main Street scene, wearing pants and writing in a journal next to a bicycle and decide to find out more about her. Before they realize that France’s journal is in the house, someone steals it. Then the forgeries are stolen, and they discover that the original painting contains a dangerous secret linked to World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic. Why was Virginia painting these forgeries? Where is the original painting and what secret is it hiding?
Assignment 2: Antagonist Sketch
A mysterious man in a blue shirt seems to be the antagonist for much of the story. Audrey sees him at the post office, and he follows her from the town where she lives to her hometown of Berman. When Audrey’s daughter, Stephanie, goes with her to the library, he follows them into the archives. Audrey doesn’t realize that the real danger is Bjarte, the amiable owner of a small-town sea food restaurant, who is the main force behind the break-ins and murders in Burman until Audrey and her friend, Lynne discover him holding the library’s archivist hostage in her own home. Then they discover that he is a sadistic, megalomanic, capable of killing without compunction.
Assignment 3: Breakout Title
Behind the Silver ‘U’
The Chemist’s Diary
The Artist and the Woman on the Bicycle
Assignment 4: Comparables
Heart Trouble by Kathy Hogan Trocheck
This is a mystery that takes place in a small Georgia town.
The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk
A valuable manuscript is stolen from a library archive and the archivist is determined to find it.
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
An investigation into the abandonment of a young girl taken up a century later by her granddaughter.
Assignment 5: Hook Line with Conflict and Core Wound
Audrey is a widow and feels depressed and alone without the husband that she loved. Her daughter, Stephanie, is a busy entrepreneur with a flourishing craft store in Atlanta, who doesn’t spend significant time with her. When Stephanie writes Audrey insisting that the two of them go to Audrey’s small hometown, Burman, to clean out Audrey’s deceased mother’s house, Audrey is reluctant. The disturbing years she spent with her enigmatic, widowed mother have left her apprehensive about a return to the house of her youth, but she wants to spend time with the only value she has left in her life, Stephanie. When they arrive and discover that Audrey’s mother spent her time repeatedly painting the same painting in a hidden art studio, Audrey is determined to uncover the reason her mother gave up the close relationship that they shared before her father died. Then she discovers that both her father and Virginia were murdered trying to keep a World War I secret safe from dangerous people.
Assignment 6: Protagonist’s Inner Conflicts
Audrey, unable to recover from the loss of her husband, Simon, swings from anger to sorrow and depression and has been unable to move on with her life for two years. The only person that makes her life worth living is her daughter, Stephanie, but Stephanie is a busy entrepreneur with a thriving craft store to run and can’t spend enough time with her. When Stephanie offers to take time away from her store to help Audrey clean out her deceased mother’s house, Audrey is reluctant. Her father died in an accident when she was ten years old, and the close, fun relationship that she shared with her mother dissolved, causing her to associate the house with anxiety and fear. But her desire to grasp onto the only possibility of healing, inspires her to acquiesce and return to her hometown and the house she fears. She’s surprised when the road to healing begins with a drawing that she made with her mother at the age of ten.
A secondary conflict involves Stephanie. She is a career driven entrepreneur who has had to take control of situations. She doesn’t ‘suffer fools gladly.’ Making her way in the business world has made her dubious of inconsistencies and wary of men, who believe that their charm will enable them to take advantage of her in the business world. From their first meeting, she is aware that she has an attraction for her grandmother’s handsome next-door neighbor, Byron, and puts up her guard, instantly suspicious of him. Byron reminds Audrey of her husband, Simon, and she imagines Stephanie happy with Byron as she was with Simon. These opposing viewpoints of Byron produce conflict between Audrey and Stephanie.
Assignment 7: Sketch Your Setting in Detail
The story begins in Hulart a fictitious town south of Atlanta. The population is large enough that everyone doesn’t know your name, but Audrey is familiar with the postmaster of her local post office, Lynne, and they are friends. Lynne notices the man outside the glass front of the post office but, though wary, is quick to trust and slow to determine that his behavior may be suspicious enough to warrant a warning to Audrey after all.
Audrey goes with her daughter, Stephanie, to her hometown of Burman, a small Southern town west of Atlanta where the locals are all familiar with each other. The streets are traveled but for the most part quiet. The perfect place for evil to hatch and grow unnoticed. Burman has a couple of restaurants one is The Master Maid, a seafood restaurant named after a Norwegian folktale. The restaurant is colorfully and comically decorated with silly sea creatures painted on the walls and sitting on the tables holding fake candles. A contrast to the dark evil that is discovered in its owner, Bjarte.
Audrey’s mother home had been a white clapboard bungalow with a medium-sized oak tree in the front yard when she moved there as a child. In recent years, her mother, Virginia, has painted the house, changing it to eggshell with tan trim and colonial blue shutters. As for the oak tree, it would take two people holding hands to encircle its trunk. The house gives the appearance of the place a typical happy family would live. No one would suspect that this innocuous house contains a hidden art studio or that once it housed a chemist who formulated a dangerous chemical weapon. Even apart from the house’s secret, Frances was unhappy there, anxious for her brother the soldier, and decades later, the young Audrey was anxious and unhappy there. Audrey’s unhappiness was connected to Frances even though she had no idea that Frances ever existed or had lived there before her. Now, as the house color has changed and the oak tree has become bigger and stronger, so will Audrey change and become stronger.