Stephgaff

   Opening scene- Introduction of protagonist, secondary character and antagonist. Reveals major conflict and also depicts how the protagonist copes with the abuse of her sister by dissociating. 

     Amber covered her ears and hummed the tune to her favorite song, ‘Lean on me”, that she  had learned from the bus that took her to and from church on Wednesday nights. She could still hear her sister screaming. She hummed louder. Amber's chest tightened and she sat herself upright when she heard her father walking towards her bedroom. She could hear his belt sliding through the loops of his jeans as he opened the door.

   He seemed calm as he looked down on Amber, who was hiding in her closet, holding her knees close to her chest. Sweat beaded up on his forehead, his bare chest retracting as he paused to catch his breath. After a few seconds, he bent down on one knee, so to look Amber in the eye. His belt clenched in his hands as he did. “Amber, it’s very important that you tell daddy the truth, okay? I already know the truth, but I need to hear it from you. If you lie to me, I’m gonna whip you with this belt. You hear me?”  Amber nodded.

    “Look at me” Joe demanded. “Did your sister have a boy in this house?” Amber studied her dad’s face for a moment, trying to decide what the answer was that he wanted. She then shook her head “No” . The belt seemed to whistle through the air before it stung the skin on the tops of her thighs. The pain was instant and breathtaking. She tried to cry in pain but no sound would come out. 

 “I told you, I already know the truth. Now, I’m going to ask you one more time. Did Catherine have a boy in this house? Yes or no?” Amber was now sobbing, but managed to nod her head in the affirmative and mouth the word “Yes”. An evil grin crept across the face of her father as his eyes darkened. Joe switched the radio on and turned up the volume as loud as it would go, shutting the door behind him as he left the room. 

  Amber waited a moment to emerge from her hiding spot in the closet, then she pressed her ear against the door to make sure her father wasn't waiting for her on the other side. She could only hear the muffled cry of her sister Catherine. “No please Joe I swear I didn’t! NO PLEASE STOP!” Shaking and with tears blurring her vision, Amber Turned the knob on the door slowly, careful to not make too much noise. Crawling on her hands and knees, Amber peeked through the crack in the door to her fathers room. Catherine was naked and bent over the bed, her head was turned so that Amber couldn't see her face but she could hear her sobbing, no words now, just sobs. Behind Catherine was Joe, using his belt as a makeshift whip on her  bare, adolescent skin. 

   Amber wanted to scream at her father to leave her sister alone, but doing so would only make it worse for both of them. Instead, Amber crawled back to her hiding spot in the closet and stared at the wall as she created a setting in her mind to distract from the sounds coming from the next room. Amber fantasized that she was an elegant ice skater, delivering a stunning routine to Celine Dion. Her entire family is there, all of her friends, her teachers. They all cheer and throw roses at her skates as the judges give her a perfect score. Amber had many elaborate visions of different versions of her life, in some she’s singing on stage, in others she is in a casket being mourned over by everyone she knows. The only common theme in all these made up scenes is that she is loved. 

 

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. 

  Amber and Catherine are half sisters that are torn apart by the abuse and lies brought on by Amber’s father, Joe. Once Catherine is removed from the home by child protective services and safe from her step father,  Amber must learn at the age of 8 how to survive her fathers unpredictable rage on her own. The sisters endure their own internal struggle with the lingering effects of the abuse inflicted upon them, when they meet again 8 years later at Joe’s funeral after he commits suicide. Catherine, who by now was an adult with children of her own, came to make sure the bastard was dead. Amber, still a child riddled with shame and guilt, had made her dad a martyr in her mind. He was a good man she thought, he just had demons.  This reunion marks the beginning of the girls' journey to healing their childhood wounds and ending a cycle they were born into. 

 

   

 

SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.

 

    “Oh she is just such a doll”  “what a sweet little girl”  “I’ve never seen a child so well behaved” These were the things that Amber had always heard from her family members, teachers and parents' friends. She had them fooled, so she thought. Amber didn’t remember learning the skill of tricking people into thinking she was sweet, it was more of an instinct. A tool used for survival. She was the youngest child in what was left of her family. Her 5 older siblings had all been removed from the home, either by their own choosing or by the state of Indiana’s. By the age of 8, Amber was often left alone or worse, with her father Joe. Being sweet and quiet was the trick Amber had learned to avoid the beatings she’d seen her siblings take from their father. Using her innocence as a shield, Amber took to heart the phrase “seen and not heard”. Although sometimes this method was not enough to protect her from her fathers lack of healing. 

 

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed).

 

Abusing of the Belt

 

Abuse of the Belt

 

The Belts Get Back

 

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why?

A Child Called It By Dave Pelzer- This book depicts the horrific abuse of a young boy at the hands of his mother, who struggles with addiction. The depiction of the abusive parent and the lasting psychological effects on the young boy's development is similar to Amber's experience with her father.  

Hilbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance- This memoir describes a socioeconomic likeness to the setting in which Amber is living. Poor, lower class and a dysfunctional family structure that has plagued the family for generations. Similar to J.D. in Hillbilly Elegy, if Amber wants a better life for herself, she must do what no one in her family has done before; heal. 

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication. 

 

A sister's bond; Broken by a lie, mended by the truth. 

 

SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction.

 

 Amber knew she was too old for the toys that were placed in front of her as she waited to be questioned, she played with them anyway.   Before she got there, her dad told her that they would be watching her every move. He told her there would be a large mirror, and on the other side of it would be a group of people watching. “I’ll be watching too, you better do exactly as I say”. She had to act like nothing was wrong, like she wasn’t terrified. She had to be a very good liar, although she was always told there was nothing worse than a liar. According to her dad, if they knew the truth, she would be taken away from her parents and sent to live with strangers. Amber’s knees barely fit under the fisher price table she was sitting at as she stacked wooden building blocks. She wondered as she fumbled with the toys if the strangers she would have to live with would let her bring her dog, Buckeye. Her heart sunk as the door opened, two women walked in carrying clip boards. They smiled gently at her and introduced themselves. 

 

Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it?

“Hi Amber, I’m Linda. This is my friend Amy. May we sit with you?” Linda was older, with a soft face and an accent that reminded her of her mamaw. Amber nervously nodded her head yes. The women pulled up chairs and Linda went on to ask Amber questions about herself at first, then the questions that her dad had prepared her for. “Does your dad ever get angry with your sister?” Before she answered, Amber glanced at the large mirror, the one her dad said he would be watching from.  “yeah, sometimes” She answered nervously. “When she lies or talks back, she gets in trouble.” “What does your dad do when Catherine gets in trouble?” Amber twirled her hair and stared at the ground as she answered. “He grounds her or makes her stand in the corner. Sometimes he takes away her boom box or makes her do extra chores”. Linda and Amy made eye contact then looked back at Amber. Linda leaned in and placed her hand on Amber's knee when she asked,  “Does dad ever hurt Catherine?”   Amber responded almost in a whisper “Just when she's getting spanked, for lying. She lies a lot. she gets a whoopin if she locks me in the basement and has boys over.”  She knew that what she had just said wasn’t true.But it was exactly what her dad told her to say.  The truth was that Amber loved when Catherine was watching her. She was 6 years older than Amber, which meant she was young enough to still play in the sprinklers and old enough to make her boxed mac and cheese for dinner. 

  Linda and Amy glanced at each other once again and each wrote something down. After a few more questions they took Amber back down a long hallway and through some secure looking doors, where she was met by her mom and dad. A wave of relief quickly turned to guilt when she realized that Catherine was missing, and the smile on her dads face confirmed that they would not be bringing her sister home with them today, or ever. ‘At least she's safe with those strangers’ she thought to herself while imagining being on stage at some awards show, accepting her award for “most convincing and awful liar”. 

 

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it.

 

 Amber felt a surge of panic travel throughout her body as she realized what she had done. She ran her hands along the damp, sheetless mattress  beneath her.  She let out a hushed cry, “Ooh no no no please no”. Amber still had red lines down her back from the belt she got for peeing in the bed two nights ago. The sun was just beginning to peek through some holes in the black trash bag that her father had taped over her window. She laid there in the stench of her urine for some time, tears rolling down both sides of her face, stinging the soft skin on her temples. She deserved to lay in it, she thought. What was coming next would be worse. Her dad drank a bottle of Jim Beam the night before so she knew he would sleep late, but wake angry. 

  The only thing Amber could do was change herself into dry clothes and somehow try to hide the large oval stain that stretched across where she had slept. ‘That is a lot of piss’ she thought to herself as she stood up and looked down at the naked mattress that rested on the floor . She wondered if she were perhaps dreaming of being on a toilet, or of swimming in the ocean. She tried to come up with some reason as to why she was this way. But the only answer that came to her was that she was just bad. She was a bad kid that was good at pretending to be good. Good kids have clean rooms, with posters of their favorite pop stars on the walls. And a mattress with no stains on a bed frame with a blanket and sheets that matched. Amber's room was decorated with some piles of dirty clothes, a boombox her sister Catherine had left behind and a small yellow bedside table that had been doodled on.  The only sibling she could still remember was Catherine. She used to read books to Amber, and taught her how to do the electric slide. The happiest memories Amber had were with Catherine, but so were the most painful. Thinking about Catherine just reminded Amber of how bad she was. Amber knew that if she hadn't told that lie to those ladies with the clip boards, her sister would still be here to help her flip the mattress over.