Nan Schmid

The Language Of Wolves Chapter 1 .pdf

Hi everyone, here is my attempt to complete the 7 assignments. #1. STORY STATEMENT A hardened war reporter suffering from PTSD after her friend is killed in Afghanistan returns to New York to find she’s inherited his dog. She is forced to take a leave from work and heads to her cabin in Maine. Along the way, she and the dog witness the murder of a mother wolf, and unbeknownst to her, the dog rescues her pups. Setting off a new kind of war in the small town where a brutal land developer takes aim at her, the dog, and the pups and vows to protect his land by all means possible, including killing them. #2. The ANTAGONIST James Stanford is a land developer in Maine with several other projects scattered throughout the country. But Maine is his generational home, and his name carries a lot of prestige. Receiving the bulk of his money from his family, he has strived to make a name for himself but has never achieved the same status as his father. This is what drives him, to make his mark while he still can. As an avid lifelong hunter who’s been to every big game hunting resort in the world, chasing certificates for killing all kinds of wild animals, he decides to bring that kind of resort to Maine, but now with exotic animals. These kinds of animals will bring in huge sums of money from hunters wanting to kill a baboon for fifteen thousand or an old lion for twenty-five thousand, and the list goes on. He will make his resort the premier destiny for big game hunters. But he can’t do this alone, so he solicits the Governor of Maine and a Fish & Wildlife agent to help him with promises of big money. He also promises the town that he will revive their declining little village and give them jobs and prosperity. But with the unwelcome arrival of endangered wolves in the area, this could easily ruin his plans. Because he’s not going through the proper channels to bring the exotic animals to the resort. So, he devises a relationship with the Governor and cuts her in on the resort to delist wolves from the Endangered Species Act to be added to his kill list for the certificate. However, with a reporter on the scene making her opinions and facts heard cannot be tolerated on any level, so he must get the town to turn against her and the wolf population. This is a man without a soul and without a thought as to how his actions would affect or harm another person, place, or animal. #3. TITLES The title is THE LANGUAGE OF WOLVES. Which within the story is relevant to the journey Joey goes on to free the wolf pups. In the past, I have titled it: Open Season, Little Wars Everywhere, and Learning The Language Of Wolves. #4. COMPARABLE Gorillas in the Mist, by Dr. Dian Fossey, a book published two years before her death, is Fossey's account of her scientific study and love of the gorillas at Karisoke Research Center and prior career. It was adapted into a 1988 film of the same name. Marley & Me by John Grogan, is the heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life. Three Billboards From Ebbing Missouri, By Martin McDonagh McDonagh said that the story was inspired by a true incident and his desire to create strong female characters. He said it took him about ten years to decide to make it fiction, based on a couple of actual billboards. about a mother’s murdered daughter I picked these books because my book is based on my screenplay, and at the heart of these books and movies, the main character, who is also a woman in my story, learns valuable life lessons from her inherited dog, the wolf pups and the nature of the deep connection of the animal world. #5. HOOK Joey, a former foster kid who is as tough as she is flawed, discovers that it doesn’t matter who you're born to but who you choose along the way, and a family of rag-tag misfits from all walks of life suits her perfectly and teaches her how to accept them and herself warts and all. #6. INNER CONFLICT Joey’s inner conflict comes from her screwed-up childhood, bouncing from one foster home to another, many times in abusive and horrible situations. Every situation she was in was beyond her control because kids have no power, especially a kid no one wanted. She has never felt grounded to anything or anyone except for her reporting. That’s because she won a contest as a teenager by writing an article for a newspaper in the Bronx about what it’s really like to be a foster kid, which led to getting a scholarship to college. In that article, she knew exactly what to write to tug at the heartstrings of the judges. But now she writes only the facts of a story so she never has to deal with the emotion of a story, especially her own. She keeps her emotions buried, and at a distance, but on her last assignment, while embedded with an Army battalion in Afghanistan, things changed when she met a fresh-faced young kid named Bobby “ Kentucky “ Jones, who, like her, grew up in the foster care system. That is not as common as one would think, considering how many kids are in it, and it’s just as big of a mess in Kentucky as it is in New York City. He became like the little brother she never knew she wanted. And then it happened: he was killed right in front of her. One of her favorite things about her friendship with Kentucky is the fact that they both ended up in the middle of a war zone because that’s all either of them has ever known. But at some point, everyone will go through a war, real or personal, and the one thing Joey does like about herself is that she knows she can survive anything. Moments before the bombing, she had sent her file to her boss, it was a long file of her new story that probably allowed the enemy to track them and send that bomb that killed Kentucky and maimed other soldiers, including the man she cares for like no other man she’s ever known, Captain Taye Morris. He is an unconventional but by-the-book military man and not a likely romantic partner for Joey, as she tends to like a rule-breaker like herself. She is riddled with guilt and hates herself for having these emotions, for letting herself care for these two men. How has she not learned this lesson after everything she’s been through, so she will do what she always does: drink the pain down, become numb, and not allow herself to care. Put herself in harmful situations so she can feel more pain by punishing herself. Everyone leaves or dies in the end, and they feel that continual loss is never worth the small moments of joy or the fleeting feeling of love and acceptance they might bring. She’s in her forties and knows better than to let her guard down. But then Birdie, Kentucky’s dog, shows up. She knows Kentucky put this plan in place to haunt her in the case of his death and maybe to do something more to force her to care. Well, fuck him, she’s not falling for this shit ever again. She will work herself into an early grave first. That is her salvation and redemption, her work. But how can she do her job, to report the facts when she can’t admit the truth to herself about what happened in Afghanistan. She’s a liar and a fraud, and she feels that to her very core. But she will put up a strong front showing the world the exact opposite. When she’s forced to take a mental health break, it turns her world upside down. What will she do, who will she be without it? This is what she will have to find out, and with the unlikely help of a dog and two wolf pups, not to mention Captain Taye Morris and a few new friends. Hopefully, her deep feeling of worthlessness will fade into the distance if she can get this one thing right and get the pups back with their pack and to freedom. Freeing herself from her own pain. #8. SETTINGS My settings are pretty straightforward. The dirt brown desert in Afghanistan with an Army battalion in the middle of the war. Then, the Lower East Side of Manhattan and then the beautiful mountains of Maine with its jagged rock with the tall pine trees shooting up toward the sky. Also, the Canadian border on the top of a mountain.