Clare Lowell

Chapter 1- $1.98-3000 words.docx

Write to Pitch Assignments: Fall, 2024 Clare Lowell 1. First Assignment: Story Statement 2. Second Assignment: Antagonists Aubrey and Harley Murdaugh: As owners/directors of the Miss Americana Pageant, Aubrey and Harley are an integral part of Long Island’s East End Elite. But they’re also kingpins of a sex-trafficking ring which serves rich-and-famous clients seeking aspirational young women for sex. The elder Kathee-Jo Cooper: While covering the Miss Long Island Pageant, Rocky recognizes KJ’s name on the Contestant Roster as the daughter of the woman (Kathee Jo Cooper) whose impaired driving killed his mom and seriously injured him eleven years earlier. But KJ’s drug-addled mom is, herself, a victim. Her aspirations for daughter KJ begin and end with a tiara and a title because that’s all she ever knew. Anthony “Magic” Marco: A pageant MC who comes onto KJ. This immediately puts Rocky on notice. Aside from resenting Anthony, Rocky is called to protect and rescue KJ when “Magic Marco” puts her in danger. Judgmental strangers: KJ has always had to fight the battle of the working-class because she’s viewed as “less than.” Aside from pageants, hers is a dead-end, low-wage, trailer-park existence. She seeks higher education and a better life, but her circumstances make it impossible. 3. Third Assignment: Breakout Title The $1.98 Beauty Show 4. Fourth Assignment--Comps: Enemies-to-lovers romcoms Eligible (Curtis Sittenfeld) Meet You in the Middle (Devon Daniels) 5. Fifth Assignment: Core Wound and the Primary Conflict Core Wound: KJ: Growing up with a drug-addled mom who, herself, was emotionally and sexually abused as a child, KJ never had the luxury of just being young. As the victim of inter-generational damage as well as her own emotional baggage, she was always responsible for her mother’s well-being, often helping her to sleep-off whatever drug or alcohol-fueled bender she was on. She never knew her father (her mom used to tell her it was Elvis—even though he died decades before her birth), but when the elder Kathee Jo found a good man who married her, little KJ thought her troubles were over. Things were good until that fatal night when 11-year-old KJ was in the car when her mom hit and killed a woman crossing the street on a rainy night, striking her son as well. Unbeknownst to her, that little boy was Rocky. After that, everything goes downhill when her stepdad dies suddenly from a heart attack right in front of her. It was at that point she decides to become a doctor, but there’s no money. Despite that, she still manages to become an EMT. Ambition and grit may mask her wounds, but her persistent sense of never-being-enough drives everything. Core Wound: Rocky: Walking to the drug store with his mom on a rainy Passover night to get his grandmother’s blood pressure meds results in a horrific driver/pedestrian accident when 11-year-old Rocky and his mother are hit by a distracted driver. His mother dies in front of him and he is seriously injured. After that, everything in his life changes: Having lost the single person who loved him most in life, he and his dad are forced to live with his grandmother. His dad never mentally recovers, and Rocky holds a deep-seated hatred of the woman who killed his mom—and her little daughter, whom he locked eyes with that night as he was being wheeled into an ambulance. Eleven years later as a journalist covering the pageant, he recognizes Kathee Jo’s name on the contestant roster and immediately makes the connection that this is the eponymously named daughter he saw at the scene of his mother’s death all those years ago. Primary Dramatic Conflict: Part One: When Rocky chances upon KJ at the Miss Long Island contest he’s covering he’s ready to write the bitch off as an unfortunate encounter when she unexpectedly jumps in to save a pageant judge’s life by administering CPR after he suffers a heart attack. He’s drawn to this enigmatic beauty and pursues her (although she is completely unaware of their previous tragic connection—she thinks he’s just a reporter on a story) but it’s harder than it looks. As he enters her world their bond deepens—but she’s distrustful and wary of keeping her secrets hidden from the public. Part Two: Enter Aubrey and Harley Murdaugh—pageant owners and clandestine sex-traffickers. Once KJ advances in pageant standing, the conflict switches from Rocky vs. KJ to Rocky and KJ vs. the Murdaughs. KJ realizes Aubrey has singled out more innocent contestants as potential victims, so she’s enlisted Rocky for help. Part Three: Once the Murdaughs meet an untimely end of their own doing which trying to escape arrest, Rocky and KJ work with the FBI to bust the central ring itself. However, since Rocky has arranged with his editor to publish this story as an exposé, KJ is furious. He’s not only revealed their connection, his explosive tell-all threatens KJ’s world as well as her mother’s fragile sanity. She ends them, despite the fact that they’ve fallen deeply in love. But when he shows up at her mom’s wedding to the plant manager uninvited, she realizes nothing is worth losing the love that they share, and all is forgiven. Logline: or: Secrets may be killers, but the truth can destroy when hotshot reporter Rocky Sachs falls for beauty queen KJ Cooper but never reveals that her mother killed his until an explosive tell-all forces him to choose between the love of his life or the break of a lifetime. (Alternate logline: The $1.98 Beauty Show is just like Indiana Jones--only instead of Nazis, an archeologist, and a bar-maid, it’s sex-predators, a hotshot reporter, and a beauty queen. And it’s not Cairo. It’s Long Island.) 6. Sixth Assignment: Other Matters of Conflict: Two More Levels Inner Conflicts: Both protagonists (Rocky and KJ) experience inner conflict that both progresses and morphs dramatically throughout the story. They begin their singular emotional journeys with a fixated approach to the fictions they’ve created for themselves: the stories that are most comfortable with. For Rocky, it’s the bad-lady-killed-my-mom-and-ruined-my-life narrative; for KJ, it’s the my-mom-sucks-my-life-sucks-everyone-looks-down-on-me-so-they-suck-too. Both feel wronged by life/fate/God/whatever. Both have chips on their shoulders the size of the Rock of Gibraltar. Both are distrustful of each other. But both see in each other the possibility of possibilities—the hope of connecting to another human being who somehow “gets” them. And that is enough to keep them connected. Because that is precious and rare. Societal Conflicts: KJ, especially, is burdened by self-doubt based in unmet needs stemming from an abusive childhood at the hands of an addicted mother who, herself, was a victim. The only respite was during her mom’s marriage to Beau, who genuinely cared for KJ like she was his own. His death, however, reaffirmed an underlying sense of unworthiness—that even God thought she was undeserving of happiness, otherwise how could she explain someone so good being taken so soon? Rocky, on the other hand, is a survivor. He thrives off the devotion of his “Bubbie” (grandmother) but goes his own way, carving out his own future. He doesn’t wait for opportunity to present itself—he seeks it out and seizes it. Meeting KJ presents a multitude of opportunities—a chance to make a name for himself by writing an unusual piece on the beauty pageant scene as well as the ability to heal the wounds he’s long-pretended do not exist. 7. Final assignment—Setting: Contemporary Long Island and Environs/ Palm Springs The story begins in a frigid elementary school Cafetorium on a February night where a dozen or so Miss Long Island Contestants are competing for the local title, a stepping stone to the Miss Americana crown. It quickly moves to the County Medical Center and then various meeting places (most notably a Friendly’s with a very nosy waitress), as well as venues ranging from an old Staten Island theater to Chuck E. Cheese. Since KJ and her mom work at a plant nursery (Florific) on L.I.’s rural East End, they live in a trailer on the property. Rocky, by contrast, lives in an illegal top-floor apartment of a house in Flushing, Queens, directly under the approach pattern of flights to JFK. Before long, the Miss New York State contest is happening in a classic old theater in Peekskill, NY—but soon moves to a psych ward when KJ’s mom has a freak-out after seeing her former pageant sex-predator at the crowning. Once the East End sex ring starts ramping up, various tony restaurants and private estates come into the picture as both meeting places and upscale retreats for “fun videos” (read: pornos). As the pageant speeds to its conclusion, it moves to Palm Springs—but Rocky and the Murdaughs end up at the Palm Springs International Airport where Aubrey and Harley meet their unenviable end while trying to escape the FBI. Back on Long Island, the stage is set for the final act when the FBI busts the remaining sex-ring honchos on a luxury yacht docked at a local marina. KJ even plays a role as Rocky’s jealous girlfriend to his lascivious “John.” They’re riding high, but Rocky realizes he must reveal his back story as well as the exposé he’s written, so he takes her to a lovely Montauk restaurant, but it ends horribly with KJ feeling lied to and abused. When KJ’s mom marries the owner/manager of Florific, the story ends at a beautiful vineyard where Rocky and KJ are reunited and declare their love.

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