FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement.
After accidentally killing a homeless woman, Alex Whittman escapes her mother’s overbearing disappointment and a confining future in small town New York to forge a new life with an old friend in 1978 Los Angeles as the Hillside Stranger and other serial killers prey on working and “nice” girls alike.
SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story.
Naomi lived in upstate New York as a kid enticing her friend Alex into playing havoc with neighborhood kids and horses at a local stable. When Naomi’s family moves back to California, she develops a craving for fame to counter the intellectual coldness of her star physicist father and ditsy mother. Her mother sets her up with a guitar teacher 25 years her senior, Burton, who convinces Naomi fame is within reach with the right funding. Naomi begins to sell her body to high-end clients to fund their rise in the LA music scene, but she needs someone on the inside to get her the best, easiest clients. What better sidekick to put to use than her childhood friend, Alex? Naomi invites Alex to California. When Alex arrives, Naomi asks her to work on the phones of escort service, Model Inc. But having Alex’s help isn’t enough. Naomi likes sex work but wants a greater return on her investment. She abandons Alex, who thought Naomi’s situation was temporary, to start a competing business and gains a starring role in a porno film. When Model Inc. is busted, Naomi leaves Alex alone to deal with the consequences.
THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title
Nice Girl
Fury
FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: Develop two smart comparables for your novel.
The Mars Room: A Novel; Rachel Kushner, 2019
The Girls; Emma Cline, 2014
FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above.
Born when her social climbing mother was teenager, Alex escapes the confinements of her small-town upstate New York life to 1978 Los Angeles and finds herself trying to protect women against an underworld of escort services, drugs, pornographers, and serial killers.
SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have.
Alex Whittman cannot overcome her mother’s disappointment and the confinements of her small-town life. After she accidently kills a well-known local homeless woman, her mother uses the incident to catalog Alex’s numerous failures. When Alex receives a postcard from a childhood friend Naomi inviting her to Los Angeles, she escapes to find Naomi living in an empty house with her sketchy boyfriend/music Svengali, Burton. At breakfast, Naomi and Burton confess that Naomi is covertly working outcall to pay for the duo’s musical aspirations, including a band of studio musicians, and they invite Alex out to fill a position answering phones at an escort service to ensure Naomi gets the high-paying calls. Without resources and with no desire to return to her mother’s world, Alex reluctantly takes the job, telling her family it’s a dating service, only to be pulled into the role of managing and protecting women who’ve arrived in LA with stories similar to her own. The specter of the homeless woman she killed appears at moments of great stress, and with Naomi eventually moving on, Alex navigates her way through a dangerous world alone, isolated from friends and family, with dead woman as her companion.
Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment.
Alex carries a scar on her leg from a foolish attempt at reliving childhood moments riding with her friend Naomi on horses kept in a nearby stable. The accident has ruined Alex’s chances for a track scholarship, while an extensive scar and slight limp forever mark Alex as damaged. What was seen as a stain of failure back home becomes a symbol of toughness to the underworld of sex work, drug dealers, and pornography.
Alex quickly rises to become manager of the largest escort service in the region, a role that brings great financial reward but challenges her own self-image. Rumors run rampant on the scar’s origins, with a gunfight taking the lead. Alex’s unemotional demeanor—learned over years of trying to circumvent her mother’s abundance of emotion—does little to dispel the myth. Yet Alex fears what will come from her growing reputation as an underworld honcho.
FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail.
January 1978 Los Angles is reeling from months of women’s naked corpses showing up across its neighborhoods. The Hillside Strangler, or Stranglers, are just one in a cadre of serial killers and sex offenders terrorizing the west coast, with many centered around the streets of Los Angeles. In response, outcall and escort services pop up promising women a safe and more respectable alternative to working the streets.
Searing sun, oceans of parking lots, nondescript office complexes, cheap motels and endless highways define Alex’s new environment—a considerable change from her small-town origins as the daughter, granddaughter, great granddaughter, and great-great granddaughter of her hometown’s esteemed architect family lineage.
Having grown up in her father’s leak-prone masterpiece—a cubist compilation of railroad ties and eight-foot by eight-foot industrial age windows in the woods—Alex’s mind plays a running commentary on the commercial sprawl that replicates itself across the city and its neighborhoods. Her father, who died in a fall from the roof of their home, imparted enough of his architectural insight on Alex to heighten her awareness of the danger lurking in Southern California’s anonymous parking lots, cookie-cutter neighborhoods, and the rat-infested bungalows intended for the starlets of the 1930s and 1940s.
FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. After accidentally killing a homeless woman, Alex Whittman escapes her mother’s overbearing disappointment and a confining future in small town New York to forge a new life with an old friend in 1978 Los Angeles as the Hillside Stranger and other serial killers prey on working and “nice” girls alike. SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Naomi lived in upstate New York as a kid enticing her friend Alex into playing havoc with neighborhood kids and horses at a local stable. When Naomi’s family moves back to California, she develops a craving for fame to counter the intellectual coldness of her star physicist father and ditsy mother. Her mother sets her up with a guitar teacher 25 years her senior, Burton, who convinces Naomi fame is within reach with the right funding. Naomi begins to sell her body to high-end clients to fund their rise in the LA music scene, but she needs someone on the inside to get her the best, easiest clients. What better sidekick to put to use than her childhood friend, Alex? Naomi invites Alex to California. When Alex arrives, Naomi asks her to work on the phones of escort service, Model Inc. But having Alex’s help isn’t enough. Naomi likes sex work but wants a greater return on her investment. She abandons Alex, who thought Naomi’s situation was temporary, to start a competing business and gains a starring role in a porno film. When Model Inc. is busted, Naomi leaves Alex alone to deal with the consequences. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title Nice Girl Fury FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: Develop two smart comparables for your novel. The Mars Room: A Novel; Rachel Kushner, 2019 The Girls; Emma Cline, 2014 FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Born when her social climbing mother was teenager, Alex escapes the confinements of her small-town upstate New York life to 1978 Los Angeles and finds herself trying to protect women against an underworld of escort services, drugs, pornographers, and serial killers. SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Alex Whittman cannot overcome her mother’s disappointment and the confinements of her small-town life. After she accidently kills a well-known local homeless woman, her mother uses the incident to catalog Alex’s numerous failures. When Alex receives a postcard from a childhood friend Naomi inviting her to Los Angeles, she escapes to find Naomi living in an empty house with her sketchy boyfriend/music Svengali, Burton. At breakfast, Naomi and Burton confess that Naomi is covertly working outcall to pay for the duo’s musical aspirations, including a band of studio musicians, and they invite Alex out to fill a position answering phones at an escort service to ensure Naomi gets the high-paying calls. Without resources and with no desire to return to her mother’s world, Alex reluctantly takes the job, telling her family it’s a dating service, only to be pulled into the role of managing and protecting women who’ve arrived in LA with stories similar to her own. The specter of the homeless woman she killed appears at moments of great stress, and with Naomi eventually moving on, Alex navigates her way through a dangerous world alone, isolated from friends and family, with dead woman as her companion. Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Alex carries a scar on her leg from a foolish attempt at reliving childhood moments riding with her friend Naomi on horses kept in a nearby stable. The accident has ruined Alex’s chances for a track scholarship, while an extensive scar and slight limp forever mark Alex as damaged. What was seen as a stain of failure back home becomes a symbol of toughness to the underworld of sex work, drug dealers, and pornography. Alex quickly rises to become manager of the largest escort service in the region, a role that brings great financial reward but challenges her own self-image. Rumors run rampant on the scar’s origins, with a gunfight taking the lead. Alex’s unemotional demeanor—learned over years of trying to circumvent her mother’s abundance of emotion—does little to dispel the myth. Yet Alex fears what will come from her growing reputation as an underworld honcho. FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. January 1978 Los Angles is reeling from months of women’s naked corpses showing up across its neighborhoods. The Hillside Strangler, or Stranglers, are just one in a cadre of serial killers and sex offenders terrorizing the west coast, with many centered around the streets of Los Angeles. In response, outcall and escort services pop up promising women a safe and more respectable alternative to working the streets. Searing sun, oceans of parking lots, nondescript office complexes, cheap motels and endless highways define Alex’s new environment—a considerable change from her small-town origins as the daughter, granddaughter, great granddaughter, and great-great granddaughter of her hometown’s esteemed architect family lineage. Having grown up in her father’s leak-prone masterpiece—a cubist compilation of railroad ties and eight-foot by eight-foot industrial age windows in the woods—Alex’s mind plays a running commentary on the commercial sprawl that replicates itself across the city and its neighborhoods. Her father, who died in a fall from the roof of their home, imparted enough of his architectural insight on Alex to heighten her awareness of the danger lurking in Southern California’s anonymous parking lots, cookie-cutter neighborhoods, and the rat-infested bungalows intended for the starlets of the 1930s and 1940s.