Marsha Mozammel

Opening Scene: Introduces the protagonists, sets the tone, and foreshadows the primary conflict. Sophia had been wide awake for 15 minutes, but her eyes remained tightly shut, an act of passive resistance she hoped would deter the intrusive morning light. But when the musical chime on her cellphone rang out blithely a third time, she resolved to snooze no longer. There was no escaping this day. Sophia rolled from her side onto her back and gazed up at her bedroom ceiling, momentarily hypnotized by the fan affixed to it. Clutching her kol balish close to her, she watched as the fan whirred sluggishly, as if it too were weighed down by the oppressive summer heat. Round and round it turned, like a dog chasing its own tail, a tedious, endless cycle with no discernible beginning or end. In her mind’s eye, Sophia envisioned herself pushing away her kol balish and disentangling from the ketha, both souvenirs Ammu and Abbu had bought her eons ago during one of their annual visits to Dhaka. American as she was, Sophia could not sleep comfortably without the quintessential Bangladeshi body pillow and quilt, even in the dead of summer. She saw herself hopping energetically out of bed, rejuvenated from a night of sound slumber and embarking confidently on the day's journey before her. Spurred by this vision of her better self, Sophia sat up and stretched her arms overhead, sighing when her neck cracked as she moved it in a circular motion. Mid-stretch, Sophia caught sight of the bar exam preparation textbooks splayed atop her dresser, just a few yards from her bed. She could not see the pamphlets for the New York State Drinking Driver Program, but she knew they were there, hidden furtively underneath and between the textbooks that would dominate her life for the next 2 months. Sophia groaned loudly as the full weight of the day ahead of her sank into her muddled-sans-coffee-mind. First, she would attend a bar examination prep class at Hofstra University School of Law from 9:30 AM to about 12:30 pm. This would be her routine five days a week until the bar exam at the end of July. Then, every Monday, like today, she would drive to Nassau Community College after class to attend the Drinking Driver Program mandated by New York State for people convicted of driving while impaired. Sophia was one of these people. The reality of this truth left her breathless every time. Today was Sophia’s first day of this new, unwelcome routine. As she thought through the logistics of her day, an image of the temporary driver’s license she had received in the mail just the other day flashed before her eyes. With a flicker of despair, she recalled the word conditional splayed conspicuously across the license in capitalized scarlet letters. It was official- she had been branded. Sophia sighed, rubbing her arms in an attempt to self-soothe, absentmindedly scratching a mosquito bite on her left wrist. At least she could drive herself around, she reasoned glumly. If her license had been revoked or remained suspended, she would have been forced to rely on her parents or brother for transportation, uncharacteristic behavior that was sure to raise suspicion. Why can’t you drive yourself? They would ask, probing incessantly until an explanation was extracted. Would Sophia have been able to withstand their interrogation? Or would she have folded, like the agitated witnesses in Law & Order at whom she had always scoffed, taking the proverbial stand to recount the details of that nightmarish night when she downgraded from lawful citizen to lawbreaker? Sophia shivered involuntarily. Yes, at least she could drive herself to each destination, one holding her bright future while the other served as a painful reminder of the past. At least she could continue to hide the heinous truth of being a convicted criminal from her parents. Still, the small blessing did little to comfort Sophia. She felt heavy inside, and the weight of her secret pushed her back into bed. Her gaze returned to the whirring fan above her as she mulled over the irony of the situation: she was an aspiring lawyer seeking atonement for breaking the law. It was kind of funny- in a morbidly comical way, of course, but Sophia was far from laughing. Tight with tension, she needed some type of release before she began the day. Reflexively, Sophia reached into the drawer of her bedside table and rummaged blindly through old phones, obsolete chargers and digital cameras until -huzzah!- she found her trusty companion, a vibrator her best friend had gotten her the year before as a birthday gift. Sophia settled herself comfortably into her pillow, excited to surrender her troubled mind to pleasure’s oblivion. She pulled down her panties, pressed the on button and applied the vibrator with the ease of a practiced veteran. Within a few minutes, Sophia could feel the approaching crescendo of a powerful orgasm and she braced herself. She needed this. Nothing else existed at that moment: not the bar exam, not the DWI classes, not her abiding shame and guilt. Only pleasure. Sophia moaned, her eyes squeezed shut, her body tensed, riding the waves of rapture, when, suddenly, the vibrator stopped. Fuck. Sophia could not recall the last time she had charged the battery. She pressed the on button once, and then a second time, and then she clicked it furiously. But her efforts were in vain- the vibrator remained lifeless. “Argh!” Sophia flung the vibrator across the room and heard it thud against the wall and onto the carpeted floor. She contemplated using her hands, but an orgasm seemed elusive now as her thoughts returned to the day before her. Sophia emerged disgruntled and disheveled from bed and shuffled to the bathroom that she shared with her brother, resisting the urge to cry like a baby bereft of its pacifier. Perhaps a nice, soothing shower was all she needed, Sophia thought hopefully. But the sight that awaited her quickly dispelled any notions of comfort: Saif had left the toilet seat up and the toilet unflushed yet again. It was a familiar sight but this morning it was the final straw. As she looked down at the toilet bowl, the bright yellow urine taunting her with colorful audacity, Sophia began to weep. Nothing was going her way this morning.

WRITE TO PITCH 2025 ASSIGNMENT I 1. Story Statement After a DWI arrest shatters her carefully constructed life, Sophia- a Bangladeshi-American and newly minted law school graduate- must confront the shame of her actions and the weight of cultural expectations that have long dictated her path. As she navigates court-mandated rehab, bar prep, and the stirrings of a new, unexpected romance, Sophia must reckon with who she really is, let go of who she was supposed to be, and find the courage to live her truth. 2. The Antagonist The central antagonistic force in my novel is South Asian culture, specifically the weight of its expectations and how it shapes Sophia’s choices, identity, and internal conflicts. This force is embodied in Ammu, Sophia’s mother- a devout, old-fashioned Bangladeshi woman who immigrated to the U.S. as an adult. She is modest, religious, and rooted in tradition. Her worldview is shaped by a conservative upbringing and a deep desire for stability, which she believes can only be achieved through compliance. She expects Sophia to conform: to uphold cultural values, to marry within the community, to put family above all else. She responds to life’s challenges with fear, superstition, and simplistic advice- “Pani kao, namaj poro,” (“Drink water and pray”). Sophia, an American-born Desi, straddles two worlds- torn between a desire to please her family and an unwillingness to surrender to the life mapped out for her. Though they speak Bengali, Sophia and her mother rarely speaking the same language. Their miscommunication is more than linguistic- its cultural, generational, and emotional. Ammu represents not just a mother, but the full weight of a society’s expectations- a force Sophia must confront in order to define herself on her own terms. 3. Breakout Title - The Struggle of the Hyphen - The Weight of Her Bangles - Drink Water and Pray 4. Comparable Titles a. A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza - Like my novel, A Place for Us is deeply introspective and rooted in the emotional complexity of South Asian Muslim families. It grapples with themes of identity, estrangement, and the emotional cost of deviating from familial and cultural expectations. b. All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir - Though written for a YA audience, All My Rage captures the raw emotional turbulence of immigrant children burdened by generational trauma. My novel similarly portrays a young Bangladeshi-American woman wrestling with cultural duty, shame, and the fear of disappointing her community. 5. Hook Line One arrest. Two loves. A lifetime of expectations. After a DWI conviction shatters her carefully constructed world, a Bangladeshi-American law student is forced to confront the shame that haunts her, the identity she’s outgrown, and the self she’s never dared to become. Caught between duty and desire, Sophia faces a summer of reckoning- one that could either free her or undo her entirely. 6. Inner Conflict/Core Wound and Secondary Conflict a. The Inner conflict/core wound: Sophia’s core wound lies in the shame and confusion of living a double life- too American to be the ideal Desi daughter, too Desi to ever feel fully American. This duality fractures her sense of self, leaving her feeling guilty and untethered and so she sticks to a life plan because it is all she has ever known. Beneath it all is a deep yearning to live authentically- but the fear that doing so will lead to rejection, failure, and isolation keeps her trapped between who she’s expected to be and who she really is. - Triggering scene: Sophia attends an impromptu dinner at her aunt and uncle’s house- an intimate family gathering to honor her law school graduation. As she stands before a cake iced with the words Congrats, Grad in bright red, her eyes catch on the lettering, and her chest tightens. The red reminds her of another word- Conditional- stamped boldly across her newly issued driver’s license. A silent mark of her DWI. The truth is unbearable. Their pride, their love- it feels misdirected. She is a fraud. Undeserving. Shame creeps up her spine, hot and consuming. If her family knew the truth, would they still embrace her? She sees herself through imagined judgment: not a rising lawyer, not a good daughter- but a failure hiding behind a cap and gown. In that moment, Sophia doesn’t feel celebrated. She feels exposed. Small and unworthy. b. Secondary conflict: Sophia’s secondary conflict unfolds through a romantic tug-of-war: Asif, her long-time boyfriend, represents stability, cultural familiarity, and the life she’s always been expected to lead. James, a new and socially conscious presence, challenges her worldview and awakens parts of herself she’s long kept buried. Caught between comfort and discovery, duty and desire, Sophia must decide not just who she wants- but who she’s willing to become in the process. - Triggering Scene: Sophia is in Union Square Park listening to James speak at a rally for Trayvon Martin. Afterwards, as the crowd begins to thin and the golden light of dusk settles over the city, their eyes meet. In that quiet pause, something unspoken and electric passes between them- something she can’t name but deeply feels. Sophia tells herself it isn’t cheating. It’s just a moment. But as she stands beside James, moved by his conviction and presence, she can’t ignore the shift within her. Thoughts of Asif flicker- then fade. And for a heartbeat, she wonders if what she feels is desire, or the stirring of a self she’s only just beginning to recognize. 7. The Setting: Long Island, NY in the Summer of 2013 The novel unfolds in the sun-scorched suburbs of Long Island during the summer of 2013- a season thick with heat, shame, and reckoning. Sophia, a Bangladeshi-American law graduate, splits her days between bar prep classes and court-mandated driver rehabilitation sessions, her life cleaved in two by a recent DWI conviction. In the tidy symmetry of suburbia, she feels her mistakes cling to her like sweat and she begins to question whether she really wants the white picket fence dream she was raised to chase. Against this backdrop, the Trayvon Martin trial plays out on every screen, stirring tensions Sophia has long been ignorant to. As she begins to view the case through the lens of an unexpected romantic interest, the perceived safety of her surroundings and life choices begins to unravel. The suburbs become more than just a setting- they reflect Sophia’s fractured identity and force her to reckon with the life she’s built and the one she’s only just beginning to imagine.