New York Pitch Conference - Assignments

A forum wherein New York Pitch Conference attendees post assignments related to their novel or nonfiction project. These assignments relate to conflict levels, antagonist and protagonist sketches, plot lines, as well as story premise.
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AMYPALOSKIE9
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Re: New York Pitch Conference - Assignments

#26 Post by AMYPALOSKIE9 » 10 Dec 2019, 08:21

Assignment #1 Write Your Story Statement
In order to heal from her broken past, Laura must find a way to get to the truth about what happened to her family.

Assignment #2 Sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force of your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.
Sal, twenty-one, argues with his brother Tony as Tony leaves for Vietnam. A few months later Tony is killed and Sal is overwhelmed with guilt and grief. His dreams of becoming a professional football player are lost when he attempts to do the right thing and leaves Boston College to marry his pregnant girlfriend. Through the years, Sal vacillates between trying to be a good husband/father/worker/person and trying to cope with the loss of his family of origin, the loss of his dreams, and the loss of his career. Sal and Claire are committed to making their marriage work despite their financial and emotional struggles. When they have a second child, Sal instantly bonds with his daughter in a way he wasn’t able to bond with his son. Lori is his little princess. She loves him and looks up to him. Most importantly, she doesn’t judge or shame him. Eventually and accidentally, Sal discovers that his son is actually Tony’s son. In a drunken fit of rage, he snaps and kills Claire and the boy, but doesn’t touch his daughter. He leaves her traumatized, without a memory, without a family, and without answers.

Assignment #3 Create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three)
The Frozen Game
The Price of Lies

Assignment #4 Comps
The Memory by Lucy Dawson 12/6/2018
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell 11/5/2019
Missing Pieces by Laura Pearson 6/28/2019
The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers 1/19/2010

Assignment #5 Write your own conflict line following the format given.
Having grown up as a psychologically mute orphaned child in a psychiatric hospital, in order to heal her past, Laura must get to the truth about why her father killed her mother and brother but didn’t kill her.

Assignment # 6 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.
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?

This story is set in two different times (1970s and 1998) over a span of 28 years. It has three points of view and the plot lines are woven together until they intersect.
Laura is the protagonist. Sal is the antagonist. Claire is the third viewpoint.
Primary Conflict- Experiences of increasingly disturbing flashbacks and episodes of sleep painting, Laura fears she’s losing her mind. As she learns that nothing is what it seems to be, she needs to know what happened to her family and why no one wanted or loved her.
Laura’s Secondary Conflicts- As Laura and Jake begin their relationship, Laura struggles with her emotions and odd occurrences taking in her life. Jake wants to save Laura from any pain or suffering and jumps in to rescue her. Laura becomes frustrated with his efforts to fix the things she’s working hard to overcome.
Laura’s Internal Conflict- Laura grew up without a good sense of her identity. She had no friends and knew no one wanted her. She’s fought hard to overcome her background and wants to be a strong woman who is loved.
Sal’s Secondary Conflict- Sal had his heart set on becoming a professional football player, but drops out of college to marry his pregnant girlfriend. He’s torn between doing the right thing and having to let go of his dreams. When he tries to do the right thing, everything he touches turns bad. When he accidentally finds out he’s been lied to, his he rage turns deadly.
Claire’s Secondary Conflict- Claire dated Sal to make Tony (Sal’s brother) jealous. Claire and Tony rekindle and old romance before he leaves for Vietnam and she becomes pregnant. When Tony is killed, Claire can’t handle raising a child on her own, so she convinces Sal the baby is his. She spends her life wracked with guilt over having lied to Sal and having stolen his dreams.

Assignment #7 Setting

The story is set in Rhode Island and moves between the 1970s and 1998. Laura (the protagonist) lives in a loft in Providence and works at an auction house and in an antiques mall. The auction house is filled with interesting items and quirky characters.
Sal and Claire begin their relationship in Cranston and move to Pawtucket, a blue collar working man’s town. Pawtucket is a town that continually tries to reinvent itself without much success, yet it offers work opportunities and genuine friendships.

AMYPALOSKIE9
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Joined: 04 Dec 2019, 07:40
Location: Dayton, MD
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Re: New York Pitch Conference - Assignments

#27 Post by AMYPALOSKIE9 » 10 Dec 2019, 08:25

Assignment #1 Write Your Story Statement
In order to heal her broken past, Laura must find a way to get to the truth about what happened to her family.

Assignment #2 Sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force of your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.
Sal, twenty-one, argues with his brother Tony as Tony leaves for Vietnam. A few months later Tony is killed and Sal is overwhelmed with guilt and grief. His dreams of becoming a professional football player are lost when he attempts to do the right thing and leaves Boston College to marry his pregnant girlfriend. Through the years, Sal vacillates between trying to be a good husband/father/worker/person and trying to cope with the loss of his family of origin, the loss of his dreams, and the loss of his career. Sal and Claire are committed to making their marriage work despite their financial and emotional struggles. When they have a second child, Sal instantly bonds with his daughter in a way he wasn’t able to bond with his son. Lori is his little princess. She loves him and looks up to him. Most importantly, she doesn’t judge or shame him. Eventually and accidentally, Sal discovers that his son is actually Tony’s son. In a drunken fit of rage, he snaps and kills Claire and the boy, but doesn’t touch his daughter. He leaves her traumatized, without a memory, without a family, and without answers.

Assignment #3 Create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three)
The Frozen Game
The Price of Lies

Assignment #4
Comps
The Memory by Lucy Dawson 12/6/2018
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell 11/5/2019
Missing Pieces by Laura Pearson 6/28/2019
The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers 1/19/2010

Assignment #5 Write your own conflict line following the format given.
Having grown up as a psychologically mute orphaned child in a psychiatric hospital, in order to heal her past, Laura must get to the truth about why her father killed her mother and brother but didn’t kill her.

Assignment # 6 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. 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?

This story is set in two different times (1970s and 1998) over a span of 28 years. It has three points of view and the plot lines are woven together until they intersect.

Laura is the protagonist. Sal is the antagonist. Claire is the third viewpoint.

Primary Conflict- Experiences of increasingly disturbing flashbacks and episodes of sleep painting, Laura fears she’s losing her mind. As she learns that nothing is what it seems to be, she needs to know what happened to her family and why no one wanted or loved her.

Laura’s Secondary Conflicts- As Laura and Jake begin their relationship, Laura struggles with her emotions and odd occurrences taking place in her life. Jake wants to save Laura from any pain or suffering and jumps in to rescue her. Laura becomes frustrated with his efforts to fix the things she’s working hard to overcome.

Laura’s Internal Conflict- Laura grew up without a good sense of her identity. She had no friends and knew no one wanted her. She’s fought hard to overcome her background and wants to be a strong woman who is loved.

Sal’s Secondary Conflict- Sal had his heart set on becoming a professional football player, but drops out of college to marry his pregnant girlfriend. He’s torn between doing the right thing and having to let go of his dreams. When he tries to do the right thing, everything he touches turns bad. When he accidentally finds out he’s been lied to, his rage turns deadly.

Claire’s Secondary Conflict- Claire dated Sal to make Tony (Sal’s brother) jealous. Claire and Tony rekindle and old romance before he leaves for Vietnam and she becomes pregnant. When Tony is killed, Claire can’t handle raising a child on her own, so she convinces Sal the baby is his. She spends her life wracked with guilt over having lied to Sal and having stolen his dreams.

Assignment #7 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.

The story is set in Rhode Island and moves between the 1970s and 1998. Laura (the protagonist) lives in a loft in Providence and works at an auction house and in an antiques mall. The auction house is filled with interesting items and quirky characters. Sal and Claire begin their relationship in Cranston and move to Pawtucket, a blue-collar working man’s town. Pawtucket is a town that continually tries to reinvent itself without much success, yet it offers work opportunities and genuine friendships.

ACTONPIERCEE9
Posts: 3
Joined: 03 Dec 2019, 20:26

Re: New York Pitch Conference - Assignments

#28 Post by ACTONPIERCEE9 » 10 Dec 2019, 20:13

1. The Act of the Story Statement
Discover out her inner power and save the world from nuclear war

2. The Antagonist Plots The Point
James Ling is a world-renowned doctor who is known for his high cancer remission rates. He is also a charming, narcissist psychopath. Once he is caught mercy killing and stripped of his license, he poses as a psychiatrist specializing in interrogation and manages to land himself a spot on an elite team of Americans. Their unsanctioned mission: save the world from a nuclear war.
But James is not your average Angel of Death, he, with his evil rapist twin brothers, are the most powerful men in the world. He needs an heir to pass on his legacy and finally make People with Powers rule the world, as they should.
He’s only heard rumors of the rare virgin, Ivy, with incredible power that may match his own. The President of the United States tried to cover up Ivy and hide her from men with power who hunt virgins but instead, hand feeds her to the reason the world in on the verge of nuclear war in the first place, the triplets.
Now teammates, James falls in love with Ivy and successfully kidnaps her with the intension of forcing her to have his heir.

3. Conjuring Your Breakout Title
Force Field
Goddess
Ivy Rhod

4. Deciding your Genre and Approaching Comparables
Genre: Thriller Fantasy with all the dark sexual tension of Natashia Knight,
The secrete fantasy world in real world setting of The Guild Codex by Annette Marie, and
The unhinged psychopath and thriller plot twists of Sandra Brown’s Outfox.

5. Considering The Primary Conflict
An unsuspecting elementary school teacher inhibited by an ancient, treacherous Goddess out for revenge, must discover and harness her inner power so she can save the world from nuclear war.

6. Two More Levels
Ivy has an inner need to prove to the world that women are just as powerful as men. She is going to call out men for being sexist and not just stand up for all women but champion them, revealing that a woman’s inner power is to be honored and respected and proving a woman can lead with all the bravery and intelligence of a man and all the love and compassion of a woman.
Ivy is surround by men so hot it should be a sin. She has a crush on good guy, Kane, but feels conflicted when she is lured by evil psychopath James and feels an even stronger unexplainable pull towards the Leader of the Power Coven, Dacy.

7. The Importance of Setting
After Hong Kong is struck by a nuclear warhead, the world is mysteriously plunged into darkness. An economic depression racks not just China, but the entire world and when the lights come back on a new social order has set in.
Few men rise to the top, barbaric warlords posing as politicians, and they now rule. The media only reports what they want to hear and the market only goes where they want it to go. Life and death decision at every social economic level are archaically decided by strength contests, where two men physically fight with no rules. Winner takes all.
The only thing everyone knows, is that no one knows the reason for the nuke in Hong Kong or the world economic downfall. Rumors circle ominously about aliens, angels and demons and the end of the world.
Where are women in this? Bottom of the food chain, no power, no vote. They are undervalued, under estimated and, like back in cavemen days, taken advantage of.
Death stalks the human race. Lurking in the darkest corners of their mind. When prideful men have all the power and no one to answer too, who’s city is going to be nuked next and can a simple school teacher with a dominate power save them?

E9AndreaCoulis
Posts: 1
Joined: 05 Dec 2019, 02:51

Re: New York Pitch Conference - Assignments

#29 Post by E9AndreaCoulis » 11 Dec 2019, 01:37

1) Story Statement
Charlie must return to her long-repressed past in order to save the future of a parallel society.

2) Antagonist/Antagonistic Force
The antagonistic force throughout the novel is the inability to trust. People Charlie once thought were pure evil (i.e. her father) turn out to be her one chance at salvation, while people she originally considered moral and loving turn out to be cold-blooded killers. Around every corner is a reason to doubt those she trusts and a reason to give those she despises another chance.

3) Titles
-White Light
-Returned
-Not Yet Gone

4) Genre and Comps
Genre: Speculative Suspense
Comp: Red Rising, Divergent

5) Primary Conflict
Charlie must find the location of a life-saving chemical before an entire society is destroyed by the enemy demanding it.

6) Other Matters of Conflict
-Charlie has dealt with burning rage toward her father for her entire life because he murdered her mother when she was just a toddler. She now battles with becoming integrated into a society once run by the man she hates more than anyone, and she constantly questions whether they are evil just like he is.
-Charlie’s love interest lives in the slave-like dregs of the society, so she is forbidden from interacting with him. The chemical she seeks could either save the society or set her love interest free so they can finally be together, but not both: there isn't enough of the chemical to go around.

7) Setting
Most of the story takes place within Mitera Mountain, a fictional mountain surrounded by water near the shores of a bustling city. No one knows there are hundreds of people living so close to them within its stone. There are multiple floors to the society: a training center, an arena, even a garden at a higher level. Each ranking of society lives on a different level of the mountain, with the most elite members living at the top (The Cloud) and the slaves of the society living in the darkest, lowest point (The Caverns).

E9RODNEYMCMAHON
Posts: 1
Joined: 03 Dec 2019, 04:55

Re: New York Pitch Conference - Assignments

#30 Post by E9RODNEYMCMAHON » 11 Dec 2019, 07:03

1. Story statement

An African-American man returns home to the Coney Island housing projects after 20 years, a place where it’s become to dangerous to walk the streets, to care for his dying mother and faces long repressed feelings of survivor’s guilt, recalling his coming of age in the projects during the 1960s and ‘70s and delivering a critique of what the New York City Housing Authority got wrong, and why. The visit also unearths a deep secret that the author has kept buried for thirty years.

2. Antagonistic force of story

On a cultural and personal level, there is an antagonizing institutional racism that permeates every facet of our society that guarantees the failure of the public housing projects model in America, which in turn guarantees the failure of black Americans. Blacks and people of color are left to survive their substandard living conditions and increasingly hostile surroundings, and the obstacles to prevent inclusion in the american dream are set in place by city, state and federal government agencies that are there to supposedly serve them. The results are underserved schools, gerrymandering, joblessness, substandard housing, a rigged judicial system, police brutality and a general ghettoization of community.

Closer to home, the author faces the guilt that he suppressed for thirty years of indirectly helping to set the murderer of his friend go free. As teenagers, the author’s friend was killed by an off-duty police officer in a questionable shooting; in subsequent trial testimony, the author’s admission to evidence involved in the crime was manipulated to free the officer of charges. He has never told a soul what he said on the witness stand in fear he would be labeled a snitch.

Finally, the author is confronted with survivor’s guilt after returning home to the Gravesend Projects in Coney Island, where his mother is dying of cancer. She had served as a long-standing matriarch and community leader during the black power movement days of the ‘60s, when there was promise and pride in the projects. Today, the projects have declined to a point of being synonymous with crime, drugs, and gun violence. The author is left wondering, Why? and why was he able to escape and break the cycle of poverty?

3. Breakout title

Black in the Day: Coming of Age in the Era of Change

Black in the Day: Coming of Age in America’s Public Housing Projects

Black in the Day: Growing Up in the Promise of America’s Housing Projects


4. Genre and comparable titles

Genre: Memoir, Narrative Nonfiction

Comparable titles:

On a grand scale, I’m trying to accomplish what Ta-Nehisi Coates has. In the last few months, I’ve seen two memoirs that are good, bold attempts at telling similar stories, with much of the same intent I have: Darnell L. Moore’s recently published memoir, No Ashes in the Fire, about his experience growing up black and gay and living in poverty in Camden, New Jersey, and What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker, a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity in America, by Damon Young. Like Young, who turns a bold eye on both himself and an American society constructed and sustained by racism, I’m hoping my book can help embolden people of all backgrounds, but particularly black youth, to move toward their future with confidence, when every day they are confronted by white supremacy, shootings of young black males, and the countless everyday racial microaggressions; slights, insults, indignities and denigrating messages sent to people of color by, in many cases, well-intentioned white people.





5. Conflict line
An African-American man leaves his life as a cinematographer in Los Angeles to return to the New York City public housing projects where he was raised to care for his dying mother, after 20 years away. The present collides with the past and he is haunted by survivor’s guilt, and a thirty year old secret.

6. Secondary conflicts

Inner conflict

The author is confronted with survivor’s guilt after returning home to the Gravesend Projects in Coney Island, where his mother is dying of cancer and finds the Projects of his youth has become a war zone where it’s not safe to walk the streets, day or night. He was not safe there. He was a stranger in his own land. His mother had served as a long-standing matriarch and community leader during the Black Power Movement days in the ‘60s. A time when there was promise and pride in the projects, a place his parents had invested so much of themselves in to provide a better quality of life for their children. And this is where his mother wanted to die. In her projects apartment. Gravesend projects had declined to such a degree in 20 years to a point of being synonymous with crime, drugs, and gun violence. The author is left wondering, Why? and Why did I escape and break the cycle? Why me?

On returning home, the author faces the long-buried guilt of indirectly helping to set the murderer of his boyhood friend go free. As a teenager, the author was present when a friend was killed by an off-duty police officer in a questionable shooting; in subsequent trial testimony, the author’s admission to evidence involved in the crime was manipulated to free the officer of charges. The author responded to his grief by establishing a memorial basketball tournament in his friend’s name that in the summer of 1978 brought rival neighboring communities together for one cause.






Social conflict

On a cultural and personal level, there is an antagonizing institutional racism that guarantees the failure of the public housing projects model in America, which in turn guarantees the failure of black Americans and people of color. Blacks and people of color are left to survive their hostile surroundings, and the obstacles to change are underserved schools, joblessness, substandard housing, and a general ghettoization of community.

There is no better authority than someone who was born and raised in the projects to dispel the myths and stereotypes that exist about the projects and the people who live there. With the recent revelations of corruption within the N.Y.C.H.A I believe my message is coming at the right time.

The author’s story is deeply connected and inspired by a collection of lost black and white photographs of the 1960s Coney Island African American community that one of his best friends took back in the day. The author is working now with the Brooklyn Historical Society to arrange an exhibition of these never-before-seen photographs. The book and pictures capture a time when black teens were caught up in a turbulent period in American history as it unfolded, becoming adults in America during the struggle for social justice—for blacks to gain equal rights.

Secondary conflict- the ghettoization of the neighborhood with the building of several low income high rise projects created conflict between the people in the older projects and the newer projects .




7. Setting

Gravesend Projects, Coney Island Brooklyn, New York.

This setting is the same across two time periods, the 1960s and ’70s when the author grew up, and the stark contrast 20 years later, when he discovers a complete ghettoization of the neighborhood, at odds at what his parents had hoped for, and instead, a symbol of the deep and destructive racial inequalities in all of America.


News and entertainment companies, from New York to Los Angeles

Outside the projects (past and present), the story takes readers through the “white spaces” the author had to navigate once he left the projects: college, his first TV job in Syracuse, NY where he ran camera for his own reporting at a CBS affiliate, from popular network shows in Los Angeles and New York such as Entertainment Tonight and 60 Minutes.

E9JEANETTEPITTS
Posts: 1
Joined: 06 Dec 2019, 19:01

Re: New York Pitch Conference - Assignments

#31 Post by E9JEANETTEPITTS » 12 Dec 2019, 08:56

Assignment 1 Story Statement: A young woman struggles to find success in corporate life and love.

Assignment 2 Antagonist: Tessa Winslow, Ellison’s company-appointed mentor, is the antagonist of this story. Her volatile demeanor, self-destructive tendencies, and poor decision-making complicate Ellison’s life and offer more sabotage than support. It is Tessa who forces Ellison to go on the date with John Collins, a very senior member of upper management, and bomb it. It’s Tessa who encourages a fling with Ames Randall, the office playboy, over executing a successful product launch. It’s Tessa who pushes broken-hearted Ellison to re-enter the dating pool well before she is ready. It’s Tessa who overdoses and dies, leaving Ellison with tremendous guilt. It was Tessa who left six letters addressed to six men from her past that Ellison is then tasked with seeking out and delivering. Despite all her shortcomings, it is ultimately Tessa who gives Ellison the guidance she needs to move forward and find happiness, love, and success.

Assignment 3 Title: Rock Paper Scissors Rain

Assignment 4 Comparables: Genre--light women's fiction.
1. Gail Honeyman. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Funny and touching. Strong theme of friendship, personal connection, and romance.
2. Abby Jiminez. Friend Zone.

Assignment 5 Primary Conflict: A smart, confident, and funny young woman struggles to find success in the corporate world as a result of unanticipated complications.

Assignment 6 Secondary Conflicts: Ellison falls for and is then dumped by office playboy Ames Randall, shattering her confidence and professional focus and sending her into a spiral referred to as the Ames Randall Implosion.

Tessa dies leaving six letters addressed to men from her past and her parents ask Ellison to deliver them.

Assignment 7 Setting: Modern day. The plot moves from a sprawling corporate campus with resident flock of geese where interdivisional dating is highly encouraged to a dive bar in Philadelphia to the Des Moines International Airport to the streets of Chicago. These relatable locations are the backdrop for quite unusual situations that occur there.

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