Michelle Yang: Short Story Proposal

Exposition: An island off the coast of Greece hosted a good sized community ruled by a monarch whose family had been in rule for thousands of years in peace. The society lived in order to serve the government, and after a while, its citizens simply became emotionless. Overtime, feelings such as happiness and love ceased to exist, and were in fact shunned upon. However, things ran as smoothly as ever. Mysteriously, every inhabitant had been found gruesomely killed one day on that rather harmonious island, leading everyone to believe the island had been in a political war.

Inciting Incident: An unknown American reporter, Angie Taylor, assigned to this case unwillingly, came to the island to determine the cause of the atrocity. As she arrives on the island, she begins noticing a strange pattern of events. In fact, she found that this wasn't the first time these mysterious and brutal killings had happened on the island. This eventually leads her to believe that the killing wasn't what everyone believed it was.

Rising Action: While searching for clues on the island, Angie discovers a diary of an inhabitant named Mina. Although many pages are torn, this was the first real clue Angie found containing concrete evidence to what had happened. As Angie uncovers more about the island, her suspicions of an island curse grew.

Climax: After spending some time on the island following the story of Mina, she then realizes that those torn pages contained something unspeakable--a love story. The curse made it impossible for love to exist on the island. And behind this curse was the island's government who, in order to get riches, worked with the Russian government. They agreed to test out a new biological weapon, a love virus, on their island. The virus utilized a human's susceptance to love in order to bring out the worst of human traits, thus bring out the killer within. The results were found to be too dangerous, so the trial was never done again. However, the disease was incurable, and it stayed in the bloods of the island inhabitants for years to come.

Falling Action: Knowing what had truly happened, Angie quickly started to write what she had discovered. The night before she was set to return home, she saw a black figure approaching her. (It was Mina's love, Brent, who was a part of the royal family who had actually not died.)
Resolution: Angie Taylor, a few days later, was found dangling from a tree.

Charmaine Chan: Short Story Proposal

Exposition: The story takes place in Covington, a remotely rural city in Georgia. It is 1930, right in the midst of the Great Depression. Alexandria Rone is a small town girl who had lost both her parents when she was merely an infant. Under the care of her caring aunt Cindy, she grows up to become an energetic and jubilant teenager. For Alexandria, Cindy is her hero and role model, and Alexandria obeys Cindy’s every word without hesitation.

Inciting incident: One day, as Alexandria feeds the horses in the stable, she hears an eerie sound - the butchering of an animal of some sort. She takes a deep breath and decides to ignore it, and persistently tells herself that she must be disillusioned. Alexandria returns to the house and begins to prepare supper.

Rising Action: Alexandria begins to cut up the vegetables, throwing on an apron as she goes. She is peacefully humming to herself until she sees a distinctive blood stain on her apron. She touches it and notices that the blood sticks to her fingers. It is definitely fresh blood. This is extremely queer to Alexandria because everyone is vegetarian in the household. Alexandria has an uneasy feeling about this, and decides to head back to the stable to check if the blood on her apron has anything has to do with the strange sound in the stable.

Climax: Alexandria’s heart is racing. She’s walking at an unsteady pace to the stable, stepping on the crisp autumn leaves with her boots as she goes. When she finally reaches the stable she wants to turn back, to chicken out, but gathers the courage and continues to step inside. As she steps closer to storage room where the hay is kept, she catches a whiff of stale meat and grimaces. She turns the doorknob to the room, and shrieks in horror. In the storage room lay about a dozen decaying bodies, and in the middle a butchering table was placed. The room was undeniably a butchering room for humans.

Falling Action: Alexandria pulls herself together, and frantically runs back to the house, heading directly to the living room. As soon as she spots the telephone, she grabs it with both of her shaky hands. She forces herself to cooperate, to maintain her sanity, and to remember how to dial to the police station.

Resolution: The police arrive and Cindy is put into jail for the rest of her life. Alexandria cannot stabilize her emotions from the event, and decides to see a psychiatrist.

Dénouement: Five years later, Alexandria heals from the mental scarring that her aunt had inflicted upon her. She moves on with her life, and later on gets married and settles down in Michigan. However, her experience with Cindy will forever resonate with her. Aside from haunting her, Alexandria’s past has taught her to always doubt, and always question those around her. After all, who knows if one day she will find her husband to be a killer or criminal of some sort?

Faustine's Story Plot

Exposition: Two sisters, Cassidy and Joleen, are 11 and 13 years old, respectively. They live in an ordinary, yet cozy house with their parents in a small town. Nothing in particular, they merely live life as it comes to them, like all children.

Inciting Incident: After an accident on a family outing, Cassidy and Joleen are left parentless. With no relatives who live nearby, the sisters have nowhere to go. But luckily, their piano teacher of 7 years hears of the news and kindly insists that the girls stay with him and his wife for the time being. The sisters, devastated from their loss, are still indenial of reality and are reluctant to accept their offer. However, Cassidy and Joleen eventually end up staying with Mr. Wesley, their piano teacher.

Rising Action: The two siblings continue mourning for their parents; they throw spontaneous tantrums and give Mr. Wesley and his wife a hard time. They become extremely inconsiderate and take everything given to them for granted. In the meantime, Mr. Wesley and his wife become less and less attentive towards Cassidy and Joleen. They spend long periods of time sitting around, sullen and solemn with pained expressions. All of this goes unnoticed by the sisters.

Climax: Until one day, Cassidy and Joleen hear sobs and sniffles from outside their room. Curiously, the two follow the sound to find Mr. Wesley and his wife hurriedly wiping their tears away in the living room with a photo album in their hands. There in the photo album are pictures of a boy around their age, 12 or 13 years old.

Falling Action: It is then revealed that 30 years ago, Mr. Wesley and his wife's son had died in a car accident. They too were left devastated like Cassidy and Joleen. Together they cry, letting it all out.

Resolution: Realizing that they all connect in such an experience, they promise each other to live life without regrets, helping each other when it is needed. Together they learn to appreciate every little thing, to work hard, and to enjoy life.

Denouement: Cassidy and Joleen grow up to be successful and happy with families of their own, often visiting their old friends, Mr. Wesley and his wife.

Siyao's Short Story Proposal

Behind Closed Doors

EXPOSITION: Lydia Monet moves into a small town just outside of London and  enters the Crawford household as a scullery maid in the summer of 1889. Desperate for a job, the young girl ignores all the rumors surrounding the late Mrs. Crawford who had passed away the previous year. At first, Lydia is intimidated by the stately manor house and the prestigious people who walk its halls; however, she soon realizes that she is largely ignored because of her position. Growing more daring, Lydia begins to explore the house and finds that the walls are not soundproof…

INCITING INCIDENT: Lydia freezes at the door with one hand poised to knock. The voices on the other side rise with anger and she is able to make out the words: “You know as well as I that she did not die of an overdose. Mrs. Crawford was murdered!”

RISING ACTION: Lydia begins to piece together the events leading up to the incident through listening to the gossiping maids. After hearing the servants’ view, Lydia uses her status to eavesdrop on the inhabitants of the house. She soon realizes that behind the act they portray to the outside world, the entire household is still shaken about the death of the Mrs. Crawford.

CLIMAX: After a couple of months of snooping around, she finally untangles the web of lies. Upon her discovery of the truth, Lydia rushes to inform the police without taking the time to change out of her dirty uniform. The policeman takes one look at her attire and scoffs at her words. He tells her that all the evidence pointed to an accidental overdose of sleeping pills and the case was already closed. He warns her against poking her nose into matters that have already been settled.

FALLING ACTION: Determined to prove the culprit guilty, Lydia digs deeper into the affair. The culprit grows suspicious that Lydia has discovered the truth and moves to intercept her. As Lydia shuffles through a stack of papers, something hits her on the back of the head and knocks her unconscious.

RESOLUTION: Days later, a boy runs through the town waving the latest copy of the newspaper for all to see. Lydia’s face is plastered on the front page under the bolded words: “Missing Maid Found Dead.”

Short Story Proposal

Exposition:  It is 1956, an 18 year old hard working girl named Mali lives in samoeng, thailand. A countryside deep down in chiang mai that is known for farming. She meets a soldier named Hank who was stationed in thailand to fight in the vietnam war and they fall in love and had two children. But after a couple of years, He was told that his duties were done in thailand and he got sent back to America immediately. The notice was so sudden that he didn’t even get the chance to tell her. Thinking that she was abandoned by her one true love, she gets approached by another handsome soldier named William and gets proposed to. Then they get married and she makes a hard decision by leaving behind her two children in thailand. She does this so she can go to america and start a better life and bring them later when everything is stable. They move to Oakland,California and for a while everything is going well and they have a child named William jr. But then things go bad and she gets sent back to thailand. When She comes back many years later and things go downhill.

Inciting Incident: Mali’s love of her life leaves her without any notice and she falls in love with someone else. She moves to America in order to give a better life to her two children that she had with her supposed love of her life , and that she had to leave behind.

Rising Action: Mali gets sent back to Thailand because she and her husband didn’t get along and he didn’t want to be with her anymore.

Climax: When Mali gets sent back to thailand she wants to bring her child back to thailand with her but is not allowed to do this because her son was an american citizen not a thai citizen. So sadly her son is left with her horrible ex husband. When Mali leaves, her ex husband realizes he doesn’t want this child, that was a reminder of Mali. He puts william Jr. up for adoption, changes his own name and starts a new family.

Falling action: In thailand Hank joined the navy for another tour in order to come back to get mali and they get married. A couple years pass and she is getting ready to move to America with her family,planning on re-claiming her son. She gets notified that she no longer had custody of her son because he was adopted by a family, she is furious. So when she moves back to America she hires a private investigator and finds out that her ex husband also changed his name and does not want to be found. She is desperate to find her son but can’t do anything about it.

Resolution:  Ten years later she has another child named Laura,who later on marries a private investigator named Sean. Trying to fill the empty hole in their family and their mothers heart Laura’s older siblings frantically search for William Jr. They get an idea and ask Laura’s husband to look for their long lost sibling. After a short period of time they find him, but sadly he is dead. The family mourns, but soon after Sean finds out that William Jr. had a family. A wife and a child, to be specific. So they call the people that adopted Mali’s son and asks to meet William jr.’s child, they called his ex wife and made an arrangement to meet and find out that his name got changed to Gregory, and got to learn more about him. Not only did his child look like him they also found out from his ex wife that his daughter was so similar to him personality wise. They didn’t end up getting to meet william jr. or get to know him but all the hard work wasn’t for nothing, they ended up with a piece of him ,his daughter.

Short Story Proposal

EXPOSITION: A high school math classroom with roughly 25 students. One girl named Emily who is shy, awkward and doesn’t talk. She comes across unfriendly because of her shyness. The McAdams family is the rich, beautiful, put-together family of Milton. Milton is the small town where the story takes place. Their children, Abbey and Cole play 2 or more sports and are staring on varsity, straight A students and always good-looking and dressed well. The parents attended Milton high school and now choose to raise their kids in Milton. A lot of their money comes from the fact they are trust fund babies, but they also work. The mom, Susan works at the school pool running water aerobic classes and in the school office helping plan events. The father, Kyle was a NBA basketball player back in the day and now runs and owns Milton sporting goods. He also works for his fathers company. They walk around like they are perfect and they do a good job of it. Both parents smart, good-looking and participate in school run events, donate money to the school and community and as a family are well liked by everyone. Overall this family has what appears to be the perfect life.

INCITING INCIDENT: I sat down in my new seat in math class, assigned a seat next to a girl I didn’t know well, Emily Ferris. I never really noticed her but once I sat down next to her it all changed. She looked like a scared person in general. Her long sleeve shirt all stained and raggedy, her shoes mud stained and at least 5 years old; her whole outfit hand me downs. I looked her over judging her immediately on her knotty hair, and unfashionable apparel. She looked up at me petrified, I scowled at her not wanting to be seen with her and she slumped in her chair.

Later that day I go to the basketball game with my friends. People pile into the gym excited for the game. Abbey, Susan and Kyle strolled in looking like a royal family as usual. They wave and smile at all their friends. They all look up together, all wearing fancy, designer clothing. The announcer announced all their names, Cole being first as usual. The game goes by fast with Cole playing the whole time and dunking in the last seconds of the game to win it.

RISING ACTION: At the assembly the next day which was in front of the whole town, The McAdams present an award to all the disabled children for completing their garden on the east end of the school. Within the award they donate 5,000 dollars to the care of it. They walk up on stage and everyone applauds louder then anything else applauded for at the assembly. My friend Courtney looks over at me telling me she wishes she had Abbeys life and that she wants to be just like Susan McAdams when she grows up. They’re perfect, their life seems like the best thing ever and everyone wanted to have it.

CLIMAX: Later that day after pe class in the locker room we were all changing. It was a hot day and all the girls were in dresses. Abbey McAdams changed next to me. I looked over as took her pe shirt off. To add to her perfectness, according to a 17 year old junior girl, her breasts were big and perfect. Nothing like anyone else had in the Junior grade. She saw me looking in jealousy and turned away so her left arm was facing me. She immediately pulled her right arm over the side of the left to hid something. I caught what she was hiding before her hand covered it. There on her upper arm was the fattest bruise I had ever seen and it was in the shape of a hand. The thumb part stuck up parallel on her arm while the rest of it perpendicular on her arm a big blob with fingers distinct in light colors of the bruise. She quickly grabbed her shirt and ran to a bathroom stall in her bra. I watched her walk out of the stall in a long sleeve shirt and shorts with her head down.

FALLING ACTION: 1^st period math class the next morning I sat right next to Emily and gave her a huge smile. She looked up at me still looking scared but I could tell she liked that I smiled at her. She stretched out her arm to grab her pencil she had dropped. When she brought it back up her same gross long sleeve shirt she was wearing the day we switched seats, the arm of the shirt slid down her arm reveling her wrist, which had scars on it.

RESOLUTION: Not a day passed after that that I didn’t think about what I had seen. Not a day passed where I didn’t smile at Abbey and I didn’t make an effort to be nice to Emily. I looked at all the faces in the crowded hallways of Milton High and wondered about everyone, about what goes on behind closed doors. Moral of the story: you can be any kind of person, popular, smart, outgoing, shy, unfashionable and can still be hurt, abused or abuse yourself. You never know what goes on behind closed doors and everyone acts a certain way for a reason. 

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