Assignment 5Copyright © Greg Anderson 1999
My main area of interest
is romance. To be more specific, romance with adventure and suspense. Jacqueline,
you and Jean were talking about skeletons and I imagine my skeleton to
be a head, torso, legs and feet. This represents the beginning, middle,
end and resolution. In a romance, there are many ways for the two eventual
lovers to get together in the end. To avoid using female/male, I will use
just the one gender but I know they could apply equally to both. One way
is a woman initially 'guards' her feelings, opens her heart to somebody
and gets hurt by that person and then opens herself once again to Mr. 'Right'
and a happy ending. The woman is very independent but 'complete' fulfilment
can only be achieved when her whole being joins with his. I don't want
that to sound sexist because the reverse also holds true. His whole is
only complete with her. A second way, the woman is totally in love with
her husband but the husband dies and she eventually falls in love with
another man and a happy ending. Thus, I believe that the inner conflict
of need is the driving force of the story and in essence, the fabric that
holds the skeleton together.
Protagonist - Trudy Davis. Trudy is 30 years old, single with no children. She is a social worker and does volunteer work with an organization that assists/guides/counsels exotic dancers, prostitutes and victims of rape.
Protagonist - Sandra Lange. Sandra is a 21 years old, single with one child. She is an exotic dancer. She has had a 'difficult' life and feels this line of work is the only way she can support her and her four-year-old daughter.
Protagonist - Darren Tyler. Darren is 35 years old, single. He is a police officer, moonlighting as a bouncer at a strip club.
Antagonist - Thomas Keon. Thomas is 45 years old and owner of a string of strip clubs.
For this outline, I am thinking of a book with ten chapters and about 55,000 to 60,000 words. Each chapter is outlined below. Please note that this is a rough outline, based on the time permitted…and my level of experience i.e. low.
Chapter 1
- Trudy's recent ex-lover has left emptiness in her heart and her level
of trusting men is way down. - She is a social worker and becomes engrossed
in her work, devoting more of her spare time as a volunteer, working with
exotic dancers, prostitutes, drug users and rape victims i.e. telephone
lines, group housing face-to-face, etc
- She is an advocate of group homes and funding to help get prostitutes
off the street and into more conventional lines of work.
- Trudy has studied why women become strippers and prostitutes but
does not understand how/why they could use their bodies for money…there
must be other options (research would be required on this subject to write
such a book).
- Trudy discovers that her mother was raped when she (Trudy) was nine
and that she became pregnant and gave the baby up for adoption. - Discovering
that she has a sister, Trudy tries to locate her.
- Trudy contacts an agency to help find her sister.
I have to be careful because
I am now dealing with - exotic dancers, prostitution, rape, adoption and
drugs. But, they all surround the 'culture' of strip clubs except adoption
and possibly rape. In terms of goals, the 'goal' of a man or woman in a
romance could be to fall in love at the end. But, I don't consider that
a goal since it is something that seems a standard ending in a romance.
Therefore, I think the goal is based on the theme.
The theme of this story
is the 'culture' of strip clubs with their elements of prostitution and
drugs. Trudy's goal is to help her sister, if indeed her sister wants help.
Chapter 2
- Trudy finds out that her sister, Sandra is alive and living in Vancouver.
Trudy lives in Toronto.
- Sandra has just been charged with prostitution and possession of
drugs.
- Trudy meets Sandra and discovers she is not a prostitute and does
not use drugs.
- Trudy discovers that Sandra has a daughter. (The daughter was taken
by Children's Aid when Sandra was arrested).
- She bails her sister out of jail and meeting her sister partially
fills the empty gap in her life.
- Sandra has not been helped in the past, unless she was being used.
She has to build a trust with Trudy.
- Trudy wants to help her new found sister but struggles with the motivations
of a mother who would dance on stage.
Chapter 3
- Trudy meets her sister in Stanley Park, Vancouver and they get to
know each other. Sandra has struggled and is a 'good' person…and she leads
a solitary life (except she has a daughter).
- The owner of the strip club wanted Sandra to carry drugs from his
club in Vancouver to his club in Calgary. She continually refused to do
this and he had her framed for prostitution and for possession of drugs.
- Trudy agrees to help her sister clear her name.
Chapter 4
- Trudy meets Darren at the club. Darren has a low opinion of exotic
dancers but works there as a bouncer because the extra money is good.
- Trudy meets Thomas the club owner. She wants him to use his sources
to get the charges dropped, since it was he that supplied the false information
to the police in the first place.
- Thomas would agree to this if Trudy agreed to be a dancer in his
club.
- She and Thomas argue and Darren has to escort the sisters out of
the club.
Chapter 5
- Trudy and Sandra go to the police for assistance i.e. stating their
side.
- Darren is placed as the officer in charge. Is that too much of a
coincidence??
- Darren doesn't believe the sister's story that Sandra was set up.
Darren is an honest cop, yet the club has been good to him in terms of
money. He turns a blind eye to prostitution but draws the line at drugs.
- The sisters are 'stuck' with Darren and do not trust what side of
the fence he sits on.
- Trudy shows subtle signs of her feelings of interest in Darren and
he does the same to her.
- The three make plans for a drug sting operation.
Chapter 6
- Sandra says that she has reconsidered Thomas's offer and 'begs' to
get her job back and that Trudy would be a waitress for the club, not a
dancer.
- The only way Thomas will agree to this is for Sandra to have sex
with him. She agrees, however Trudy does not know this.
- Thomas tries to convince Trudy to become a dancer and Trudy will
not do this…but strings him along as much as possible, trying to make him
believe that she will but needs time to think about it.
- Trudy meets with Darren and they get to know each other better. She
does not trust men and he is not certain about her i.e. is Trudy starting
to like the club life and the attention she is getting from Thomas and
the customers?
Chapter 7
- Thomas is definitely not a nice guy and he wants to drag Trudy and
Sandra deeper into his drug operation as a way of using and controlling
them. He brings them to his drug house and takes photos of them.
- The sisters and Darren meet, informing him of all that they saw.
He followed them and knew the location but these locations change regularly
and this one would be switched now that the sisters knew where it was
- Thomas plans to use Trudy and Sandra as 'mules' to transport his
drugs from Vancouver to Calgary. To ensure their co-operation, Thomas kidnaps
Sandra's daughter.
Chapter 8
- The sisters meet with Darren and plot their strategy to build evidence
against Thomas.
- The getting to know each other and 'romance' continues with Trudy
and Darren. She still does not trust and he is not certain if she is 'for
real' or if he may be getting set up.
- Through surveillance, Darren knows that Sandra and Thomas had sex,
although he does not know that she had sex to get her job back and thus
be in a position to incriminate Thomas.
- Darren passes this info to Trudy, thinking that Sandra and Thomas
must be ex-lovers and re-newing their relationship.
- Trudy and Sandra take possession of the drugs and fly to Calgary.
- Trudy confronts her sister and learns that Sandra did what she felt
she had to do to clear herself, get her daughter back and put Thomas away
in jail.
- Darren follows them to Calgary, gathering evidence and protecting
them.
- Love begins to build between Trudy and Darren.
Chapter 9
- Trudy and Sandra meet their contact and hand over the drugs.
- The local police are unaware of the sting operation and storm the
club.
- There is shooting and Sandra gets killed.
- Trudy blames Darren for her sister's death.
Chapter 10
- Trudy must continue the sting and return the drug money to Thomas.
- Trudy learns that Darren was not responsible for her sister's death.
- The money is transferred to Thomas and he is arrested.
- Trudy is given custody of Sandra's baby.
- Trudy and Darren…together in love.
Instructors Comments