I want a romantic scenario that would give reason for strong emotions, conflict, guilt, and bitterness between h and H. Would this work:
Cerise and Declan are childhood sweethearts who grew up in a small town. When they graduated high school at 18, both went to LA and shared an apartment and did odd jobs while auditioning. They decide to give it a few years before they quit trying to break into acting.
Then one day Cerise is offered a leading role in a film helmed by Phil Anders, a big Hollywood director. She’s thrilled. Phil the director takes a warm personal interest in her, saying she has a wealth of acting talent. He gives her some one on one coaching.
Initially Declan is thrilled for her, then he starts to get uneasy. He feels Cerise has a crush on Phil the director. To some extent that is understandable; Phil’s a big name, he has talent, its no wonder Cerise admires and looks up to him. But Declan starts to feel threatened and says it looks like Phil has more than a professional interest in her.
Cerise dismisses all his concerns, insisting there is nothing romantic about her admiration for Phil. He is her mentor, thats all.
And if he dsoes seem attracted to her, so what? There is no way she is going to encourage him there. “we’re in a profession where we’re exposed to beautiful, talented people all the time,” she tells Declan. “we need to decide now how to handle it. If you get suspicious every time I work closely with another man, how will this relationship ever work? We need to trust each other. there’s never been anyone else for me but you and there never will be.”
Phil turns out to be a Bill Cosby type creep. One day when he invites her to his home for another private coaching session, he drugs her coffee and rapes her. Then he puts her in a cab and the driver delivers her back to the apartment she shares with Declan.
Seeing her dishevelled state, Declan initially believes she slept with Phil. She says she was drugged; he doesn't believe her.
So the next day she takes a test that proves drugs were in her system. Declan even briefly wonders whether she voluntarily took drugs and had sex with Phil, and she sees he is entertaining that suspicion. She is so devastated by his distrust that Declan realizes she was telling the truth.
He apologizes and they try to report Phil but realize no one believes them, not the police, not the lawyer they consult. Plus any hope for a Hollywood career is doomed if they expose Phil.
So they give up. But the damage has been done to their relationship.
She feels: “he should have trusted me. How could he possibly have thought I cheated on him?”
he feels and says: “You should never have been alone with him to begin with. I told you how insecure it made me feel and you didn't care enough about my feelings to back away from him.”
she replies: “Its my career; how could I have shown anything but gratitude for the professional interest he seemed to take in me? And how could anyone guess someone so famous would be a rapist? No wonder the police and lawyer didn't believe us. Who could think a guy that famous couldn’t get women to voluntarily sleep with him?”
they stay together for some months but the damage has been done. there’s a rift that they cant mend. She feels he is blaming her for the rape instead of being a hundred percent supportive of her at a time when she is dealing with the aftermath of rape.
So they split up and later start relationships with other people but feel they never have with anyone what they had with each other.
They meet five years later. Both have a part in a new movie or tv series helmed by Phil. Sparks fly between them again and they start to fall in love. But they never resolved their former resentment and the reasons they broke up.
She is more resentful than him because she feels: “he was the person I loved most in the world and my best friend. And at my time of greatest need, when i’d just been raped, he wasn’t there for me. Physically he was, but he was so clearly even if silently blaming me, he was no support to me at all and made me feel worse.”
Then Phil is murdered and the suspects are many. The police suspect it could be Cerise and Declan, since the police dig up the fact that five years ago Cerise filed a complaint against Phil.
Meanwhile the police learn Phil also drugged and raped another actress on the set...and in fact dozens of other women over the years.
Do you think this scenario works while keeping the reader sympathetic to both Cerise and Declan?
I want there to be a reason they are both murder suspects, and I also want there to be reasons they now conflict even though they are drawn to each other.
Both finally admit they could have acted better 5 years ago. She admits she should have backed away from Phil since it made Declan so insecure. He says he feels terrible that he made her feel to blame for the rape. But they only admit this later; when they first meet, the resentment they felt in the past still exist.
How would you rate the above story idea: very interesting or moderately interesting or blah? Would it make you want to read the novel or would you think, its a rather stale idea? i’ve never read anything like it but that doesn't mean it hasnt been done.
I think it has emotional potential and I want something like that; I want strong reasons they clash and distrust each other at first. I want there to be some emotional baggage between them.
it might be more powerful if I were to show their relationship disintegrating in real time. That is, I show them in love, then the rape, they struggle to deal with that but then get back together by the end of the murder investigation.
I hesitate to do that because I don't want to write a heroine who is dealing with the immediate aftermath of sexual assault. True, she doesn't remember the rape but that doesn't mean she doesn't know it happened. I tend to write light stuff and rape is not a topic I could diminish by writing lightly about it. I don't like to write dark, heavy stuff, so I think it would be best if it was something that happened far enough in the past that she has dealt with it, though feelings of anger toward Phil could resurface when she is working with him.
Thanks for any feedback.
Cerise and Declan are childhood sweethearts who grew up in a small town. When they graduated high school at 18, both went to LA and shared an apartment and did odd jobs while auditioning. They decide to give it a few years before they quit trying to break into acting.
Then one day Cerise is offered a leading role in a film helmed by Phil Anders, a big Hollywood director. She’s thrilled. Phil the director takes a warm personal interest in her, saying she has a wealth of acting talent. He gives her some one on one coaching.
Initially Declan is thrilled for her, then he starts to get uneasy. He feels Cerise has a crush on Phil the director. To some extent that is understandable; Phil’s a big name, he has talent, its no wonder Cerise admires and looks up to him. But Declan starts to feel threatened and says it looks like Phil has more than a professional interest in her.
Cerise dismisses all his concerns, insisting there is nothing romantic about her admiration for Phil. He is her mentor, thats all.
And if he dsoes seem attracted to her, so what? There is no way she is going to encourage him there. “we’re in a profession where we’re exposed to beautiful, talented people all the time,” she tells Declan. “we need to decide now how to handle it. If you get suspicious every time I work closely with another man, how will this relationship ever work? We need to trust each other. there’s never been anyone else for me but you and there never will be.”
Phil turns out to be a Bill Cosby type creep. One day when he invites her to his home for another private coaching session, he drugs her coffee and rapes her. Then he puts her in a cab and the driver delivers her back to the apartment she shares with Declan.
Seeing her dishevelled state, Declan initially believes she slept with Phil. She says she was drugged; he doesn't believe her.
So the next day she takes a test that proves drugs were in her system. Declan even briefly wonders whether she voluntarily took drugs and had sex with Phil, and she sees he is entertaining that suspicion. She is so devastated by his distrust that Declan realizes she was telling the truth.
He apologizes and they try to report Phil but realize no one believes them, not the police, not the lawyer they consult. Plus any hope for a Hollywood career is doomed if they expose Phil.
So they give up. But the damage has been done to their relationship.
She feels: “he should have trusted me. How could he possibly have thought I cheated on him?”
he feels and says: “You should never have been alone with him to begin with. I told you how insecure it made me feel and you didn't care enough about my feelings to back away from him.”
she replies: “Its my career; how could I have shown anything but gratitude for the professional interest he seemed to take in me? And how could anyone guess someone so famous would be a rapist? No wonder the police and lawyer didn't believe us. Who could think a guy that famous couldn’t get women to voluntarily sleep with him?”
they stay together for some months but the damage has been done. there’s a rift that they cant mend. She feels he is blaming her for the rape instead of being a hundred percent supportive of her at a time when she is dealing with the aftermath of rape.
So they split up and later start relationships with other people but feel they never have with anyone what they had with each other.
They meet five years later. Both have a part in a new movie or tv series helmed by Phil. Sparks fly between them again and they start to fall in love. But they never resolved their former resentment and the reasons they broke up.
She is more resentful than him because she feels: “he was the person I loved most in the world and my best friend. And at my time of greatest need, when i’d just been raped, he wasn’t there for me. Physically he was, but he was so clearly even if silently blaming me, he was no support to me at all and made me feel worse.”
Then Phil is murdered and the suspects are many. The police suspect it could be Cerise and Declan, since the police dig up the fact that five years ago Cerise filed a complaint against Phil.
Meanwhile the police learn Phil also drugged and raped another actress on the set...and in fact dozens of other women over the years.
Do you think this scenario works while keeping the reader sympathetic to both Cerise and Declan?
I want there to be a reason they are both murder suspects, and I also want there to be reasons they now conflict even though they are drawn to each other.
Both finally admit they could have acted better 5 years ago. She admits she should have backed away from Phil since it made Declan so insecure. He says he feels terrible that he made her feel to blame for the rape. But they only admit this later; when they first meet, the resentment they felt in the past still exist.
How would you rate the above story idea: very interesting or moderately interesting or blah? Would it make you want to read the novel or would you think, its a rather stale idea? i’ve never read anything like it but that doesn't mean it hasnt been done.
I think it has emotional potential and I want something like that; I want strong reasons they clash and distrust each other at first. I want there to be some emotional baggage between them.
it might be more powerful if I were to show their relationship disintegrating in real time. That is, I show them in love, then the rape, they struggle to deal with that but then get back together by the end of the murder investigation.
I hesitate to do that because I don't want to write a heroine who is dealing with the immediate aftermath of sexual assault. True, she doesn't remember the rape but that doesn't mean she doesn't know it happened. I tend to write light stuff and rape is not a topic I could diminish by writing lightly about it. I don't like to write dark, heavy stuff, so I think it would be best if it was something that happened far enough in the past that she has dealt with it, though feelings of anger toward Phil could resurface when she is working with him.
Thanks for any feedback.
