Casting Call

Here we are on Easter afternoon, looking forward to the month ahead and all of the potential it holds.  Alanna’s story is still important, and I hope to get back to it, but I’m feeling a need to meet some new characters.  The question that remains is, who will show up to tell me their story? Whose voice needs to be heard?  Where will it lead?

So let’s get started, shall we?  It’s time for a Casting Call to meet our potential main characters and their supporting ensembles.

First up will be Sam.  She has just finished college and is about to embark on her first interviews.  She has completed a degree in speech pathology and audiology and will be interviewing at schools in the area.  Her main hope is to work with children that are deaf, but knows that she may have to adapt to what is available.  Her dream job would be working at the State School for the Deaf, but that will mean moving away from everyone she knows.  Can she face starting out in a brand new city where she knows no one?  

Next is Arthur.  A young man that has been hard on his luck, growing up in poverty and barely scraping by.  He’s smart, but can barely stay awake in school thanks to his job as a night stocker at Walmart to help his single mom pay rent, so his grades suffer.  The science teacher, Mr. Mervin, takes an interest in him and encourages him to focus on Science and apply for scholarships.  Thinking there is no way he will get in, Arthur applies to Oxford.  When he gets in AND is offered a full ride scholarship his life is completely turned upside down.  Has he finally found where he belongs?

Our third character is Emily.  Emily has been home schooled her entire life.  Her parents shelter her and keep her hidden from the outside world.  She has no idea why.  She overhears her parents whispering one night, just before she turns 18.  She doesn’t hear everything, but picks up on the fact that something significant will take place on her birthday, and they don’t sound happy about it, they sound scared.  But are they scared for her, themselves, or for the rest of the world?

And finally we meet Callie.  Callie is lost.  When she and her parents went camping, a surprise storm swept through the area and her parents were killed.  She must survive on her own and has no idea how to find her way back to civilization.  She finds an abandoned cabin and befriends the animals that wander through.  She goes years without meeting anyone.  Until one day the owner of the cabin has passed it on to his grandson and he comes to take a look at his inheritance.  Ben is surprised to learn that someone is living in the cabin his grandfather left to him.  Assuming that there is a squatter, he starts to call the police.  Then he finds Callie and changes his mind when he observes her from afar.  Not wanting to scare her, he sets out to discover who she is and where she came from.  

So who will it be?  Whose story is itching to be told through me?  Will we need callbacks?  Or perhaps a second round of auditions?  How do I decide?  Perhaps I’ll leave it to my readers (if I have any).  Whose story do YOU want to hear?