Exposition
James Calley, an American war correspondent during 1960s, visits Cambodia and proposes his idea of illegally crossing the borders to Viet Nam to a daring journalist, Chantou Chey. After being convinced by James, Chantou contacts her cousin’s friend, Phirun, who is a drug dealer, to guide them on the trip.
Inciting Incident
As Phirun making a drug deal with his gang, James and Chantou stop by a cheap motel to wait for the day they get to Sai Gon (a city in Southern Viet Nam)
Rising Action
Phirun returns, frightened and exhausted, telling James and Chantou to get out of the motel as soon as possible. They sneak into a van trunk as Phirun drive them to a safer place. It turns out that Phirun has stolen quite a lot of money from the gang, and once again the group has to run as fast as they can into a vast paddy field.
Climax
Here, they experience the most terrific and frightening moment of their life. The paddy field is a grave of all the injustice dead souls of the Ba Chuc Massacre took place in An Giang during the Viet Nam War. The boundary between life and death, justice and crime, has been shifted in a tick of time.
Falling Action
James Calley makes it out to the highway and passes out.
Dénouement
James Calley awakes in a hospital with Dr. Jenkins beside. He’s trying to look for Chantou and Phirun in an attempt of remembering what happened that night. Unfortunately, all around him is a bunch of mental patients crawling and screaming. The story ends as James runs out of the hospital, and looks up at the banner “The Boston Psychiatric Hospital”. It is now revealed that James Calley is a patient with post-traumatic stress disorder caused when he was a war correspondent during the Viet Nam War. The trip in James’s hallucination is the haunted memory when he eye-witnessed the shocking massacre in the war.
This is really cool :) Why does James want to cross the border though?
ReplyDeleteThank you, Wendy. In the story, James is stuck in a mental hospital, so he's always seeking for freedom. Crossing the borders is a symbolic action of crossing James's limitation. I'm planning on having him say something about the reason of doing that in the story, but it seems like I'm out of ideas right now. :D
ReplyDeleteIt seems like a huge story that you can write a book about.
ReplyDeleteHi Toai,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting and ambitious story. I like what you said about the symbolic significance of crossing borders, but is also needs to be clear in the early characterization of James that he is someone who thrives on taking risks like this, or that he is someone with convictions so strong that he is willing to risk death. The more "real" we feel a character is, the more we care about him. I also wonder if there are going to be "clues" throughout the story that this is all a flashback/dream? Since this is a common strategy, you need to really think it through so that is does not seem too easy or cliche. Perhaps a more ambiguous or open-ended ending might be more compelling for a reader. For example, at the end of "Shutter Island" you are left wondering whether the main character is in fact mentally ill or whether he has been manipulated by the government. Just a thought...nice story!
Ms. Mason
Hmm,
ReplyDeleteare you going to put some parts that "actually happened" in the story?
or the whole story is just James' hallucination?
I'm still thinking the way of stucturing the story so that it would be a little mysterious and that it would stimulate the readers' curiosity :D So.. yeah.. maybe I would write the story in a way that makes the readers wonder if it's reality or delusion.
ReplyDeleteI did not see that one comming Toai. It's amazing. Loved it.
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ReplyDeleteIts a really interesting story!
ReplyDeleteDoes he actually know the characters in his’s hallucination(chey and Phirun)or did he just create them too?
Tenzin Arya