86 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
86 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil Helvetica;}}
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\f0\fs24 Scene: Scene 4\par
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Model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6\par
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Character UUIDs: F90ECDD8-FBB2-44D5-96A5-EC16818FF442,9D202BFB-AFF3-4C37-8BEB-E46D5CDE4D30\par
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Accepted for editing: 2026-08-24T21:11:14-05:00\par
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\par
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### STYLE\par
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The style of the novel is in the style but not substance of Ken Follett. Each scene is in third person from the perspective of one of the characters.\par
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\par
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### LEXICON\par
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(none)\par
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\par
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### STORY\par
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In a weekday kitchen morning anchored by Elikapeka's transplanted plumeria and her private longing for Oahu, Emma formally opens negotiations over her sixteenth birthday pool party\u8212?presenting a prepared guest list and requesting permission to invite boys\u8212?while Elikapeka deflects Emma's pointed accusation of prejudice with a measured non-promise to judge the boys' list on her own terms, overrules Emma's attempt to exclude the Hayes cousins under threat of canceling the party entirely, and closes the scene with a brief reassuring touch that Emma accepts without pulling away, leaving the boys' list unreviewed, Emma's specific concerns about her mother's biases unresolved, and Lizzie a silent witness throughout.\par
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\par
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### CHARACTERS\par
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Elikapeka Hayes\par
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Wife of Andy Hayes, of Hawaiian origin. Stay at home mom. (eh-lee-la-PEH-ka)\par
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\par
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Elizabeth (Lizzie) Hayes\par
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Youngest daughter. High school freshman. Bookish girl, very pretty, very shy.\par
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\par
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### RECALL\par
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(none)\par
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\par
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### PREVIOUS\par
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A beat passed. Emma picked up her spoon again and then put it back down. "Can we talk about cousins?"\par
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\par
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"We can."\par
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\par
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"Because some of them are just\u8212?" she searched for the word\u8212? "they're not fun, Mom. Specifically the Hayes side. They're going to stand around and be weird and eat all the food and not talk to anybody and it's my birthday and I just\u8212?"\par
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\par
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"Emma."\par
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\par
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"\u8212?want it to be a good party and I feel like\u8212?"\par
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\par
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"Emma." Elikapeka's voice dropped half a register, not louder but denser, which both her daughters had learned years ago was the relevant signal. "All of your cousins will be invited."\par
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\par
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"All of them?"\par
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\par
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"Every single one."\par
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\par
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Emma closed her eyes briefly. "Mom."\par
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\par
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"The Hayes side included."\par
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\par
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"They don't even like parties."\par
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\par
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"They love parties. They just express it differently than you do." Elikapeka lifted her mug. "And before you say anything else on this subject, I want you to think carefully, because we are getting close to the point in this conversation where there isn't a party at all."\par
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\par
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Emma went very still.\par
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\par
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Lizzie appeared to find something interesting to look at on the wall to her left.\par
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\par
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"I'm serious," Elikapeka said, not unkindly. "Your cousins are your family. Your birthday is a family event. You can have your friends there\u8212?thirty, thirty-five, we'll figure out the number\u8212?and the boys you want to invite, you'll give me the list and I'll think about it. But your cousins will be invited and they will be welcomed in this house the same way every guest is welcomed in this house. That is not negotiable."\par
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\par
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The morning light had shifted slightly, spreading further across the floor. From somewhere outside came the sound of a car starting on the street.\par
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\par
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Emma picked up her orange juice and drank. She set the glass down and looked at her list, which sat folded beside her bowl. After a moment she unfolded it and picked up the pen she'd also, apparently, brought to breakfast.\par
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\par
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"Fine," she said again, though this time the word was smaller and had less architecture to it.\par
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\par
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"Good." Elikapeka rose to refill her coffee. "And Emma?"\par
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\par
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"What."\par
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\par
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"It will be a good party." She paused by her daughter's chair and put one hand briefly on her shoulder. "I'll make sure of it."\par
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\par
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Emma didn't say anything, but she didn't shrug the hand away either.\par
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\par
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Lizzie, very quietly, reopened her book.\par
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\par
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### NOTES\par
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Mid morning, Saturday, late May, 2000.\par
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\par
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### BRIEF\par
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Told in third person from the viewpoint of Lizzie Hayes.\par
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After breakfast, Lizzie goes to the library and then shopping with her mother. Emma is not much of a reader and declines to go. It\u8217?s the start of summer and Lizzie can easily read a book a day. Her mother\u8217?s rare punishments are usually withholding books from Lizzie. She wants to be a writer of fantasy books like the Lord Of the Rings and Anne McCafferty\u8217?s Dragonflight novels. In the library, she finds a book by an author by the name of Neil Gaiman called Stardust. Her mother reads the blurb on the back cover and takes a quick scan through it and declines to let her read it. Her mother brooks no dissent. Lizzie goes back into the stacks and looks for other books, deciding to read, for the nth time, Dragonflight and others from the series. She decides she\u8217?ll read Lord of the Rings again, though she doesn\u8217?t need to check them out, as she has a boxed set already. She returns to her mother, who looks through the books and approves of them, noting that Lizzie has read them before, and perhaps it would be better to find something new. Lizzie grumpily said she\u8217?d tried to but her mother had rejected the one she wanted to read.\par
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In the grocery store, to save time, Lizzie runs about the store collecting items on the list, to speed up getting back home where she can read and read and read.\par
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\par
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### DIRECTIVE\par
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Expand to a maximum of 1500 words. Dialog between mother and daughter should dominate this scene.\par
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\par
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### SCENE\par
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} |