The Appeal to Readers And Publishers

Potential audience

Genie’s story is fascinating, as her story is very rare and shocking for the extreme nature of her treatment as a child.

Readers may be intrigued to find out why the parents carried out their actions and details on their lives, particularly what happened to them leading up to Genie’s birth, and whether there were signs that their lives prior could have had some impact on their disillusioned perspectives of how to care for children.

Readers may also want to know what the family’s lives were like surrounding Genie, particularly how ‘normal’ or appearing to live typical lives they were , and whether there were any signs prior to Genie’s discovery of what was happening at home.

 

Readers may hope through the story to make of it what they think personally it reveals in a deeper message or reflection on human nature, society, or how society supports/ refuses to take responsibility for stories such as Genie’s.

 

Publishers in the contemporary market

 

As far as I’m aware there’s not of yet been a creative non-fiction piece on Genie, mainly just psychology articles focusing on her development and what extreme neglect can do to the brain and the long-term effects of neglect inflicted on Genie/ that she experienced.

Although it’s an 80s case, it’s still relatively recent, especially as Genie is still alive. Genie may have been documented by numerous sources, but details of her case relatively unknown to members of the public. Therefore, there may essentially be a gap in the market.

There are key themes that may appeal to the mass market in Genie’s story, such a survival, human nature and childhood. Its relevance is where the psychology comes in, what Genie’s story was able to answer about the brain and etc. and these extreme cases are rare. So, even without detailing the importance her story holds for psychologists, her survival can appeal to various readers.

Although Genie is American, so the story doesn’t have local element to it, there may be less appeal to British publishers. But the themes explored are universal, and setting of Los Angeles, being iconic abroad, may even make the story more shocking, as it’s famous for its tourist landmarks, such as Hollywood. America’s image and resonance in British media/ film may help broaden Genie’s appeal to British publishers (and readers).

Issues Arising

Some problems that have come up in writing an engaging piece include:
 

 

 

 

Limited transcripts to draw from in including dialogue in my story

 I’ll have to draw on quotes from interviews that took place after the events took place, using details gathered after the events took place to build up detail and richness of the scenes.
 

Having conflict in each scene

This has its difficulty, as I feel the most interesting part of Genie’s childhood is how long her treatment from her parents went on for.

 

Reports are unclear

By this I mean it can appear uncertain in resources available to the public whether it was the social worker who visited the household later or another authority figure, or how many people.

 

And it’s not clear exactly how many days after Genie was noticed by the social worker at the Welfare Office that her house was visited by authority figures.

 

To make up for gaps, I’ll try to give as many details to the reader as possible, such as use limited photographs of her to describe her appearance, and use the photograph of the house to describe the outside of it.

I need to be careful using photographs for continuity, such as describing Genie’s hair length.
 

Flashing back and forth in time in the narrative

This is particularly to Genie in current day, as an adult in a Caring Home, there is difficulty in this idea. There is extremely limited information released to the public on her current well-being and whereabouts.

 

 

 

I loved how in the book The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher Or The Murder At Road Hill House, Kate Summerscale was able to seamlessly incorporate police interviews into the narrative, weaving dialogue seamlessly into the story. In my story however, there is a severe lack of transcripts available to the public.



Despite this, I have access to interviews given b authority figures after she was rescued, and can use descriptions and deductions of what her life was like before she was rescued to piece together what her childhood was like as a whole.

Making the Narrative Engaging

One narrative structure that I am considering, is beginning the story with Genie’s birth and leading up to her discovery. This could be engaging, as rather than starting with her family’s backstory, such as how her parents started the family and the death of her sibling before she was born; the readers are brought right into her life from the moment she was born.


This would allow the reader to see the causes of her well-being when she was rescued first, and perhaps make the effects of the abuse she endured more understandable – and require fewer explanations in the descriptions of how she appeared and behaved after she was discovered.


Or I may structure the plot beginning with her discovery. This would mean to describe her childhood, I would have to have flashbacks, which would need to be very clear, otherwise flashing back and forward in time could be confusing for the reader. But, if done successfully, could make the narrative more intriguing, as the time changes throughout the story.


My final idea for plot structure is to begin with Genie as an adult in current day, in a care home, flash back to her discovery as a child, and end back at the beginning with her as an adult.

To make the narrative richer, I plan to explore other characters as well as Genie, such as her parents, brother, grandmother, and social workers and authority figures. The story may be more informative by considering alternate perspectives to Genie’s, particularly as her perspective would be quite biased and limit the reader’s understanding of the events taking place in her life.

In Zadie Smith’s ‘The Orchid Thief’ she uses second person throughout, appearing to establish a connection between the writer and reader throughout her reflections on live events she experienced. In one instance, in referring to a photo, she mentions to the reader: ‘maybe you wonder about the black man in the pink hat. I wonder about him too’. Second person is a technique I hadn’t considered using, and might allow my readers to connect more to Genie’s story rather than just using third person.  

The Life of Genie, Continued

In this week’s research, I focused on finding out information on Genie’s life before she was discovered by authorities:

 

Twenty months after Genie’s birth, in 1957, her father was under the belief that she was ‘mentally retarded’, and locked her away.

Claiming to be protecting her, he separated her from Irene, her mother, and her brother John, who was six at the time.

 

The room Genie was kept in was ‘at the back of the house with the window covered,’ and described as ‘bare… through a cracked-open window in her room, Genie may have heard airplanes overhead or ‘faint piano music drifting from a neighbour’s house.’

The most she would have been able to see from inside were: ‘two inches of sky and the side of a neighbour’s house’.

 

The house was ‘completely dark, all the blinds were drawn and there were no toys, no clothes, nothing to indicate that a child of any age had lived there.

The furnishings of the bedroom consisted of a cage with a chicken-wire lid, and a potty chair with some kind of home-made strapping device.’ It was this potty that Genie was chained to for ten years.

Although her parents had never potty trained her, she even slept, chained to it. Attached to it, she would only have been able to move her hands and feet.

 

Genie was spoon-fed, by her father, a limited selection of food, including: baby food, cereals and soft-boiled eggs.

Wiley fed her ‘mostly in barks and growls’, and ‘beat her with a wooden paddle every time she uttered a sound’.

 

Nearly blind with cataracts, Genie’s mother was too afraid to disobey Clark.

Genie’s brother John admitted having been in the room where Genie was held, but explains his reluctance to intervene, as:

“Whether I liked what I seen or not, it wasn’t like I was in a position to tell my mom. I was a captive audience and could do nothing about it”.

 

 

Genie

The story I decided to pursue researching is the life of ‘Genie’, in particular the time that led up to her discovery by authorities: November 3th 1970.

As an opinionated writer, I plan to consider alternate perspectives to the story, such as professionals involved in the case, as well as Genie’s family.

According to Lee Gutkind, ‘truth to the traditional reporter encompasses objectivity, meaning that the reporter must not allow personal feelings to enter into the writing of the story.’

Perspectives I aim to consider when describing Genie’s life include:

 

Her father, Clark Wiley. After 20 months of Genie’s birth, he believed that she was ‘mentally retarded’ and isolated her from society.

He kept Genie’s mother and brother, John, captive. He kept her strapped to a potty and ordered them to never speak to Genie.

He spoke to Genie most of the time in growls and barks, and spoon-fed her milk. He even would sit all day with a loaded gun on his lap.

Her mother Irene, who was nearly blind and was rarely given permission from Clark to speak or go outside. She took Genie with her to seek financial support at a Welfare Office, and a social worker raised a concern after noticing Genie’s appearance.

The first authority figures to see Genie, including detective Sergeant Frank Linley.

Lee Gutkind considers the truth to often be ‘larger than any single fact, not a cut-and-dried positive or negative value. It is quite elusive and, like, beauty, in the eye of the beholder.’ Perhaps readers can find deeper meanings or reflections about society through seemingly minor details in Genie’s story…

 

What Makes a Good Story?

If it’s stuck inside a paperback, even the most incredible story can have its impact hindered by its label of ‘fiction’. That’s what makes unbelievable true stories so frightening.

Suddenly anything is possible, and everything you know to be true is under question.

So, what are some true stories that caught my interest?

Rachel Nickell

In 1992 that the body of a young mother was found, Rachel Nickell.

As the media increasingly built pressure on the investigators to solve her murder, the police became more desperate.

But desperate enough to name an innocent man as the killer?

British readers may be particularly interested in her story as she died fairly recently, lived in London, and her murder reveals great flaws in the British police of the time.

Although the story has been well-documented, providing good resources to write about, there may be limited angles I can take to bring something new to the story that hasn’t been explored before.

 

Joyce Vincent

When Joyce Vincent was discovered dead in 2002, sitting in her London flat opposite her TV, forensics made a shocking discovery: she had been deceased for over two years without anyone noticing.

The television was still on when she was found.

Like Rachel Nickell, Vincent’s story may resonate particularly with British readers. Despite this, the mysteries of her life may leave readers unsatisfied with too many unanswered questions and lack of action.

Genie 

Disney films teach us that Tarzan and Mowgli we able to grow up in the wild, and go on to happily learn English and sing the bare necessities.

 

But what if a real child was raised without human contact, would they really be able to fit back in with society?

In 1970 we got our answer, in the form of a timid teenage girl from the US.
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A famous case, even readers who are familiar with the girl known as ‘Genie’, they may not be aware of the fascinating details. Although British readers may find less relevance with an American girl, readers may find the internal (and external) conflict in her life intriguing and informative.