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.