Writing Inspiration

Plot Summary: Unacceptable

I’ve always felt out of step with the rest of the human race. I feel like I was either born a hundred years too late or a hundred years too early. I suppose this comes from a lifetime of being the person that never really fitted in.

I got this idea for a character who didn’t fit in with her family. The story is partly based on a situation that I found myself in a few years ago. I had somehow taken a wrong turn and ended up in a place that resembled Stepford, Connecticut - Home of the Stepford husbands and wives - where everyone was blonde, thin and had no personality. And heaven help you if you were none of the above.

As always, it certainly is possible that someone else has already plucked this idea out of the ether and written the story so you may want to be on the look out for that if you choose to use this idea. Otherwise this idea is public domain. The plot, characters, settings, names etc are all free for you to use with no expectation of reimbursement. Have fun.

Story type: Short story or Novella

Title: Unacceptable

Genre: Drama

Main character(s): Main Female Character(MFC) and Mother

Primary theme: MFC battle at trying to gain her mother’s acceptance and approval

Synopsis: This story is about the relationship between a mother and daughter. The daughter, MFC, is different from everyone in her family. Everyone in her family is tall, thin and blonde. She is red-haired and over weight. Even when she loses the extra weight, her bone structure is such that she will never be as small as her sister and mother.

MFC has always been heavy. She likes to eat. At first the mother didn’t care. She does not like MFC for reasons I’m not quite sure yet. But as she gets older and bigger and less popular and all the other mothers started looking down on her (the mother) she begans to care.

She tries everything in her power to get MFC to lose weight. For her birthday, she tricks her (MFC) into going to a beauty shop to get her hair dyed. She even goes so far as to cut MFC meal portions and force her to exercise but MFC steals money to buy food so her efforts are wasted. She finally settles for being cruel in hopes it inspires her to lose the weight.

Finally MFC and her mother get into a vicious fight and MFC flips out and declares that aliens abducted her mother and implanted her in her womb and she (MFC) really is an alien. Her mother can’t believe what she is saying and walks out on the argument.

So MFC plays on the alien theory for awhile. She is Princess Fatassie from the planet Pigula. She even invents a language. It drives her mom crazy. She takes it to school when the other students pick on her and also to embarrass her sister. Her relationship with her family only worsens.

She ends up getting into trouble at school and has to stay after for detention. The teacher makes her write a short story about the subject of her choice and she has to stay after school everyday until it was finished. So she takes her alien invention and puts it on paper. The teacher helps her polish it and enter it into a short story contest which she wins.

Spurred by her success, she begins her writing career. She writes a story that is an imitation of her life. With her focus diverted, she has ceased tormenting her mother and they are living in an uneasy truce. MFC finds her release in writing. When her mother makes her angry, she expresses it in the story. She starts losing weight without realizing it because her writing addiction has taken the place of her food addiction. Her father convinces her to sign up for a karate class which she really likes and the weight comes off.

Now her mother wants something to do with her but can’t seem to get her (MFC’s) attention. In addition to Karate, MFC has joined her local readers and writers club and is alway gone. Plus she has developed a good relationship with the teacher who first inspired her to write (who is tall, redheaded and big boned too). This becomes painfully clear to her mother on parent/teacher night when MFC shows her teacher her latest effort, the first her mother ever heard of it. MFC is very different with her teacher than she is with her mother.

So in an effort to understand her daughter the mother goes into her room and reads the story she’s written. MFC catches her and gets angry at her for invading her privacy. Her mother tries to explain that she only wanted to know what was going on with her in her life. They get into a huge arguement about the story because her mother cannot believe that she (MFC) thinks that badly of her or that she was that cruel to her.