(Work done in Academy of Art University MPT 295: Successful Storytelling)

The final working of my premise is at the end in italics… I found it necessary to write a small 'short story' to help me format my idea and then condense it into a premise from there. As you will see I really did not have one inspiration though….

·  Write down anything you would expect to find at a Red Cross Shelter in that environment: sights, sounds, smells, characters, simple activities, etc.

Come up with a story premise from one item you find inspiring.

Sights: tables, food, people in mismatched clothes, woolen blankets, cots, plastic bags random kids toys, children playing in small groups, adults sitting around looking lost

Sounds: children playing, many adults are talking, perhaps someone on a loud horn calling out directions or coming activities, echoes, chairs and cots scraping on the floor.

There will be many people depressed and quite a few kids getting restless. I can imagine that many of the children will start getting worried and tired of being locked up inside, perhaps many of the parents are also getting irritable because of the noisy kids

Smells: food, smells of many different shampoos or deodorants, mud, food, wet dog smell

Characters: Red Cross volunteers, shelter managers, people who have left their homes or who have no homes left

Simple activities: serving food, perhaps there is a portable radio or TV in one corner for the adults to gather around and get updates, kids playing random games, (basket ball in a cleared area?)

Other things: first aid kits, safety pins, gym equipment,

Chosen Item:  Woolen blankets

To keep the children occupied in what could be a long day cooped up in here from the storm; the Red Cross volunteers designate an activities coordinator to help entertain the children. The coordinator gathers a bunch of things together and sets about teaching the kids how they can still have fun. The coordinator takes a few of the Styrofoam cups and after safety pinning a few woolen blankets together the coordinator invites the children to come play. They use the blankets like a parachute and while they are playing they take turns sharing their storm stories. More adults join in and soon they have an even bigger parachute and storm stories are being shared from many years worth of history. They will soon find out that the team work that they have shown here will be even more valuable when the storm ends.

In the wake of the hurricane A Red Cross team led by a young new coordinator is sent to one of the small towns in the disaster area.  Upon arriving there they find that all the towns' people have taken shelter at the nearest university's football stadium. After a few days she finds herself in the midst of a cholera epidemic and with no other Red Cross personnel healthy. Since she is the senior of the five personnel that came with her she sets about organizing her team to figure out where the victims are contracting the cholera from and to start only using rationed bottled water

In a small town on the edge of the hurricane disaster zone the only building left stable is the local football stadium. About two weeks after the hurricane and with no way to call out the small town is left forgotten as the rescue of the rest of the disaster zone carries on.

A young Red Cross volunteer was sent to the main disaster site but having not heard from her brother since before the hurricane she asks to go check on him once she reaches ground zero. She heads to the small town but after a series of personal mishaps she is left stranded in the town. She finds that she is the one of only a handful of healthy people as the majority of the town has been overcome with a strange and horrible illness. With no way to get help she leads the healthy on raids for medical supplies, for food and for clean water. Clean water then becomes scarce as cholera sets into it. She leads the town toward health and higher moral through the next week until a Red Cross group is sent to find her.

Chosen Inspiration: The Katrina stadium incident, Red Cross shelter as a whole, the idea of supplies being rationed among survivors.

A suddenly stranded Red Cross Volunteer stumbles upon and helps a forgotten town after a hurricane. With all the homes flooded, the townspeople retreat to the only standing building, a small local university stadium.  Facing an epidemic of an unknown sickness, the onset of cholera, claustrophobia, low morale, the scarcity of food and supplies she struggles to help the town toward health and higher moral. With no way to get word out and with the stranded volunteer's help they must try to survive until someone comes looking for the missing volunteer.