Fund A Screenplay For Paulette Harris' Novel
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Hello! My name is Paulette Ivy Harris, and I am the author of the historical novel, Beneath Every Troublin’ Stone.
I respectfully appeal to family, friends, and fans of the film arts and humbly ask for your donation toward the cost to hire a professional screenwriter to write a screenplay based on my novel and for the marketing needed to obtain a movie project. It’s a big quest, but this is my dream.
I aim to raise $15,000 to fund the screenplay and marketing. I’d be so grateful for your generosity and for joining my quest.
What’s the novel about?
Though it’s a fictional drama, Beneath Every Troublin’ Stone was inspired by the colorful life of a female ancestor I discovered while researching my family roots.
The central character, Bernice Silverson Tulley, is African American. She turns 18 in 1904, Jim Crow Savannah. Her story unravels why a well-read, but naive young woman rooted in the Word, becomes faithless and dependent only upon herself. One clue is a prejudiced society works against Bernice and studs her life journey with troublestones. Troubestones are society's limits placed on its citizens about race, gender, and occupation. Also, they are society’s illusions that tempt, discourage, and cause hurt and remorse.
During the Prohibition era, the economic depression of the 1930s took hold of the nation. Self-reliant Bernice compromises herself to continue flaunting her fancy car, furs, and the plush lifestyle she’s worked hard for, but feels she is owed. Despite society’s troublestones and those she brings upon herself, the hospitality business Bernice owns is an overwhelming success. Until the day it isn’t. That day lands her in a Syracuse jail. Bernice is arrested in a back alley caught in a 2 a.m. police sting buying bootleg gin for the secret speakeasy and brothel inside her boardinghouse. Convicted to Jamesville Penitentiary, Bernice uses her time to finally look beneath the troublestones from her defiant past and contemplates a renewed life journey.
Actual Jamesville Penitentiary in Onondaga County, New York, ca 1930s
Beneath Every Troublin’ Stone evokes the full spectrum of emotions. It is layered with humor and surprise, romance and spice, heartache, homicide and redemption. It even conjures up the era’s ragtime music amid lush settings that entertain all the senses. The story’s sobering indictments of slavery and racism, disease epidemic, and financial difficulty, unfortunately, are still causes for angst in America today.
Beneath Every Troublin’ Stone will make a beautiful, provocative, and poignant movie.
Why a screenplay is important and why now.
- The only way to have Beneath Every Troublin’ Stone be considered for a movie project is to have it first adapted to a professional screenplay.
- Currently historical and period productions are in demand, especially dramas about minority women.
- Also, our inflationary times are driving up fees for screenwriting, so the sooner I hire a screenwriter, the better.
- To seize this opportunity, the timing for your donation is now and is of the essence.
I’m a writer, why not write the screenplay myself for a lesser cost?
- Despite my years of writing, my skills as a book writer don’t match the expertise of a screenwriter who is differently skilled to take a novel’s characters, dialogue, and scenes and bring them to life on film.
- And, I don’t have any Hollywood connections.
- I must hire an experienced, professional screenwriter with a track record of success who does have connections with respected Hollywood producers, if my screenplay is to be considered by movie studio executives looking for new film projects.
Will you receive anything in return for your donation to hire a screenwriter?
Go Fund Me is set up so patrons can make gift donations to support a passion, a project, or a cause without receiving anything back – except, of course, the satisfaction of advancing a project you believe in.
How your donation will help.
Your donation will help meet the fundraising goal which will pay the screenwriter’s fee to write my novel’s screenplay PLUS the promotion of it through the production company, Voyage Media.
How Voyage Media works with authors like me.
- Through Voyage Media’s Story-to-Screen Screenplay program, a professional screenwriter will collaborate with me to adapt my novel to a screenplay.
- When it’s finished, the screenwriter will work with seasoned Hollywood producers for a minimum of one year to promote my screenplay and to seek a contract to produce it for series TV or film development.
How I will show my gratitude for your donation.
- All my GoFundMe Donors are dream makers and I will appreciate any amount you give. Join PAULETTE'S 300X50 QUEST CLUB for a donation of $50 or more and I will send you a special link to "Unexplored Crush," a romance short story recording, with dramatic vocals and dynamic sound effects, from my multi-genre audiobook, Unearthed Tales of Destined Souls: Stories For Pondering Mortals, Volume 1. I love this tale of second-chance romance. I think you will, too!
- I’ll be forever grateful for your support. My GoFundMe Donors will receive periodic updates about the screenwriter’s progress. And if my screenplay is accepted for a TV or film project, my GoFundMe Donors will be the first to know.
- If the outcome of my screenplay is a successful movie project and its release, it would be my pleasure to immortalize a statement of gratitude for my screenplay GoFundMe Donors in a “Special Thanks” section in the film credits.
I understand if you must leave now. I’m grateful that you checked out my page.
If you found my quest to hire a screenwriter an inspiring and worthy endeavor, may I please have your donation to make it happen? Any amount is appreciated. A thousand “THANK YOUs” in advance.
After donating, please tap the SHARE button to tell your family and friends about my fundraiser and your participation. Sometimes it takes a village and letting others know about my quest is also appreciated. Again, thank you very much for your action and support!
If you can stay a bit longer, here’s a little about me and my writing career.
I can hardly believe that I’ll be age 70 this year. The years have passed so quickly. I was raised in St. Louis, the sixth child in a family with ten children. I earned a B.S. degree in psychology from Loyola University in Chicago. I live with my retired husband of 44 years in Avon, Indiana. Our adult son lives nearby. When I’m not writing, weekly family Zoom calls, genealogy research, and yardwork keep me busy.
How my writing career began.
Alex Haley’s book, Roots, inspired my interest in my own family’s genealogy. That research led me to begin writing in 1991 about the ancestors I found.
I honed my writing skills for 14 years before I released my first book in 2005, a nonfiction family history that chronicles my ancestors called, Always A Blessing in the End. On its cover are my parents on their wedding day. In 2009, I released my first historical novel, Beneath Every Troublin’ Stone, inspired by a female ancestor. I released Unearthed Tales of Destined Souls: Stories for Pondering Mortals, in 2019. It’s a collection of 15 multi-genre, action-driven short stories.
I also released two digital books for children: Ruma, Warrior Princess in 2012 about a mother and daughter’s feisty, new puppy; and in 2013, Is This All I Truly Am? about Deer One, an orphaned fawn, figuring out its identity while being raised by Dog Mother.
Read more about me and access book excerpts at my official website: https://pauletteivyharris.com
One last appeal for your help.
If you agree that our nation’s current controversies make Beneath Every Troublin’ Stone culturally relevant and commercially appealing for film development, then please donate what you can and help bring my novel’s screenplay into reality.
May the things YOU dream about come true! With much gratitude,
Paulette
Organizer
Paulette Ivy Harris
Organizer
Avon, IN