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Young Writers Society


16+ Mature Content

My Taken Right (Duologue)- edited

by occymay


Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for mature content.

Okay, so this is a duologue I have previously posted on here which has since been edited. I am currently turning this into a script so stuff does happen before this. To give you a run of what's happening Lily has gone with her boyfriend William to meet his family. Whilst there William's uncle arrives and William's behaviour changes as a result. He tenses when he uncle touches him, he no longer laughs, constantly keeping his eye on where his uncle is in the room. Lily decides to take action and takes William to his room to get to the bottom of the problem. I hope you enjoy and thank you for reading ^-^ Also I didn't know how to rate this because it doesn't contain swear words and isn't graphic in the description but it is about the difficult subject of rape. 

LILY walks into WILLIAM’s bedroom, WILLIAM close behind her. It’s a large room, a double bed in the centre and many paintings and photos lining the walls. French doors that lead out into the garden are hidden from view behind heavy cream curtains. The room is light by a single lamp on the dark wooden desk opposite the bed.

WILLIAM

What is it you wanted to talk about?

LILY

Is something bothering you? You’ve been acting funny since your uncle arrived. Aren’t you excited to see him?

WILLIAM

(forcing a smile)

I am.

LILY

William, don’t lie to me.

(raises voice, William goes to speak)

Don’t pretend you’re okay either, look you’re shaking.

(moving close to him)

Please, Will.

WILIAM

(Pained expression, whispers)

I can’t.

LILY

(stroking his arm)

I don’t want to see you suffer like this. Please tell, I might be able to help you.

WILLIAM

Leave me alone!

(Shouting, knocks her arm away)

You don’t have a clue what I’ve been through, you have no idea. Do you know what they say about people like me? They’d call me a fag, a weakling, a girl, liar, you name it they probably think of it.

(Tears run down his face, he harshly wipes them away)

I’m meant to be a man and yet I’m crying. Men don’t cry.

LILY

Will…

(confusion crosses her face)

What are you talking about?

WILLIAM’s silence continues, he begins to pace.

Will. Why would people would people call you a fag?

(Worried expression)

You’re not…you’re not trying to tell me something, are you?

WILLIAM

What?

(William walks over to her)

No, Lily, I love you.

LILY

Well, when what is it?

WILLIAM

I… I have never told anyone. No one would believe me, everyone will judge me for what happened.

(sneers)

They’d probably believe him over me, everyone loves him.

LILY

Your uncle?

(William nods)

Did he hit you?

(William shake his head)

There is a long pause, LILY is deep in concentration, eyes closed, trying to figure out what happened to WILLIAM. LILY opens her eyes and turns to look at WILLIAM. Comprehension dawns on LILY’s face

Please don’t tell me he-

WILLIAM

Don’t.

LILY

(softly)

He raped you.

WILLIAM falls to the floor, wailing into his hands. LILY is taken aback.

LILY

(Lily falls to the floor beside him)

It’s okay

(she holds him)

Shh, it’s okay.

(she continues to comfort him)

Tell me what happened. I won’t judge you. You are the strongest person I know; you are my rock and just because you were raped does not change that fact.

WILLIAM continues to sob, his chest heaving violently. As his sobs die down, silence fills the room. WILLIAM lifts his head, his expression pained, his muscles tense with fear. The occasional sob racks his body as he slowly begins his recount.

WILLIAM

(William takes slow, uneven breaths, he looks Lily in the eyes. William breaks down serval times throughout)

It started when I was 12. I was in the house alone. Everyone was outside; playing in the sun but it was giving me a headache so I came inside. That’s when he came in.

(whispers)

I barely noticed he was there until he pushed me up against the wall and… and

(he trails away, unable to finish).

A minute passes filled with heavy sobs before WILLIAM is able to continue.

He said that if I told anyone he’d say I was lying and that I pushed myself on him. I was so scared. I was lonely.

LILY

(speaks softly)

But it didn’t end there?

(squeezes his hand)

WILLIAM

(shakes head)

Every time he visited. The first time it happened I hoped it was just a one off but it wasn’t. After that, I tried hiding myself and when that didn’t work, I made sure to stay close to someone at all times. It worked in reality but my mind visited those hours regularly. The weakness, the pain, his satisfaction.

(he spat as tears rolled down his face)

LILY

And your family have no idea?

WILLIAM

People see want they went to see. I always wanted to tell but I always backed out as the last second.

LILY

Maybe now’s a good time

(William shakes his head, fresh tears streaming down his face)

It doesn’t have to be everyone, what about just your dad?

WILLIAM

No way, it’s his brother we’re talking about!

Wills looks panicked, he gets up and begins to pace.

LILY

Will. Will

(Lily walk over to him, holding him steady)

Look at me.

(William looks at her)

He loves you so much. He would do anything for you. He might be his brother but you’re his son.

(a few moments pass)

Do you want me to go get him?

A few moments of heavy silence pass.

WILLIAM

(takes a deep breath)

Okay.


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Points: 30
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Thu May 25, 2017 5:44 pm
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MasterDimitrov wrote a review...



The script overall looks good, but the moment Lily realizes William's secret wasn't. Maybe it would have been better if he told her in such a way for her to understand. But he didn't even give clues for her to realize it. I may be wrong, but in this situation the thought that my friend's uncle has raped him will probably be the last thing I would think.

Keep up the good work!




occymay says...


Thank you for your review ^_^



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Fri May 05, 2017 2:10 pm
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ExOmelas wrote a review...



Hi there,

I have quite a lot to say about this and you've generally written it quite well so I won't bother with nit-picks.

You're right, this is a very difficult subject. Idk if you've ever experienced someone telling you that yourself, but I have, and there's a couple of things I think you need to take into account. (please don't imagine my tone as confrontational though. This is overall a good representation of someone who's internalised irrational fears about people's reactions).

The first thing is that I really don't think the word rape should be used more than the initial admission of it. It's a really charged word that often feels horrible to hear. It's not shying away from a dangerous issue to say "the thing that happened to you" instead. It's sensitive.

A lot of the time I was surprised by how together Will was when he spoke. For example:

everyone will judge me for what happened.


Every time he visited. The first time it happened I hoped it was just a one off but it wasn’t. After that, I tried hiding myself and when that didn’t work, I made sure to stay close to someone at all times. It worked in reality but my mind visited those hours regularly. The weakness, the pain, his satisfaction.


The first of these: This is probably true, but it's a really grammatically correct sentence for someone who's probably struggling not to cry. I suggest saying something like:

"People will look at me - like, as if it's my fault. They'll think it's my f-fault!"

It doesn't have to be that loud/shouty, but some way of sounding like he's on the verge of a breakdown. It comes across much more rational than the words he says suggest he would be.

The second is similar. That probably is what he did, and don't get me wrong, it is very realistic and emotionally painful as a thing for him to do, but again I doubt he'd have been able to express it without his speech fragmenting more.

Next I'd like to talk about Lily. I think she does quite well, but I think you need to let her have more thought for herself. When someone tells you that...it's more than just being sad for your friend. It's being so unbelievably angry at the world that people are crap enough for this to happen...it's being scared that this is a real thing that happens, being scared that it's going to happen again. For my friend, it happened when she was walking home, for your character, his perpetrator is literally in his house; he can't possibly escape him. I'd like to see some more of this if you'd like to show it, because there's so many emotional avenues to explore with material like this.

Lastly, I think you should mention rape specifically in the description. Like, "TW: sexual assault". It means that people who could get triggered don't accidentally stumbles across this and generally protects people's mental health.

Hope this helps,
Biscuits




occymay says...


Thank for your review! I have never been through anything like this so it can be difficult to truly understand what it's like so thank you for giving me more of an insight. As for the first dialogue improvement, I'll have to see if I can actually do that, scripts have some different grammar rules that I'm still learning but I can see what you mean.



ExOmelas says...


Ah right, you mean like you might have to say something like Will stammers over his words as he says:. I can see from BlueAfrica's review below that line by line direction like that maybe isn't a good idea. This might just be me not understand the format very well.



occymay says...


Yeah, I will probably have to buy a screenplay writing help book to see how I can go about solving it. Online only gives you so much and a lot of them say to buy the books. I haven't read a lot of scripts either so that probably doesn't help.



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Fri May 05, 2017 1:20 pm
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BluesClues wrote a review...



Hi there! I said I'd be back, and I am. :)

So I really like the fact that you focused on male rape here. Rather than this being a girl's tragic backstory - or the rape of a girl or woman close to male character to give him a tragic backstory - you highlighted the fact that men can get raped too. I appreciate the fact that you acknowledge some of the problems unique to men who experience sexual assault (like the names they're called if they admit to it and so forth) while not making Will experience any of it in this scene. Lily was supportive and even reassured him that knowing he was raped doesn't change her opinion of him as strong and her rock - as it should be, since it's never the victim's fault. I also like that she convinces him to tell his dad, but not in a super-pushy way that makes him uncomfortable - she just eases his fears, like "he's your dad, he loves you, he would want to know."

Although that's going to make it a lot more heartbreaking if his dad is like "NO, my brother would NEVER do that."

And I think that's all I really have to say about this. Normally I get on script writers for including so much direction in the midst of dialogue, but yours were actually mostly stage directions/actions rather than adverbs telling the actors how to say every single solitary line. So I didn't mind it.

This review courtesy of
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occymay says...


Thank you for your review! I'm glad like it, I tried hard to make sure it was realistic and characters were supportive so I'm happy it paid off ^_^




cron
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