Sira Duvel

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The idea is top rate. The way of delivering it with fresh impact is the key. If the girl has a different reality, this becomes pivotal. You want to show not tell the fathers cruelty. The recovery/escape needs time and incidents. Try free verse around 100 words per chapter, to tell each nasty, horrible action and her escape. TRUST YOUR READER TO FILL THE GAPS. Never use words like frightened, sad, lonley. Let the text, the story show them.
Glass shattered in the next room.
My younger sister clutched my saree.
Rain tapped the rusted roof.
Burnt rice drifted beneath the door.
My brother whimpered.
I pressed a finger to his mouth.
Shh.
A bang against the table.
Water rushed through the downpipe outside.
The stitched bible cloth hung beside the window:
A for Adam.
B for Bethlehem.
C for Camel.
Thread-camels crossed yellow hills.
Tiny blue waves curled beneath Noah’s ark.
Lions slept beneath Daniel’s feet.
I pulled pillows around us.
Held my brother close.
Outside the bedroom, plates struck the wall.
But inside the cloth, animals walked two by two
into the rain.


II
Mira spooned cooling upma to my brother.
Mother swept glass into a rusted pan.
Tiny stars scraped the floorboards.
Father entered broad as Goliath,
shirt crisp for Sunday witnessing.
Stop. Pray first.
Heads bowed.
His shadow crossed the tablecloth animals.
The stitched camel bent long legs beside Bethlehem.
Noah’s ark floated near Mother’s hand.
Father prayed loud enough for the neighbours.
Protection. Obedience. Grace.
When the front gate snapped shut,
Mother touched the side of her face
like checking rain damage after a storm.
In the cloth world,
David still walked the valley
with one stone hidden in his palm.

III
The chapel smelled of damp hymn books and jasmine oil.
Sunlight stained the tiled floor red and blue
through the narrow glass saints.
After, father held the collection plate against his chest.
Coins short.
Who touched this?
Nobody answered.
His eyes fixed on Mira.
You think God doesn’t see thieves?
Her brother began to cry softly beside her.
Mother stared at the floor.
Father’s voice rose higher, filling the little chapel.
But Mira was already elsewhere.
Beyond the pulpit, David crossed the valley floor.
Smooth stone in his sling.
Goliath roaring above him.
The sheep huddled close behind the rocks.
Names; slot them early -whatever you chose.
• Mira — excellent, soft but observant
• Younger brother: Arun, Dev, Kiran, or Mani
• Younger sister: Leela, Tara, Anya, or Kavya
• Mother?
• Father: Pastor Elias, Daniel, Joseph, or Matthew
(Elias is especially good — biblical, authoritative, severe.)


Each chapter/event should:
1. contain a small crisis,
2. trigger the father’s warped righteousness,
3. force Mira into symbolic/story perception,
4. subtly darken the inner mythology.

A list of ideas. [ max around 100-110 words only]

1. The Missing Bible
Arun leaves his children’s bible on the bus. Elias empties schoolbags onto the floor and calls carelessness a doorway for Satan. Mira imagines crows carrying pages across a desert while David searches for lost scripture beneath thorn trees.
________________________________________
2. Wilted Flowers
The marigolds meant for chapel wilt in brutal heat while Mother waits for the late bus. Elias accuses her of dishonouring God’s altar. Mira sees the flowers in the stitched cloth turning brown beneath a sun that never moves. Joshua at Jericho.
________________________________________
3. The Kitten
Leela hides a stray kitten beneath the bed, feeding it rice water. Elias discovers it and later walks to the river with a cloth sack swinging from one hand.[ Note we don’t say drown etc, let the image show not tell] That night Mira imagines Noah missing one small cheetah at the ark door while rain begins anyway.
________________________________________
4. The Cracked Plate
A dinner plate slips from Mother’s wet hands. Silence before eruption. Mira focuses on the blue painted ring around the broken porcelain and imagines it as a kingdom map split by earthquake rivers. The disciples on the sea of Galilee before Jesus appears.
________________________________________
5. Communion Juice
Arun spills communion juice across white chapel cloth. Elias drags him forward before the congregation to apologise publicly. Mira watches the red stain spread like the Red Sea swallowing soldiers.
________________________________________
6. The Power Cut
During monsoon season the power fails mid-sermon at home. Elias continues praying loudly in darkness while Mother searches for candles. Mira imagines Jonah inside the whale, listening to prayers through ribs and seawater.
________________________________________
7. The Haircut
Leela cuts her fringe crooked with sewing scissors during summer heat. Elias calls vanity sinful and shaves the rest unevenly. Mira imagines Samson asleep while silent hands remove his strength strand by strand.
________________________________________
8. The Fever
Arun develops a fever. Elias refuses the clinic first, insisting prayer must come before medicine. Mira imagines tiny embroidered angels standing uselessly beside a burning bush
________________________________________
9. The Offering Envelope
An empty tithe envelope appears in Elias’s jacket. He interrogates everyone. Later Mother quietly sells bangles to replace the money. Mira imagines Judas counting silver coins beneath the chapel floorboards.
________________________________________
10. The School Prize
Mira wins a school storytelling competition. The teacher praises her imagination. Elias calls fiction dangerous and worldly. That night Mira imagines her stories as birds escaping through gaps in the roof before he can cage them. John sees a dove above the Jericho river.
________________________________________
11. The Cyclone Warning
A real storm approaches the village. Elias forces the family to pray instead of boarding windows. Mira merges the weather entirely with Noah’s flood narrative, except this time the ark leaks.
________________________________________
12. The Dog at the Gate
A stray dog follows Arun home. Elias beats it away with a stick while quoting scripture about unclean creatures. Mira later imagines Lazarus’s dogs licking wounds beside the rich man’s gate.
________________________________________
13. Mother’s Tooth
Mother hides a broken tooth after a “fall.” During dinner Elias talks cheerfully about forgiveness. Mira imagines cracked temple statues with painted smiles.
________________________________________
14. The Baptism
A child is baptised at church. Everyone smiles. Later at home Elias explodes over burned lentils. Mira begins seeing the baptism water rising through the house floorboards.
________________________________________
15. The Sewing Needle
Mother pricks her finger sewing altar cloths late at night. Blood dots the white fabric. Mira imagines tiny martyrs trapped inside the embroidery, stitched in place forever.
________________________________________
The important thing:
Mira’s inner stories should initially protect her.
But gradually:
they begin revealing truth she cannot consciously face.
That evolution is where the real literary weight sits.
Eventually her mythology becomes darker:
• missing animals
• floods
• failed miracles
• silent angels
• damaged saints
• empty arks
• Goliath never falling
That last one matters.
If David kills Goliath too early symbolically, the tension collapses.
Better if Mira keeps waiting for the stone to work.
Maybe the family can escape and not turn back like Lot's family, maybe the father dies in a Tsunami. [ In the end your idea, your writing, your delivery, but this could be awesome if taken where your intro notes promise. Currently there is a huge gap between the blurb idea and chapter one, telling domestic violence, no escape to where. ] Enjoy your writing. Your free to delete these notes or use them.

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