For the DYI MFA Writer Igniter challenge #3, the question given to us is about the five promises an author makes to the reader when writing their book. The five promises are character, voice, world, problem, and event. Each of these promises should be within the first 20 pages of the story for the reader to be invested in the story. In the book The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, these promises are listed by the author within the first 10 pages of the story.
Character
The character that the reader is introduced to is Stella Fortuna. There are other characters in Stella’s story that you care about, but the story is about Stella and her life. Her sister Cettina (Tina) and her mother Assunta play important roles in Stella’s life. The reader can learn about their lives and how they are intertwined with Stella’s. We care about Stella right away. Just knowing that Stella has died nearly seven or eight times, catches the reader’s interest right away. We know she was a beautiful young girl, smart, stubborn and most importantly, a tough woman. Stella would only do something if she knew she was great at an activity, such as shucking chestnuts for the Don or being the prettiest girl in the village.
Voice
The voice of the story is the narrator. The narrator is a relative of Stella’s, who has known her their whole life. In their family, Stella is a person that is both difficult to deal with but also the one everyone cares about because they know the story of her long life. We’re not sure how the narrator is related, perhaps a child/grandchild of Stella’s or Stella’s niece. The narrator is telling the story of Stella as they gather information from other relatives. The narrator breaks up the story by focusing on each “death” as a chapter.
World
The story of Stella Fortuna starts in a small town in Calabria Italy before World War 1. Stella and her family move to America just before World War 2 and goes to contemporary time in Connecticut.
Problem
Stella overcomes many obstacles throughout her life. Her near-death experiences are just part of what she experiences. Her main obstacle is to be the woman she wants to be, not what family tradition tells her what she should be. From the beginning, we learn that Stella never wanted to be married. She saw how her mother was treated growing up and knew that wasn’t the life she wanted for herself. Stella is always battling others who tell her how to live. She becomes frustrated, even with those closest to her, because she feels like she’s not being heard. She wants to shed the traditional Italian ways she was born into and have her own life.
Event
The story begins after we are introduced to Stella with her mother, Assunta and her life leading up to the birth of her tough, unlucky daughter. Juliet Grames writes: “Stella Fortuna is like most women in that you can’t understand her life story if you don’t understand her mother’s.” It is here where the story grabs the reader’s attention fully.
I am approximately ¾ done with this book. I don’t want to jump ahead while answering these questions and mistakenly spoil anything for potential readers. The story of Stella connects with me because this could be the story of one of my maternal female relatives. Our family comes from Calabria and they too left after at the turn of the century to make a life in America. Some traditional values from Calabria seep into our family dynamics. It was my mother than bucked tradition and married a non-Italian and had her a career. Still, some of the traditions my grandmother was raised with come out, like how one needs to care for family no matter what and a sauce recipe that has been handed down to me and soon to my niece. I do find that I do not apply my modern sensibilities about being an independent woman to Stella as I understand the world she came from. I am curious about her life and the more I read, the more I want her to succeed at her dream of living an independent life.