Syracuse University SURFACE Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects Projects Spring 5-1-2014 180 Degrees Away Megan Daniels Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone Part of the Fiction Commons Recommended Citation Daniels, Megan, "180 Degrees Away" (2014). Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects. 735. https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/735 This Honors Capstone Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 180 Degrees Away A Capstone Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Renée Crown University Honors Program at Syracuse University Megan Daniels Candidate for BS Degree and Renée Crown University Honors May 2014 Honors Capstone Project in English and Textual Studies Capstone Project Advisor: _______________________ Professor Arthur Flowers Capstone Project Reader: _______________________ Assoc. Dir. Sarah Harwell Honors Director: _______________________ Stephen Kuusisto, Director Date: 4/23/2014 © Megan Daniels, 2014 Abstract 180 Degrees Away is a novel that started as a capstone project for the honors department and further developed into a work that will later be submitted to literary agencies and publishing houses. The novel tells the story of eighteen-year-old Ames Treadway, who has been nothing but a punching bag to his father for years. After walking in on a particularly horrifying event involving his father and younger sister, Layla, Ames nearly kills his father before taking his sister and running away. Layla, Ames, and three of Ames’ friends journey from their home in New Jersey to Nashville, where he believes his mother resides. With his sole desire of getting Layla somewhere safe before he is arrested for the crime he committed against his father, Ames is desperate. But after his mother rejects his plea for help, the group carries on north toward Philadelphia where his aunt – one last hope for a guardian to four-year-old Layla – lives. Along with Ames on the road trip are his two best friends, Henry and Daisy, and Henry’s girlfriend, Reign. Through his travels, Ames grows close to the troubled Reign, meets a professor and a homeless man who both truly believe in him and a boy that reminds him of himself, learns how to be there for his sister in ways he couldn’t before, and discovers himself. The story is about familial love and romantic love, about friendship and betrayal, about desire and fear, about hate and compassion, and about freedom and what it is like to forfeit that freedom. It is about how Ames loses everything but finds himself in the rubble. Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………….……………….…………... ii Executive Summary…………..…………………………………………... iv Acknowledgements……………………………………………………….. viii 180 Degrees Away …………………………………………………………. 1 Reflective Essay: “The Journey’s Journey”………………………….…. 342 Appendices………………………………………………………………… 354 Executive Summary 180 Degrees Away is a creative writing project intended to intertwine what I have learned throughout my education in creative writing with bits and pieces of my other major, psychology. The novel serves as an experience for the reader to follow an eighteen-year-old boy on a quest to get his younger sister to safety while coming to terms with the inevitable loss of his freedom that is soon to come. At the beginning of the novel, the reader is introduced to Ames, the main character, as he embarks on a road trip with three of his friends and his little sister, Layla. It is soon made clear that he is on said road trip because he nearly killed his father, tried to kill himself, and is now in search of his mother in hopes of her taking his little sister before his quickly approaching arrest. As the novel progresses, the reader gets a greater sense of the reasoning behind Ames’ actions – his father’s abuse toward him and later toward his younger sister. Ames finds his mother and fails to convince her both to take Layla and to help him when he is on trial in the future. His search for his mother leads him to Nashville; and then his journey to find his aunt lead him north to Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. On this road trip with Ames are Layla, Henry, Daisy, and Reign. Both Ames and Henry have separate intimate relationships with Reign, and through this and the many experiences on his road trip to and from his mother’s home, Ames discovers aspects of himself that have been deeply buried from a time before his father’s attempted murder. There will be a parallel between the relationship that Ames has with his two friends and Reign, and the feelings he has toward the freedom (the heaviest theme throughout the novel) that he is likely going to lose by going to prison. By the end of the novel, Ames comes to terms with what has happened to him as he grew up and with having responsibility over Layla, despite finally finding his aunt in Philadelphia and convincing her to take care of Layla for him. Also at the end of the novel, Ames accepts that he is going to be arrested. This is not nearly as important as the moment when Ames realizes that he must do one thing: he must tell the authorities about what happened when he and his sister were living with his father. He intends to press charges against his father because of the abuse he experienced, regardless of the charges of attempted murder that his father is pressing against him, and Ames and Layla both intend on testifying in court. I feel that 180 Degrees Away is a coming of age story about the acceptance of one’s self. With help from various characters along the way and with his friends and sister, Ames gains this acceptance and therefore gains the ability to tell the court what his father did to him. The reader will never know if Ames gets convicted of attempted murder or if his father goes to prison for child abuse because that is not important. What’s important is both that Ames acknowledges what happened to him and that he finally takes his fate into his own hands instead of leaving it in the hands of his father. I would not have been able to write a large majority of this book without the financial help of the honors department and the Crown-Wise Award. With this funding, I traveled from Syracuse to New Brunswick. From there I ventured down toward the south, following the same route and staying in the same motels that the characters stayed in, and experiencing what they experienced. I would not have known what Nashville was like, nor would I have known anything about the small Podunk towns in Kentucky and Virginia that I visited. I traveled to Cleveland and Philadelphia as well, two large cities I had never been to despite the characters stopping there. It was an enlightening experience that helped my writing of the novel in unimaginable ways. The process of writing 180 Degrees Away has been a long one. A lot had to be changed between the first draft and the second. One hundred and forty pages were scrapped. The book went from being split into three parts to just being about that one middle part consisting of the road trip. Characters and smaller plot lines were eliminated. In the first draft, Layla was not on the road trip with the group, which seems silly now. Ames’ aunt, Jeanie, and her husband have a significantly smaller storyline in the second draft, as does his lawyer. To inform the reader of what happened in the past that I deleted from the first draft, I added small flashbacks at the beginning of every chapter. This allows the reader to understand many things that they would otherwise not understand. It is my hope that people can read my book and understand that books geared toward younger people can have depth. It is also my hope that people will be able to see that truly, at the heart of 180 Degrees Away , the story is about a boy and his relationship with his sister, and their attempt at escaping a horrible situation. I want people to see a boy who is willing to give up everything to protect this four-year-old child who cannot protect herself, a boy that does give up everything to protect her. I want people to understand not that the police are corrupt, but that anyone, regardless of his or her power or job position, can be like Ames’ father. 180 Degrees Away has been a work in progress for nearly two years now, and I have never had a project feel so important to me. I have put everything into this novel, and I hope that if it were to one day be published, it may encourage other children in similar situations to Ames’ to speak up about what is happening to them. Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would have to thank my advisor and mentor of three years, Arthur Flowers. He has been there with my writing and me since the very beginning of this work, and he was there to tell me both when it was terrible and when it was a little bit decent. There is no way that this book would be what it is without his guidance and honesty. I would also like to thank my reader, Sarah Harwell, who did not know if she was even allowed to be my reader but took the task anyway.