“The League” was my first work-in-progress, and the only one that has a completed first draft. I would say it is the most unique of my WIPs, and the one that is the most triggering. You can read the synopsis for it here, so I won’t go into it much in this post, other than to say that it is about human trafficking.
I started writing “The League” when I was 15 years old, which raised some red flags for my teachers and the 4-H writing project judge who read the short story I later turned into a full-length novel. I’ve always been mature for my age, so it never crossed my mind that they would think it was autobiographical, even though the protagonist lives in a small town (like me), works at a library (like me), and has a drug addict stepfather (like me). Yes, I did “write what I know” in that regard, but the specifics and the overall plot were purely my imagination.
Unfortunately, the event that inspired “The League” was the real-life tragedy of the Rhoden Family Massacre, also known as the Pike County Shootings or the Pike County Massacre. For those of you who are unfamiliar, these eight murders happened in 2016 in Pike County, Ohio, less than an hour from my own home. All eight victims were members of the Rhoden family, including a 16-year-old boy. It was—and remains—the deadliest shooting in our region, making international news and inspiring the Peacock limited docuseries “The Pike County Murders: A Family Massacre.”
This was a major shock to our community, and theories abounded as to who would do such a thing. Since most of the victims were shot execution-style, and some members of the family grew and sold drugs, one of the popular theories at the time was that a Mexican drug cartel killed them to take out the competition. This theory was later disproven, and after a two-year-long investigation, police discovered that the Wagner family—a member of which was the father of a daughter of one of the victims—were the murderers. If you would like to learn more about the case, you can check out the Wikipedia article on the shootings here.
While the cartel theory ended up being untrue, it got me thinking about other things that could happen if cartels infiltrated my county. That led to the thought of human trafficking, and after a lot of research, ignited the first spark of “The League.”
Even more research ensued, and when faced with the devastating statistics—particularly those regarding children and teens—I knew I wanted to write something about this rarely-talked-about social issue. While I wanted to educate readers, especially at-risk teens, about human trafficking, I also wanted to write something that inspired hope. Thus, I created the League, the fictional network in my WIP that works to rescue trafficked victims and fight human traffickers.
Once I got this basic premise, I had to figure out how to write it. The opening scene of “The League” came from a dream I had and was originally the opening of an earlier project (which sucked, and I’ve refused to open for the last nine years). It better suited this book, and naturally flowed into subsequent scenes that ended up being the first couple chapters of “The League.” I am most definitely a pantser, not a plotter, but thankfully the ideas kept coming as I wrote. There were pauses for researching and brainstorming next scenes, but all in all, I wrote 74,000 words over the course of a summer when I was in high school.
I haven’t revisited “The League” for the past couple of years, despite using it as my chosen project for my creative writing degree. Now that I’m getting back into writing by working on my latest project, a YA fantasy novel, I’ve found myself thinking more and more about my first WIP. Right now, I’m focusing on this fantasy project, and I believe it has a lot of potential. I’m excited to write it, but once I get it drafted, I will definitely return to “The League.” I’m eager to reunite with the characters and am even excited to do the rewrites I know will make the story even better.
Hopefully, I’ll have more writing updates to give you soon, so stay tuned!
Allison Burton 