The Family is a short story that I created as part of an exercise for my Introduction to Story class at Mercer County Community College in the Spring of 2024. The goal of this exercise was to write a simple story in as few pages as possible.
This piece follows a young man in New York City named Francesco Marchesini, who finds himself in deep waters with the police when he is questioned about a crime he allegedly committed with the Mafia. The Family explores themes of defiance and real-world consequences through it’s small cast of characters consisting of a young Mafia member, his boss, and a sympathetic but determined detective.
Excerpts:
The following is an excerpt from my opening paragraph that follows my main character, Francesco, waking up in an interrogation room.
“BANG! Francesco Marchesini woke with a start, his heart beating a mile a minute. His mind was racing, replaying the events from last night repeatedly, leaving him wondering how everything went so wrong, so fast. Sandro Donati had said it would be a simple job, one without the extreme violence and manipulation typically associated with his assignments. Though the promise of finally having a family initially drew Francesco in, he now wanted nothing more than to be out of the Mafia.”
I decided to have Francesco waking up in the middle of an interrogation room to draw in the reader. The sudden Bang, the notion that whatever happened to Francesco didn’t go as planned, and the sudden urge to leave his predicament were techniques I used to help hook the reader. This hook leaves the reader with more questions than answers, prompting them to want to read further.
The next excerpt is from the second page of my short story and explains Francesco’s attempts to save a store owner that his boss shoots and leaves for dead.
“Normally Francesco would run as well but he couldn’t, not last night. He refused to leave Mrs. Garner there all alone, slowly bleeding out next to her dead husband. Francesco tore off chunks of his blood-soaked suit to put over her wounds to slow her blood loss and keep her from bleeding out. He had never seen so much blood in his life.”
I decided that Francesco should try to save the store owner to show how he is different from his cold, calculating boss. I felt that this description would help show Francesco’s moral compass and allow the reader to connect with him. Though he’s a part of a criminal organization, he is not all bad, his actions of trying to stop the poor store owner from bleeding out serving as proof.
The last excerpt is towards the end of my short story and features a line of dialogue that Francesco’s boss, Sandro, says to him.
“I’ve known for a while now that you wanted to get out of the family. Though I don’t understand why, I couldn’t let that happen. When you join the Donati family, you are a part of us until the day you die. Unfortunately for you, that day seems like today.“
I decided to pull an excerpt featuring dialogue to help give Francesco’s boss, Sandro, more credibility as a villain. These few lines demonstrate Sandro’s intelligence, coldness, and confidence, serving the readers plenty of reasons to dislike him. This excerpt also demonstrates Sandro’s character and his motive to keep his mafia family together at all costs, even if that means sacrificing someone he viewed as one of his own. Sandro’s words also prove how he values loyalty over everything else.
The Family PDF:
The Family © 2024 by Joseph Genovay is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
