Inspiration for Writing The Cage…a Human Trafficking Thriller

Inspiration for writing The Cage…a human trafficking thriller

I should start out by saying that my education and professional training is that of an actress.  After getting my M.A. in Theater all I wanted to do was repertory theater. Life’s journeys led me to L.A. where I got married and had a moderately successful career doing commercials and television. Gradually I started writing my own material so that I could take it on tour myself and do my own version of repertory theater. My plays were about gutsy stuff, losing a loved one, the death penalty, stem cell research versus religion. Human trafficking was a subject I’d heard about and found interesting.

One evening about five years ago I went to a seminar on trafficking sponsored by a local women’s organization. I listened to a panel of four people, two survivors, a detective, and an ER physician from one of the local hospitals. What I heard that evening and subsequently heard again and again over the years absolutely dumbfounded me. To say that I was shocked couldn’t even begin to describe it. How the two women survivors could even talk objectively about what had happened blew my mind.

One woman had been trafficked by her father and passed around in a church basement to whoever wanted her at the age of four. The range of stories was broad. Another survivor admitted she did it for college money. ER doctors are now going through a new type of training; one that teaches how to recognize a sex trafficked patient, whose symptoms don’t match their complaints and often accompanied by someone who does all the talking for them.

Over the years I attended these seminars and I learned so much more about slave trade, indentured servants who were forced to work in homes as maids or in restaurants as kitchen labor. I went to every conference I could on this subject. I even snuck into a psychologists conference pretending I was a therapist and learned the incredibly difficult battle they have in attempting to restructure or reshape a patient’s mind into redefining themselves as worthy human beings. “Most victims of sexual trafficking only define themselves as the last sexual act they have performed. They have no other value or self-worth.”

Detectives told me that every hotel in the country has had sex trafficking in it. I was privileged to ride undercover with the LAPD one night. That was something I’ll never forget. I had to sign a release saying that if I got shot it wasn’t their fault. The amount of undercover police involved in a typical night covering an LA beat is amazing. Those homeless looking and drunk passed-out guys are often undercover police on the lookout or protecting police women posing as prostitutes.

I knew I wanted to write about this. The approach I took was one I had long ago learned as an actress. Approach the character from the inside out, become the person you have invented. Her words are your words, her feelings come from the depths of your soul. You have got to get inside the mind of a fifteen-year-old girl and describe what it feels like to be kidnapped, to have your world torn apart, to be tortured into believing that you are nothing more than the last blowjob you performed. Getting inside the mind of a fifteen-year-old is easy. I can do that in a second, I was very reclusive as a teen, so some of Suzanne’s suffering in her parents’ house were reminisces of my own troubled teen years.

But going into that place inside my head and then expanding it to include kidnapping and rape was a tremendous challenge. It took its toll and I used my imagination, but I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the tragedy of human trafficking. Calling it a thriller was something of a risk. I don’t consider anything about this subject thrilling, but everything written about it contains sensationalism, especially in the horrific sense. Millions of people subscribe to a hard-core web site that promotes vicious sex acts, there are web sites that teach adults how to normalize sex acts for a child and groom them. Sextortion is big with teens and everyone knows how social media is changing the way things become available.

Any kid who has the chance will look up sites on his computer. So their world is changing fast. If I can write something that might teach others or help parents recognize the signs that their children could become prey is something I care passionately about. If I write it as a fast-passed story maybe more people will learn about it. My motto for my work is keep the page turning for the reader, tell a compelling story.

I am just finishing the second book in this series. WITHOUT CONSENT, will be available this Spring 2023. In it I’m combining the transport of illegal aliens through an underground trucker association with a bogus modeling school that establishes itself on a Caribbean Island to groom underage girls for prostitution. 

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Marion Scherer’s first career was in theater. After receiving an M. A. in Theater from Illinois State University, she returned to New York City, the place of her birth, as a finalist for Theater Communications Group which gave her the opportunity to be seen and interviewed by all of the repertory companies in America.

 Marion began her professional acting career at La MaMa ETC. and toured with several shows throughout the country and the Caribbean.

 Her Los Angeles acting career began with commercials, several TV Movies of the Week and numerous sit coms including: Nine to Five, Rhoda, Eight Is Enough, Little House on the Prairie and Day Time Dramas: The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives. In 2002 she began writing and performing her own material. “If Only I Had More Time,” is about losing a loved one. “A Prison of the Mind” is a one-woman show about the Death Penalty supported by the ACLU and performed throughout California and American University in Washington D.C.

 Her private life is filled with a wonderful husband and two loving animal companions, a Golden Retriever named Sasha and a Calico cat named Millie Peaches. Her upcoming book “Without Consent” is a sequel to “The Cage…a human trafficking thriller and will be available in the Spring of 2023.

THE CAGE

Two friends. One terrible night. A lifetime of pain.When fifteen-year-old Suzanne is kidnapped from a small Northern California town and thrown into the terrifying world of human trafficking, her high school friend Sandy and fired policeman Sgt. Dormer search for her. In the dark underworld of Los Angeles’ gangs and prostitution, they find Suzanne and launch a plan to rescue her…only to discover she doesn’t want to leave.And then Sgt. Dormer learns his own daughter has gone missing..

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