KaraQWrites

Opening scene. Introduces protagonist and foil character, sets tone and establishes a key setting, foreshadows future conflict threads

 

Sometimes the people you love more than life itself can be the very same people you hate the most. It’s an unfortunate truth, but it is what it is.

Or maybe that’s not normal. Maybe it’s just me.

I watched as Nick came toward me on the balcony with a frozen margarita in each hand, his handsome face open and earnest, like a hopeful puppy. Always so anxious to please. I smiled at him from behind my dark sunglasses. 

Inside, I was burning. 

Nick handed me a drink and dragged a wooden lounge chair across the deck until it was just the slightest bit too close to the one I was sitting in. He fell into it with a sigh and held his glass out toward me. I tapped it automatically, the beachy plasticware colliding with a dull, unsatisfying plink. 

“Happy moving day, gorgeous.”

“Mmm.” The small sound was all the agreement I could muster. 

Off in the distance over the sparkling Nantucket Sound, a flock of seagulls was fighting over something large and dead floating in the water. I sat up a little taller in my chair so that I could get a better look. 

“I haven’t heard from the movers since around eight this morning. They’ll probably just call us when the job is done, you think?”

I didn’t say anything.

Nick leaned back in his chair and took a small sip of his drink. “Anyway. I’m sure they’ve got it handled. They’re professionals.”

I extended my legs out in front of me, lean and tan after a full Cape Cod summer. This was by far the longest stretch of time we had spent here in the six years since we’d bought our beach house in Hyannis--which, come to think of it, had also been something that Nick had gone ahead with without my approval. If I’d had more of a say we would have ended up with a quaint little cottage in Chatham, or maybe something a bit more luxurious on Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard. But my husband wanted a house in Hyannis, and Nick Aldrich always gets what he wants.

It actually made perfect sense. Everyone who owned a summer home in this flashy tourist-trap was either a sentimental sap overly nostalgic for their childhood family vacations, a rabid Kennedy groupie, or new money. My husband fit neatly into all of those categories.

Still, over the years I’d grown to love our little bungalow on the Sound. I never thought that I could grow tired of the view here, the slow, lazy days spent half in and half out of the water, a drink in one hand, a book in the other, covered from head to toe in sand and salt. But I had grown tired of it. I was tired and bored. I wanted to go back to Boston, to our solid old brownstone near the Common. 

I wanted to go home. But home was not an option anymore.

“Where are the kids?” I asked, keeping my voice casual.

“I put them down for a nap.” Nick held his sweating margarita glass against the side of his neck. “They were tired. They got some sun at the beach this morning. Nothing to worry about.” He shot a quick sideways glance in my direction. I pretended not to notice. 

“I’m not worried, Nick. I’m just feeling a little unsettled right now.”

Could he blame me? We were moving away from the city where I’d spent my entire life out into the middle of nowhere, to some giant old house that I’d never even seen. My heart skipped a beat, thinking about it. “You could have at least waited for me to see the place before making an offer on it.”

“Jules, I don’t want to talk about this again. I said I was sorry.” My husband’s body went rigid in the chair next to me. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, forcing his muscles back into a relaxed posture. “Anyway, you’re going to love it. The house is awesome. And seriously? I never thought I’d hear Julia Aldrich call Harlow ‘the middle of nowhere.’ In fact, I seem to recall a long weekend away during which a certain someone couldn’t stop talking about how much she would love to live there. Something about how the town was ‘pure magic’ and ‘tragically haunted’ and ‘the perfect place to write the perfect story.’ Do you remember that?” 

I did, kind of. How supremely annoying of him to bring it up. It was just like Nick to remember every little thing I’ve ever said, to squirrel each word away for safekeeping in case an opportunity to use them against me happened to present itself. I really had to work on choosing my words more carefully. I took a deep breath and gave it a try: “Just because it’s the town where Emily Peal lived doesn’t mean it’s not the middle of fucking nowhere, Nick.”

“Okay, jeeze. Sorry.” 

The seagulls were battling over bits of carcass in midair, dropping and catching dark, rubbery-looking shreds of meat. The dead thing was probably a seal, or a porpoise. Maybe even a small whale. I wondered if there had been any great white sightings in the Sound recently. They were practically swarming off the coast of Chatham and Orleans this late in the season, but to my knowledge a shark sighting in our area was pretty rare. Still, If I made sure not to look away for even a second, I might see something happen out there that was actually worth seeing. I squinted my eyes against the sun, trying to focus on the actions of a single gull in the teeming, writhing mass.

“I just hate seeing you stressed, Jules. I know you’re going to love it when we’re all settled in.” Once Nick got going, it was hard for him to stop. “When that house came up in Harlow, it was a no-brainer. Beautiful country, fresh air, the famous hometown of your favorite writer. It’s the perfect place for the kids to grow up. And you’ll be so inspired, you won’t be able to stop yourself from writing again. It’s going to be amazing, love. I promise.” 

“Nick,” I said. “It’s fine. Really. It’ll be great.”

“Great. Good. I’m so happy to hear you say that.” He flashed me a relieved smile, clearly choosing to believe that my words were genuine.

When he saw the look on my face, the smile faded.

“You know that I’m doing this for you, right?” Nick asked gently. “I would never do anything to hurt you, Julia.”

Something stirred in the water and the birds took flight in one body, lifting up into the air like a cloud. After that, nothing. How disappointing.

The sunlight glittering on the Sound was getting to be too much for my eyes to handle. I closed them and leaned my head against the chair, tasting the salt from the sea in the back of my throat. 

Nick was finally quiet. Feeling guilty, maybe. I hoped he was. What he’d said wasn’t exactly true, and we both knew it. 

He didn’t make the decision to move our family to Harlow for me.

He did it because of me. 

Story Statement:

After a very public stint in a psychiatric hospital, teenage literary prodigy turned invisible housewife Julia Aldrich will do whatever it takes to show the world—and herself-- that she is smart, sane, and capable. If she can write and sell a hit novel under her married name it will prove that her early success was more than just some fluke. The problem is, she hasn’t been able to string two words together since her hospitalization almost fifteen years ago. But all of that is about to change. When her overbearing husband moves their family to the little town of Harlow, Massachusetts Julia is accepted into the prestigious Friends of Emily Peal writing club, where she is befriended by legendary author Clifton Penn Parker. Cliff promises Julia that he knows the secret formula to making her a famous author again—more famous, even, than she was before. Unfortunately, the more time she spends with Cliff, the more Julia suspects that his secret has something to do with the infamous 1963 disappearance of famed horror writer Emily Peal. As the pieces fall into place, Julia has to dig deep to ask herself what’s more important to her: seeing her name emblazoned on a book cover, or going down in history as the person who finally solved the mystery of Emily Peal’s disappearance, and brought her home—alive—after all these years. Whatever choice she makes will surely prove that her days of being remarkable are not behind her. But neither path forward is without risk, and things aren’t always as simple as they seem. Sometimes a victim is really a villain in disguise. And as everyone knows, it’s not often that a good deed goes unpunished.  

 

Antagonist:

Clifton Penn Parker, respected elderly author of multiple bestselling horror novels, has a secret dark side that only a few people know about. The first person to see it was the mistress he almost strangled to death in the 1950s. The last person to see it is our protagonist, Julia. As his critique partner, Julia is privy to the full scope of Cliff’s darkness when he shares with her, chapter by chapter, the story of what really happened to famous horror writer Emily Peal, whose disappearance in the 1960s after the murder of her “roommate” Joanna has haunted authorities and fans alike for decades. But there’s something about Cliff’s confession that shakes Julia even more than the possibility that this man might have Emily Peal alive, still his captive after all these years. Why is he revealing these secrets to her, now? What’s going to happen to her now that she knows? And what are the chances that none of it is true, and Cliff is just trying to teach Julia some strange lesson on life and writing, playing on her history of mental illness to push her up to—and maybe even over-- the very edge?

 

Breakout Title:

WHAT HAPPENED TO EMILY PEAL (Cannot come up with even one single alternative that doesn’t sound cheesy as hell!!!)

 

Comp Titles:

WHAT HAPPENED TO EMILY PEAL is for fans of Colleen Hoover’s VERITY, Alexandra Andrews’ WHO IS MAUD DIXON, and BEHIND THE RED DOOR by Megan Collins

 

Hook Line:

A young housewife with a disturbing past must decide how far she’ll go and how much she’ll risk to propel herself back to the literary stardom she enjoyed prior to her unjust commitment to a ward for the criminally insane.

 

Conflicts:

Inner Conflict: Despite her vehement insistence that her hospitalization was a setup, Julia is deeply afraid that she might actually be crazy. Her efforts to prove that she is talented and remarkable are primarily a way of convincing herself that she is mentally competent. But the more entangled Julia becomes with Cliff and his methods and writings, the more she is forced to ask herself whether the things she is thinking and doing are appropriate, or if she is coming completely unhinged.

Secondary Conflict: Julia and her husband Nick are having marital issues throughout the novel. In the beginning, we get the impression that Nick has cheated on Julia. As the story progresses, the reader will start to wonder whether Nick’s affair was real, or whether it was something Julia imagined. The true scope of Julia’s mental illness is revealed in the third act when Julia confesses to Cliff that she stalked and would have murdered the woman she suspected of being involved with her husband, if Nick hadn’t intervened in time.

 

Settings:

Primary Setting: Harlow, Massachusetts

Harlow is a very small colonial town with a rural, tight-knit community feel to it, and dark, haunted undertones. It is the setting of a famous unsolved murder/disappearance, and the hometown of multiple well-known literary figures throughout the past century. Our protagonist grew up in Boston, and moving to Harlow is a culture shock for her. Her family is living in a large farmhouse that was built in the 1800s, and she is particularly unsettled by its distance from the neighbors and proximity to the dense forest and the wild beasts that lurk there.

 

Secondary Settings:

Boston, Massachusetts: At the beginning of the novel Julia is a city girl, more comfortable in the concrete jungle than she is in the suspiciously quiet town of Harlow. As the story progresses, it is clear how much trauma Julia has left behind in Boston. She grows accustomed to the simplicity of her new setting, and when she travels to Boston is overwhelmed by the lights, motion, and memories the city holds.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts: Cape Cod is two things in this story—a summer sanctuary, and the setting of a winter nightmare. Nick and Julia have a summer home in a bustling village on the water where they go to decompress. But in the third act, Julia is invited to Cliff’s second home on the Cape in the month of November. Cliff’s Cape house is imposing and isolated, located on a secluded spit of rock by a lighthouse. The bad weather, dangerously lonely locale and cavernous mansion make for a dark, sinister setting for the events of the third act to unfold.