Alexandra Syrah
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Posts posted by Alexandra Syrah
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#1 Story Statement:
In this dual timeline narrative, American graduate student Amanda must identify an extra body in an ossuary, before a rising cult steals the body and leads to Amanda’s academic ruin
#2 Antagonist:
In medieval Italy, a number of women were recognized as prophets or incarnations of the Holy Spirit, whose resurrected bodies would usher in a new era of the church led by women. One, Saint Na Prous Boneta, was burned at the stake by the male religious leaders whose power she threatened. Another, Saint Guglielma, was declared a heretic after her death, exhumed, and her body burnt to ashes.
In modern-day Bologna, The Immaculate Spirit of Saint Agnese – known as “The Immaculate Spirit” – is a radical religious cult led by Mother Chiara and her son Dario. The Immaculate Spirit believes that there remain hidden the bones of another medieval Saint, the virgin Agnese, who like the others was to herald in a new era of the church. Though no historical evidence for this saint exists, the Immaculate Spirit becomes convinced that the bones discovered in the ossuary are the relics of Saint Agnese, stashed there by her followers to prevent them being destroyed. The Immaculate Spirit launch a plot to steal the bones in order to establish them in a church dedicated to Saint Agnese, which they believe will supernaturally invoke the long-awaited age of the Holy Spirit.
After an initial break-in and near theft of the bones, Amanda and the University of Bologna face increasing pressure to secure the bones and provide a suitable explanation, before Amanda’s academic career is ruined.
#3 Titles:
One Too Many Bones
The Mystery of the Ossuary
#4 Comps:
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco – This is a medieval murder mystery set in Italy, but taking place in a monastery rather than in secular society. Eco’s work is slightly more upmarket than One Too Many Bones.
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse – This is another dual timeline narrative that involves present-day archaeologists attempting to solve an ancient mystery.
#5 Logline:
An American graduate student seeks to unravel an 800-year-old murder before a rising cult steals the body and topples her academic career
#6 Two More Levels of Conflict:
Inner conflict – trigger and reaction
Amanda is initially delighted by the find and thinks it may propel her into a successful career in archaeology. However, as the activities of the Immaculate Spirit heat up, her reputation and future are increasingly jeopardized.
Social conflict – family / friends / associates
Amanda’s thesis advisor initially encourages her research, but then suggests she abandon it as the Immaculate Spirit’s activities increase, and eventually attempts to sabotage Amanda’s work. Meanwhile, Amanda has become romantically entangled with Serafina, a secret member of the Immaculate Spirit. Serafina is willing to use any means necessary to get the bones of Saint Agnese. Amanda’s best friend and colleague, Gabriele, becomes of aware of Amanda’s danger, and resolves to save both her career and her life.
This triangle forms a foil with the other dual timeline narrative, in which Maria's friend, a silk weaver, tries to save her and Alessandro from social ruin.
#7 Setting:
The city of Bologna is a character in-and-of-itself. The San Petronio Basilica where Charles V was anointed Holy Roman Emperor in 1530 today witnesses pro-Palestinian protests. Two leaning towers, the last freestanding of hundreds that once existed, have for centuries symbolized Bologna in art and literature. Canals which once powered silk mills still wind behind colorful homes. While the world turns around it, the University and the City of Bologna witness the rise and fall of governments, social movements, generational wealth, and the march of technology. Even as many of the externalities change, the intrinsic relationship dynamics among people - love, betrayal, and honor - persist and drive the course of history.
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Life, Liberty, and Kanafa:
How an Immigrant's Daughter Escaped Abuse and Found Her Destiny
PROLOGUE
It took me about a year to realize that I had married a cult leader. There were some dead giveaways. He was almost three times my age. He was the pastor of a “free church” that wasn’t registered with the IRS. He kept tens of thousands of dollars worth of silver stashed in his bedroom closet. And he owned six firearms. But I knew all that before I married him.
When I stopped attending his church, he spoke to his attorney and came back to me with a property settlement agreement. I opened my own bank account and started to take any part time work I could get and squirrel away money. Nine tense months, and several tense drafts, passed before we both signed two copies of the property settlement agreement in the presence of a notary. I put my copy in my office. He gave me a check for $10,000. Then I went on a two-week mission trip to Uganda.
My husband seemed fine when I returned. My first day back, we went to Starbucks together, and I drank a Pumpkin Spice Latte while reading. I went back to work the next day. That afternoon, I came home from work to find my husband sitting in the large, green armchair in his study, reading the New Testament. The lights were off; he was able to read by the light coming in from the two windows on either side of the armchair. This was usual, for him. He did a live AM radio broadcast four days a week, and he spent the afternoons preparing for the next day’s show. He greeted me and continued reading. I went into my study and put down my bag. I noticed that the check was gone. Then I opened my folder and realized that the property settlement agreement was gone.
At first, I said nothing. My heart pounded and I felt a sudden urge to use the toilet. I rifled through my folders, my planner, opened and closed my desk drawers and filing cabinets. The property settlement agreement, which had been there when I left that morning, was definitely gone.
I walked into my husband’s study.
“Ray,” I said. “What happened to the check that was on my desk? And my signed copy of the property settlement agreement?”
Ray continued reading the New Testament.
“Give them back to me,” I said.
“I can’t give them back to you,” he said.
“I need you to give them back to me.”
“I can’t give them back to you,” he repeated. “I burned them.”
“What?” I shrieked. I had known for some time that my husband was abusive—but I hadn’t expected this.
Ray continued reading.
“Give them back to me,” I repeated. I couldn’t believe that he had actually burned them. I felt so much blood rushing to my head that I began to feel dizzy.
“I can’t,” he said again.
“Why did you burn them?” I asked, tentatively calling his bluff.
“Because we need to re-negotiate,” he said. “We need to start over.”
“We already negotiated. Your attorney wrote the property settlement agreement. We had two copies notarized.” I was sweating. My mouth was dry. If I got any more upset, I might actually faint.
“We need to start over,” he repeated. I stared at him, and inside my mind I saw and felt all the hope for my future collapsing. Nothing was left by rubble and darkness.
By now I was very close to his face. He had laid the slim black leather testament down on his lap and was looking at me.
“If you don’t give it back to me, I’m going to call the cops,” I said.
“I can’t give it back,” he said calmly.
“I’m calling the cops, and I’m going to sue you for everything you have,” I said, and darted into my study. I had reached the point of barely being able to hold a thought together. The corners of my vision seemed to be folding into darkness. I locked my door and called 9-1-1.
I was hysterical when the operator answered. I was hyperventilating and crying. I honestly cannot remember what I told them.
“Are you in a safe place?” the operator asked.
“I’m in my study,” I said. Just then, the knob on my study door turned. Ray managed to force the door partway open. I slammed it back shut while I was on the line.
“I’m in my study, and I locked the door, but he’s still trying to get in,” I said.
“The police are on their way. Stay separate until the police arrive.”
It didn’t take long for the cops to show up. I was still crying, my heart was still racing, and I still felt like I might faint at any moment.
The doorbell rang. I unlocked my study door and peeked across the hall into Ray’s study. He remained in his large green chair, acting perfectly calm.
I walked to the front door and opened it. It was dark out, now. Two tall, young, and well-built police officers stood on the porch.
“May we come in?” one of them asked. “Please,” I said. I was crying by this point.
“We’re going to talk to each of you separately,” the officer said.
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1. Story Statement
The protagonist must break a cycle of poverty and abuse, learn to stand on her own two feet, discover who she is, and live out her authentic self.
2. Antagonist
The antagonistic force is poverty. At the beginning over her journey, the narrator is living below the federal poverty line. Financial poverty from youth was perpetuated into adulthood by a poverty of self-sufficiency. The narrator also suffered from a poverty of healthy, constructive relationships. This lack led to her living with abusive men for an entire decade and being emotionally and financially unable to leave. The narrator also suffered from spiritual poverty, or poverty of self-knowledge. Perhaps this could even be called a poverty of self—being unable to know one’s true self, and lacking the means (financial independence, healthy relationships, and community) to live as one’s true self.
When the narrator tries to escape poverty, it fights back with a vengeance. She manages to get an emergency restraining order but is denied a two-week one—and is literally at the courthouse when her husband disconnects her cell phone service. She later discovers that he’s hidden his gun. When she manages to get out, her entire community turns against her: when she loses her marriage, she also loses her job, her church, and her friends. Just as she’s establishing financial independence after divorce, poverty lashes out with unemployment due to COVID-19. Suddenly, she finds herself relying on newly formed relationships in the church and from swing dancing. After the dark winter of 2020, she has established enough financial independence to spend seven months traveling the United States: seven months to discover who she really is, what she really wants, and where to settle down and build a life.
Concrete details: Poverty looks like my dad’s house on Long Island, “heated” with sternos in the winter with a collapsing roof and a family of raccoons upstairs. Poverty looks like marrying a man older than my father and being forced to work for him for free. Poverty looks like trying to live in D.C. on $14,000/year in graduate school with a pothead boyfriend with an engineering degree who works part time teaching kids.
3. Breakout Title
Digital Nomad: Finding Hope on the Road in a Global Pandemic
Digital Nomad: How I Lost My Life in Order to Find It
Life, Liberty, and Kanafa: How an Immigrant’s Daughter Beat Poverty and Seized Her Destiny
Life, Liberty, and Kanafa: How an Immigrant’s Daughter Beat the Odds
4. Comps
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love – Similar to my story because it’s about traveling in order to find out who you are. Strong difference is that Gilbert was already successful when she began her journeys (and was even paid an advance by her publisher in order to do them). The narrator of Digital Nomad, however, is climbing up out of poverty and must self-fund her entire trip. She is also an immigrant’s daughter. This leads to both humor and more layers of complexity. The experiences of immigrant families and women surviving abuse are also culturally timely at the moment.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah – Similar in the sense of similar readership. Adichie’s narrator is a direct immigrant, where I am a daughter of an immigrant. Both works involve well educated narrators (with university backgrounds) who nonetheless face cultural difficulties and grapple with questions of family, race, and identity. Like Americanah, my book is written in a more literary style.
5. Primary Conflict
Life, Liberty, and Kanafa by Alexandra Syrah
An immigrant’s daughter escapes an abusive marriage and is living just above the poverty line when a pandemic leaves her unemployed and isolated. She must figure out how to take advantage of the situation and turn it from disaster into success.
6. Secondary Conflict
Trigger: Not long after she begins her traveling, a man she thought would marry her suddenly breaks up with her. She is, once again, alone in the world.
Reaction: The narrator feels that she has wasted too much time and cannot afford to make any more mistakes. Any more mistakes will mean she never has a career, never has a family, never has children. If she misses this moment, she will be trapped in poverty forever. She is further conflicted by her father’s diagnosis with cancer and his insistence that she live the life that he failed to have.
7. Setting
This is a travel memoir. Primary Settings are: New Orleans, Charleston, and New York City.
What makes these so interesting at the interactions that I have with people in each one. For example, at the restaurant Fleet Landing, I meet a Danish woman, recently widowed, who flew in from California, fell in love with the city, and spent all day walking from place to place until she found a job. She cries about how rudely she was treated “by her own people”—fellow Danes—and I give her a hug and bring her back to her hotel.
Each of these cities/settings also: 1) has a lot of local color; 2) has religious and cultural layers that intersect with the narrator’s immigrant background and faith; 3) has very funny stories about interactions with the people who live there or are visiting which, in addition to being funny, say something deeper.
First pages - Historical Fiction/Mystery - One Too Many Bones
in New York Write to Pitch "First Pages" - 2022, 2023, 2024
Posted
This is actually the third scene, occurring after a montage of the city of Bologna (scene 1) and several women hobnobbing in 1300 AD about the exhumation and burning of Saint Guglielma. (This is a dual timeline narrative)
This third scene introduces the relationship between the modern-day protagonist and her lover in Bologna; establishes basic character outlines/occupations
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“Congratulations,” Amanda said, lifting a glass of the house red wine to Serafina. "On booking your first ever event. May there be many more to come." The remaining liter of wine sat, mostly full, on their small, square table. They were seated outdoors, and the evening October air was just beginning to chill. To Amanda’s back, a violinist was busking alongside the brick walls of the Basilica San Petorino.
Serafina lifted her glass and tapped it to Amanda’s. “Salute!”
“Salute!”
They both drank.
“So, when is the bachelorette party?” Amanda asked.
“Next week. There are three bridesmaids plus the bride. They want to do a group reading.” Serafina took another sip of wine and chuckled. “The thing I’m really curious about,” she said slyly, “is that the mother of the bride asked to be included.”
“What? Really? At the bachelorette party?”
“Surprising, right? Apparently she had no interest until she heard the bride was hiring a tarot reader.”
Amanda snickered. “So she’s into tarot then?”
“Apparently!” Serafina laughed, topping up her wine glass from the carafe.
“How does the bride feel about that?”
“I have no idea. But it seems that her mother is bankrolling most of this, so I suppose there’s no way of keeping her out if she’s very determined to go.”
“Sounds like you’re going to have a good time,” Amanda said.
“I fully intend to,” Serafina laughed again. A gust of wind threatened the violinist’s sheet music. Serafina watched him snatch a sheet out of the air and return it to its stand. Then he pinned them against the stand with his cell phone.
“How did the bride find out about you, anyway?” Amanda continued.
“One of my regular clients is a friend of hers. Apparently the bride remembered seeing my table when I used to do reading in the piazza. She’d never been into tarot herself. But when my client mentioned that I had expanded into team building at corporate events and parties, she thought it would be a good way to build get the bridesmaids to know each other better.”
“Oh, are they not already friends?”
“One of them is the bride’s sister and the other one lives in the States, so while they all know the bride well, they don’t know each well at all. I think this might be the first time the sister is meeting them.”
“Plus the mother-of-the-bride,” Amanda snickered.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of bubbly.”
“Do you think that’s likely to make it better?”
“Well—that’s a fair point. But they don’t seem like the group to get in a drunken brawl!”
“Where in the States does her friend live?”
“I didn’t ask,” Serafina said. “Probably not wherever you’re from that’s 25 minutes from Canada.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Probably not,” she said. “I guess most Italians living in the States end up in New York City. Maybe she’s there.”
The waiter arrived with their pizza.
“I love the crust at this place,” Serafina said, cutting herself a slice. “Anyway, enough about me. How is everything going with you? More importantly, do you have an early start tomorrow, or are you able to spend the night? This will influence how much wine I drink,” Serafina said with her characteristic sideways smile, her head slightly tilted.
“I’m supposed to be on-site at 10:00. We’re still working on cataloguing what’s in the ossuary before we move everything out. But they don’t want us back there until they’ve finished morning mass in the chapel.”
“Does anyone even go to that?” Serafina asked, well into her first slice of pizza.
“I don’t know. I’m never there that early. Probably a few people? Maybe some tourists?”
“Anyway, you didn’t answer my question,” Serafina said, her eye twinkling. Amanda reached across the table, twined her fingers into Serafina’s, and lifted the delicate hand to her lips.
“Let us eat, drink, and be merry,” Amanda said, planting a half dozen kisses on Serafina’s hand and onto her wrist before her lover, laughing, squirmed her arm away. \“You’re so over the top, Mandy.”
“Isn’t that what you like?”
Just then a mime darted up to their table, offering her hand to each of the women in turn. They both laughed and waved her off.