Jayskee

Opening scene which introduces the main conflict, without providing too many details, as well as introduces the main character and provides some hints to her personality:

There’s a quote that’s been lingering in the back of my mind, after everything that’s happened. It’s cliche to start off a letter with a quote, I know, especially one that anyone whose been following my career has heard. But it’s worth repeating, given who I am and what I do. 

 “There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” It’s from Aldous Huxley, he was a British writer back in the early 20th century. It’s echoed in everything I’ve done, since witnessing the dangers of an idea. How it can take the likeness of a drop, touch oceans of history and culture in a community, and spreads until it has become the tides themselves.

It’s the ten-year anniversary of when the world lost its gods. If you’re American, then you probably only saw how it impacted America. You saw the economy go down, the celebrities and politicians commenting either in support or opposition. As I watched the recent coverage of the damage done, during that time, it occurred to me just how much of the reporting illustrated the broader story of the TX12 and everything that resulted from it. The big stories and the big numbers, that scared or inspired readers, were told. But the smaller tales, the ones with elements that are too sharp to be crafted into entertainment and too dull to be cautionary tales, those weren’t. And they probably never will be.

That’s how news that needs to be sold works. That’s why I’m writing this, in the hope that someone who was impacted by what happened reads it and feels that however, it affected them mattered. I know that my story is one of the millions that only thousands may relate to but I’d rather reach someone while failing to reach everyone. This is how it happened and hopefully, someone will read this and sees enough of their story in my experience.

Behind a scattered collection of gray colds, sunlight bled through every part of the sky that they didn’t cover. Light rain dropped silently crashed into the neighborhood, without a sound and barely visible, the only proof that they landed in the puddles that they congregate into. 

Though mildly entertained, I looked at myself in my car, checking every detail on my newly braided hair,  makeup that complimented my dark skin, and my near-perfect lips except for the little bit of skin hanging off, an annoying reminder of the habit but a more annoying reminder that I’ll keep doing it.  

If I saw this face on another woman, I’d probably think she was pretty. 

I looked out my foggy window and see that gray clouds were gone along with the wind. The sun was now out, without any hindrance; its light reflected in the leftover rain, making the neighborhood a little too bright to look at.

I watched crowds of people, whose various black, brown, and amber shades were organized together into a moving color palette, strolling down the street. Black people, with streaks of white in their hair and pauses before their step, walked side by side as the red doors to the church opened. Some of them held the hands of black children, who moved uncomfortably in suits and dresses and yawned without covering their mouths. A blast of an organ erupted from the building, while the line moved steadily with people eagerly moving inside.

As I watched them enter, a few random thoughts, apathetic of my feelings, across my mind and found themselves at its forefront. This is going to go wrong, you don’t know how but it will. You’re already about to fired and soon and you’ll probably take Marc down with you. A few more, just as loud and honest, followed their trail. I wonder how you’ll pay your bill without a job. I closed my eyes.

Story Statement

In the wake of alleged proof that an afterline doesn’t exist, a political divide between two factions threats to turn neighborhoods into foes. Onyi Richards, is a young reporter who has a dramatic fallout with her job before quitting and decides to become a freelancer, mainly following news regarding machine in her local community. Set in Philadelphia, she documents as her community's divide grows deeper and deeper and spirals into violence as the reporting, social media, and a general fear of their neighborhoods reshapes her home. 

The overall goal of the protagonist and the story is to document how this trend has impacted the city as well as broader whole and remain stay to the facts of everything going in, as more and more fake news and warped perception spanned from social media continue to come out. 

Antagonists 

This novel has two antagonists which represent the overall themes and general conflict of the novel. 

1. Keith Harris - A middle-aged business owner who son dies in a bombing, caused by a devoted Christian. He becomes jaded and radicalized by this event and ends up linking up with a national anti organizated relegion group which advocates that spiritual beliefs are outdated and society would be better without them. 

2. Pastor Jacob Wright - A middle aged pastor in West Philadelphia who mobilizes not just Christians but everyone in his community into an organization to defend themselves for attacks to their faith, as church, mosques, and other places of worship are defamed and attacked, and eventually goes on the offensive.

Breakout Title

Options

1. The War of the Frightened 

2. Between the Known and Unknown 

3. What if This is Everything We Have?

4. The Uncertainty of a Godless World

5. Beliefs into Battles 

6. Neighbors in War-zones

7. The Dangers of an Idea

Genre And Comparable Books

My novel fits into the literary fiction genre, given that that is more character and theme centric, rather than led by plot. While it is fully of unexpected moments and does have a plot meant to engage the audience, the overall hook for the audience will the character development and reactions to the overall themes and actions they encounter. 

The comparable books to my novel, whose fans I believe would also be interested in my book, are The Leftovers by  Tom Perrotta , Eleventh Station by Emily St. John Mandel and the Scale by Keith Buckley. 

Hook Line

In an era of confusion and animosity that would come to be known as the Second Enlightenment, a conflicted reporter documents the deterioration of her community into conflicting factions as the world awaits for proof of a divine truth. 

Conflicts

Main Conflict: Following a startling revelation from the TX12, a machine which allegedly disproves an afterlife, people have become a divided over whether or not if works despite. What starts off as news reports, social media posts, podcasts, and other media soon spirals into a wave of violence and political conflicts between two factions, one comprised of those who believe in organized religion and the other, who believe that organized religion is holding society back. 

In the midst of this, the main character, a young journalist, Onyi Richards struggles to try and figure out what type of reporter that she wants to be and what truth even means in a world in which no one can decide what is fact vs feeling. 

Side Conflict: Onyi mother (Ruth) is caught in a bombing at first act of the story. Following this, we learn that they do have a very estranged relationship (which is revealed through the book) due to Ruth essentially giving Onyi anti-depressants for months without knowledge during her senior year of high school. Onyi struggled with intense depression through highschool however never wanted to be medicated, which her father (James) backed her up on. Ruth believed that her daughter needed to be medicated (also due to other family trauma but we’ll get into that) and snuck them into her food without her content. This went on for both before Onyi was hospitalized due to a blood clot that almost killed her. The conflict here will be Onyi struggling to come to terms with the actions of a mother who she never comforted and now can’t and learning to make peace with herself regarding her decisision. 

Setting

 The novel is told via the first person point of view of Onyi Richards and will take place of the course of a year and a half. It will be set in present-day Philadelphia and specific settings which the book will include are: 

• Overbrook: A neigherhood at the very edge of West Philadelphia. This area will be the home of Onyi for the most of the novel, as she moves back in with her father, following losing her job. It’s a quiet residental neighborhood, full of families and small communities. 

• Fresh Rost Coffee: A coffee shop which Onyi use to work at in college, where she met and became acquainted with her friends, who would go onto become her chosen family. At the beginning of the book, this area is the setting for a bombing which cause an intense personal trauma for Onyi and becomes the linch-pin for the book’s ongoing political feud.

• The Philadelphia Post: This newsroom is where Onyi works as a young reporter at the beginnin of the book. Following the coffee shop bombing, she quits due to her moral disagreements around how the bombing is being covered by the publication.