jldenn

OPENING SCENE - Introduces antagonist and one secondary character, and a describes the triggering event that sets the plot in motion.. Allen was sitting in his well-worn, faux leather, executive swivel chair with the broken lumbar control concentrating on the latest set of results from the recent test-run of his beloved ESP – Electronic Signature Project when Burke poked his head into Allen’s office. “Allen, do you have a minute?” he said with some reluctance in his voice. “Sure, come on in.” Allen absently waved Burke in, not turning his attention from the matrix on the computer screen in front of him. “I need to talk to you.” “Yeah, sure Burke. What is it?” “Allen, this is serious.” Allen turned from his work to look at Burke. Burke Preston was average in many ways; average height, average build, average brown hair and eyes, but he was one of Allen’s oldest friends which rocketed him from the atmosphere of average into the orbit of exceptional. Not that Allen was exclusive in selecting his friends in any way. Indeed, he could ill afford to be choosy. Allen was, it could be said, quite focused, although not on the things that made for easy social interaction. His light brown hair was forever in a wavy mess. He forgot to shave most days. His attire laughed in the face of the fact that he actually had a wife that saw him leave the house each morning. No, Allen was laser focused on one thing above all else - his work. Those of his acquaintances who made the effort to break through were exceptional… and patient. Burke and Allen had met in college and had endured graduate school together. They had even been roommates for a time; a circumstance, which earned Burke both the respect and ridicule of his friends. After graduation, Burke came to work for Electrotech and Allen followed him after 18 months of badgering from his good friend. That was seven years ago. Although Burke worked in a different department, they had the same supervisor and saw each other nearly every day. Allen assumed Burke needed a consult on a project on which he was working, but the tone of his voice told him this was something completely different. Burke grabbed the extra chair in Alan's small, windowless office, drug it passed a stack of bound and unbound printouts balanced precariously near the buried desk and sat in it backwards, the backrest pressing into his chest. “You know the company has put the Bio project grant up for renewal.” Burke began. Allen nodded still trying to discern the reason for Burke's demeanor. “Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this but the application was rejected,” he continued, realizing with his words what his tone and expression had already conveyed to Allen's subconscious. “What?! We’ve had that grant renewed for three years running." His half step warning wasn't enough to temper the blow. "What made them cut us off now?" “Damn, this is hard Allen. We’ve been friends forever. This isn’t coming from me. I’m just the messenger.” He hesitated. It pained Burke to deliver bad news to his friend. Allen was obsessive over his projects and a dedicated employee and didn't understand why everyone didn't approach the work in the same way. But sometimes his 'focus' was like a set of blinders. “Come on, I know you’re not in charge of the grants. What happened?” “The board wasn’t satisfied with your progress over the past year; really two years. They said they renewed the grant reluctantly last year but this year they just can’t see that the project is worth the continued funding. They think you’ve come to a dead end. Not that it’s your fault. They don't blame you. Some research just runs itself out. You know, after a while it just doesn’t look like anything profitable is going to come from continuing. And you know as well as I do that profitability is the bottom line.” “I know I’m close to a breakthrough on this.” Allen said, trying to hide the desperation in his voice. “Didn’t they read the paper I wrote? It was almost published!” “'Almost' being the key concept, Allen. They just aren’t willing to wait around while you figure it out. I’m sorry.” Allen Hathaway had seen the handwriting on the wall several months earlier but had been perfecting his denial and self-delusion routine since then. Still, Burke’s words came as a shock. Somehow hearing his fears spoken made them real. His research had been coming along slowly and he could tell Electrotech could not yet see the potential profit in his work. Bioelectronics was an interesting field, but ‘interesting’ didn’t pay the bills, it only created more. He felt he would be able to capitalize on aspects of his research if only he had more time. These things take time. Why couldn't they wait a little longer? He was researching electronic signatures - the electric readings that emanate from all things. He had been attempting to standardize these readings for different substances. His hope, and that of his employer, was that these readings would assist the government and other private industries in identifying these substances quickly and definitively using a scanner that he was developing. If he succeeded, the users of his technology would only have to take a quick electronic reading and his program would tell them exactly what they were looking at. Potentially, standards could be programmed for every substance (and combination of substances) known to man. The applications of the device he would produce were unlimited - from government drilling and excavation projects to aerial military surveillance to private operations in mining, archaeology and more. Unfortunately, his theory had run up against some impressive inconsistencies and this had slowed him down considerably. He had hoped it was just equipment calibration problems, which were the topic of the reports he was reviewing when Burke came in. He stubbornly refused to acknowledge the possibility that his entire premise was misguided. But now the point was moot. His project terminated. It bothered him incredibly that he would now never know the truth. A truth he felt so close to discovering. After a long moment, Allen said with a marked lack of conviction, “It’s going to be hard to let this project go. I’m not sure I really can completely, but I guess I have no choice. Perhaps working on my next assignment will help." He didn't really believe the distraction of another project would erase his need for answers on this one but his options were singular in nature and he was a pragmatist. The quicker he attempted to move on, the better off he'd be. "Do you know where they will be putting us?” Burke looked at his hands and said nothing. “Burke? What is the department going to be working on if not the Bioelectronics project?” Slowly Burke looked up from his hands. “There were other grants not renewed, other funding that’s gone now." He hesitated. "They’re closing your department. It’s all about profit and loss. I know it won’t help, but yours isn’t the only department being shut down.” Burke paused, letting this new piece of information sink in. Then he said, “Their giving you four weeks’ notice and then six months’ severance pay. I’m sure with all that you’ll be able to make it until you find something else and with your experience that shouldn’t take long anyway. The company’s giving you a positive recommendation despite letting you go. They’ll spin it. It won’t look bad.” Allen leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath and let it out again but said nothing. Seven years was a long ride, especially in this high tech industry, and he knew it. This wasn’t grad school. You could stay there forever. Allen almost had, taking more and more classes and labs, taking teaching assistant positions, volunteering to lead professor’s research teams. It was safe there. Time to investigate and explore. It was a place removed from the realities of life in a way. He could hide there. The expectations were different there. That’s why it had taken him so long to make the move into the real job market. Poor Burke had spent all that time trying to convince him that having a job, the right job, could be even more fulfilling than perpetual academia. Until today Burke had been right. Now the rug had been pulled out from under him. He felt like Wile E. Coyote. He had run off the cliff (probably months ago) and was just now realizing there was no ground beneath him. It wouldn’t be long, he figured, before dust curls rose from an Allen shaped hole in the canyon floor.

1. Story Statement: · Allen must go forward in time in an attempt to find a cure for his infant daughter’s terminal illness. 2. Antagonist · Identifying the antagonist in my story is a difficult task which may be why I’ve struggled moving forward with the novel. My protagonist is thwarted not by an individual character but by circumstances he encounters based on decisions he has made. He travels to the future in a gamble that doctors in the future will have found a cure for his daughter’s illness. He finds that they have not and indeed the intervening years had played out in such a way that they were never looking. His original plan was for his daughter and wife will join him in 2099 (they could not all travel together). When the time comes for their arrival, they do not show up. He attempts to research what happened to them and he finds that his daughter died a year after he left and his wife remarried. Having no way to find out why, he falls into a depression that lasts for years until he finds himself incarcerated and under the care of a psychiatrist with whom he eventually feels secure enough to share his story. The rest of the novel revolves around their attempts to find a cure, their relationship, their child, and eventually full circle to him finding the answers he had been searching for all along. I’m considering adding a character that follows him into the future for nefarious reasons but I’m not quite sure how to do it yet. 3. Breakout Titles: · Father Time · Breath of Time · Changing Fate 4. Comparables · The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (one of my 5 favorite novels) · And Then She Vanished by Joseph Bridgeman (recently listened to on Audible) · The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman (just found while researching to answer this question. It is very close to the mechanism/discovery used in my story.) · The Time Anomaly by Katie Mitsui 5. Core Wound and the Primary Conflict – Hookline Estranged from his parents after his brother’s death, Allen must rise to become the parent he wishes he had, risking everything on a chance to save his daughter. 6a. Inner Conflict Scenario The first, second, and third opinions all agreed that Emma had just over a year to live. ‘Go home.’ ‘Make her comfortable.’ ‘Love her.’ But that wasn’t enough for Allen. He would not abandon her to fate. He didn’t know how yet but he would change this. He knew abandonment and he would break that chain. It wouldn’t bind either of them anymore. 6b. Secondary Conflict (social environment) (A scene where Allen must pawn items after arriving in 2099) “All right. Let’s see what you got wef.” Allan had found what he assumed to be this time’s version of a pawnshop. He had taken his briefcase in and was about to offer something to pawn when it occurred to him that he had no idea what price his items should bring. He would probably be taken, but it didn’t matter. He needed at least $375 and he needed it by Wednesday of next week. That was when he had an appointment with Dr. Baderman. He removed his spare glasses from the briefcase and laid them on the table so they wouldn’t be in his way as he was choosing something to pawn. “That’s trunckable!” said the shop owner. “Trunkable?” asked Allan. “Yea, sure, I haven’t seen any of those in 5 or 6 years, very rare.” “Haven’t seen any of what in five years” “Don’t play yerk wef, the glasses, the glasses.” “These? You like these?” “Of course, very collectible. They haven’t been used in over 60 years. Very few pairs have held up and most of those are in museums. This is a fine example. I’ll take ‘em.” Allan had his contacts on and didn’t really need the extra pair and from this conversation he surmised that with a little investigation he wouldn’t need his contacts either. So he said, “How much for them?” “This is a turn around shop you know, not a fancy auction house or museum scout store. But I could give you $7500 for them.” He knew enough to know that this was just his first offer. In order not to be taken he would have to play the game. “I don’t know, um, I had hoped for a little more than that.” “You’re playing me again. You didn’t even know what you had. Hell, if I didn’t know better I’d have thought you wore these yourself. I’ll go up to 85 but you’d better take that because I doubt that once it’s on the street that you’ve got these, you won’t have them for long. I think you know what I mean.” “How is anyone going to know I have them? You didn’t until I showed them to you. What’s to keep me from putting them back into my briefcase and going to the next guy for more?” he said boldly. “Where are you from wef? The cams,” he said turning around and motioning with his arm to what appeared to be closed circuit cameras mounted on the wall behind the counter. “Everyone knows. At least everyone logged on right now. How do you think I get my buyers? I’ll have these sold by 6pm.” Allan cleared his throat; clearly he had been outdone and had better take what he could get. “85’ll be fine,” he said looking up at the cameras. 7. Setting This novel begins in the present but most of it takes place in 2099. Earth hasn’t changed too much in appearance; however, society has made some dramatic shifts. The people of this time have lived through the ‘Genetic Revolution’, a time when funding for disease research was secretly diverted toward finding ways to remove the incidence of genetic disease not developing cures. Genetic testing is commonplace and determines if a pregnancy will go to term. The Welfare system has become a highly regulated operation where recipients live in government owned facilities and agree to follow a set of rules, those that do not are relegated to the ‘colonies’ where they are removed from government assistance and subsist on individual or organizational charity. Clones are commonplace but have become a sort of slave class. Citizens are tracked in almost every respect.