Algonkian Retreats and Workshops 2023 - Assignments

[Elizabeth Wellington]

1. Story statement:

Tess has to share her truth when she makes the worst mistake of her life. (Also: see log line below.) 

2. The antagonist:

The antagonist Tim Butler is a narcissistic progressive from a long line of politicians with questionable moral character based in Boston. Tim made a name for himself for leading a filibuster to protect women’s reproductive rights in the U.S. House of Representatives in pink sneakers. He sleeps with his ex-girlfriend (a bookish food and culture journalist who never got over him) while feigning a divorce, pulling her into a sex scandal with national implications.

Tim values public opinion more than private truth, leading him to distort both at great cost to those dearest to him — particularly, the women in his life. As the stakes rise in the lead up to his election as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, he becomes increasingly manipulative and malevolent. He’s motivated by an ego the size of Massachusetts. 

3. Breakout title:

SCANDAL ON THE PLATFORM 

TESS ON THE PLATFORM

LUCK & THE PLATFORM

4. Genre and comparables:

Women’s contemporary fiction/book club fiction and the below comparables — 

*the pitch-perfect social commentary in CITY OF LIKES 

*cinematic escapism of CRAZY RICH ASIANS

*feminist themes of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY

*self-discovery of THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

*Irish heritage of WE ARE THE BRENNANS

*the scandalous intrigue of THE FRAUD SQUAD

*the wit of DEVIL WEARS PRADA

*culinary charm of THE CITY BAKER'S GUIDE TO COUNTRY LIVING

5. Log line

When straitlaced food journalist Tess O’Sullivan falls backwards into a political sex scandal, she must find her voice during a trial of public opinion or risk losing it.

6. Inner conflict continued

Tess feels conflicted about the choices she’s made to betray her own values and the humiliation she must endure to right those wrongs. She also has to fight her own tendency to stay “in the margins” of her life and to use her voice to tell other people’s stories rather than her own. It’s only when the conflict escalates externally — with press knocking on the door of her grandfather’s nursing home and the antagonist misrepresenting Tess' genuine  act of self-defense  —  that Tess finds the motivation to face the antagonist and his lies, online, in print and in television. 

7. Setting

This manuscript takes place within the working class Irish-American community in Boston before launching onto a luxury train ride in Ireland, where Tess is surrounded by influencers on a free press trip. The narrative walks back and forth between the present and the past to propel the protagonist forward on both sides of the pond. Having lived in Boston and reported on the real-life train ride featured in the book, I bring an authenticity to the setting that goes beyond the Boston and Irish stereotypes. The train ride itself also serves as a metaphor for Tess’ journey to expand her world and her sense of possibility, all the while honoring her deep roots. 

[Jace Rose Malmquist]

Story Statement: By looping through memories of old Florida summers with Gram and too much time in Ohio, the protagonist processes anger with their mother, grief for their brother, and their longing for a home that no longer exists. 

 

The Antagonists: Sometimes, because of their OCD, the narrator is their own antagonist. Other times, it is the mother (depressed, too thin, deeply into the aesthetic side of life) because the protagonist believes she sent them away to live in Ohio when they were four. And sometimes, the antagonist is the protagonist’s faultless husband who the protagonist believes wishes for someone else.

 

Breakout Title: Beautydance. I would list other options but this is the only title I’d ever agree to publish the book under.

 

Comparables: Beautydance is a story about how illness, religion, relationships and adventures all swirl together in our childhoods, similar to Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. It’s also a story about traveling: the people you meet and relationships you make along the way, as in William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways.

 

Hookline: Missing those good old summers in Florida, a young woman returns to the place of her favorite childhood home, facing—along the way—anger with her mother, grief for her brother, and the heavy impermanence of everything.

 

Turmoil: The character’s OCD manifests as loops; sometimes, they loop through memories, and sometimes, they get stuck on certain thoughts and behaviors. This underscores “the thing” with Ohio, guilt over the brother’s passing, fear of the husband leaving. Character resolves most conflicts by looping through memories and ideas over and over until she gets closer to, or right at, the heart of things.

 

Setting: One of the first and most important settings is Gram's jungley Florida cottage home: wet green everywhere with a screened-in porch and mulberry bushes far in the back. Kids (and Gram) run around barefoot and the street is quiet, not too many houses on it yet.

 

I’m working three jobs leading up to this conference or I’d take time to write more today (sorry all of this reads so rough drafty; it totally is)—can’t WAIT to be there!

Jace

[Nove Meyers]

ALGONQUIN ANSWERS

 

file:///C:/Users/misterm/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.jpg FIRST ASSIGNMENT:

Ruby Parker loved her daddy, almost more than anything. Almost as much as she hated his brother, her uncle Frank. She must find a way to save the family ranch and her daddy’s elephant from Frank. But there’s a war on and revenge must wait, as she must first help her country win that war as a welder and bring her soldier fiancé back to her.

When Ruby falls from a ladder,  a co-worker saves her life and befriends her. As she recovers her memory, she realizes that William used to work for her daddy on his circus. After her father’s death Uncle Frank attempted to murder William, who now joins Ruby on her vengeance quest.

 

 SECOND ASSIGNMENT: 

Frank Parker always played second fiddle to his older brother. Unlike Gene, Frank lives only for himself and the pleasures he can grab from life, by force if necessary. He prefers girls to grown women and often just takes what he wants;  even raping his own young niece as his brother lies dying. He hates both his brother’s elephant and the young black man his brother had as much as adopted.

But then, his brother dies, freeing Frank from any last restraints of decency. He steals the family’s ranch and his brother’s substantial insurance proceeds. He tries poisoning the elephant and attempts to murder the black man, maiming him for life. Within a few years after his brother’s death, as the rest of America fights Naziism, he becomes a rich and powerful man in the small Texas Hill Country community he terrorizes. 

Frank epitomizes both the racism and sexism of the Jim Crow South, but also, in a more veiled manner,  that of the entire country – at the time – and even until today. It is these larger antagonistic forces against which Ruby and William struggle throughout the novel.

 

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: 

The O’Dell Cup is my working title. It’s simple, and perhaps a bit plain, but, hopefully more than a little mysterious. While this may not prove to be the final title of my novel, I’m using it now because it refers to an actual tin cup in my family lore and is the original inspiration for my story.  The cup appears in the novel’s opening scene and, later, its revelation to the protagonist becomes a turning point in the plot. It also serves as a symbol of the racism that permeated the Jim Crow South, even by those who thought themselves immune from it.

Other Options:

              Ruby the Riveter

              Forgetting and Remembering

 

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT:

Water for Elephants - Sarah Gruen

Who doesn’t love a circus?  Not just the glitz, the danger, and the exotica, but also the intrigue and the backstories behind the tent walls. Stories about circuses offer a glimpse into a lifestyle that few have, or really want, to taste. While we may not really want to run away to join the circus it can certainly hold nearly all of us in its spell long enough for a good read.

My female protagonist is based, in no small part, on my own circus family. In fact, when I first read “Water for Elephants” I thought, “How did Sarah Gruen know my family story?” – there were so many fictional accounts in her work that closely paralleled true stories from my own family background.

In The O’Dell Cup Ruby relives much of her own circus experiences as she regains the memories she lost when she fell in the Liberty ship she was helping to build. Sprinkled throughout the novel, these memories and other disclosures recapture for the reader the picture of a small family circus (a “mud show”) characteristic of such enterprises in the  “Jim Crow” rural South.

 

Where the Crawdad’s Sing – Delia Owens

The tie-in to this story is the strength of the female protagonist who overcomes obstacle after obstacle as the story progresses. While my novel has a different time and setting, I think it will attract the type of readers who revel in the struggles and eventual victory of a strong female protagonist. And in both stories the young white female is befriended by and receives invaluable assistance from an older black male.

 

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: 

In recovering her memory after a fall in a WWII ship she worked on, a circus girl discovers that the co-worker who saved her life is the same man who used to work for her daddy’s circus. After realizing that the girl’s uncle has seriously injured both of them, the protagonists vow revenge, but only after the war has ended.

 

SIXTH ASSIGNMENT:

In the novel’s inciting incident, the female protagonist temporarily loses her memory in an accident. Backstory reveals that she was orphaned as a teenager. As she recovers her memory, she learns that her fiancé soldier had been killed on the same day she was injured. Not enough? Finally, she remembers that her uncle repeatedly raped her when she was a child. Although she suffers through these repeated tragedies, none can defeat Ruby. Victimhood is not in her circus DNA. Like the “energizer bunny” she manages to bounce back from all that life can throw at her. Here is one sample:

In the novel’s inciting incident, the female protagonist temporarily loses her memory in an accident. Backstory reveals that she was orphaned as a teenager. As she recovers her memory, she learns that her fiancé soldier had been killed on the same day she was injured. Not enough? Finally, she remembers that her uncle repeatedly raped her when she was a child. Although she suffers through these repeated tragedies, none can defeat Ruby. Victimhood is not in her circus DNA. Like the “energizer bunny” she manages to bounce back from all that life can throw at her. Here is one sample:

Ruby was quiet for a few moments. Then she asked,  “William, may I…would you mind…if… I touched your scar?” 

William’s silent expression indicated that it would be okay.

                  Ruby reached up to his forehead where the purple line began. Slowly and gently, she traced it down his face, past the void where his eye had been, down toward his chin. As her hand reached his lips her fingers began to tremble, and then shake uncontrollably. The scar reminded her of a snake and her worst memory, the most hidden one, the one that had never been remembered, rushed into the depths of her soul. 

The worst memory, the one nobody should have to remember.

“I’m standing above a hole in the ground, like where we buried my daddy. I look down and see… Me. I’m covered with snakes; dozens of rattlers crawling all over my body; hissing; flicking their tongues at me; tasting my body with their tongues – my fingers, my eyes, my lips, my hips, my breasts, my private place. Then the biggest snake, the evilest one, crawls inside me, staying inside, hurting me. I scream but no sound comes out. No one can hear, not even my own mind. I close my eyes, clinch my fists, but it’s still there, staying, hurting, taking part of me. Finally, the snake crawls away.

I look down again and the hole is empty. The snakes are gone. I’m gone.

 Uncle Frankie is standing beside me.

 ‘This is a secret Ruby, our secret. Don’t ever tell nobody. Never. If you do, something very bad will happen.’

He squats down and looks me right in my eyes.

‘It might happen to your little pony Poky, or to that n****r boy you seem to like so much, or even to your beloved Daddy.’

“These last words were spoken with a sneer so evil and dark it seemed to blacken the sky.

But the snake didn’t stay away. It came back, whenever it wanted.  And it went inside me again and hurt me again.  And I lived in fear of that snake. Until Daddy died. And we buried him in the rain.  And his casket floated up the next day. And we had to bury him again. And I got to go away to San Antonio. It was Daddy’s dying that saved me from the snake.”

As Ruby jerked her fingers away from his face William saw the look of horror on hers.

“Oh, Miss Ruby, I’m so sorry. I never should have let you touch my scar. It’s bad, really bad. I know how I look.”

Time seemed to have nowhere to go. It just hung there between the two of them.

Unmoving.

Eventually Ruby, her gaze fixed somewhere else, a faraway place to which William

could never go, said, “It’s not you William. You are a beautiful man, inside and out. I just remembered the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” And then she told William what she had remembered.

After Ruby had finished telling William why she had jerked her hand from his face, the two friends sat in silence for a long while. William kept expecting Ruby to start crying and had no clue as to how to comfort her. But she didn’t fall apart; just the opposite. She was growing stronger.

“William?”

“Yes?”

“We have to make this right, you and me. We have to get even with Frankie for all he’s done.  He hurt us both, real bad.

 

file:///C:/Users/misterm/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.jpg Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it?

Ruby is from the South – Texas - before the Civil Rights era; need I say more? Ruby’s life is saved by a black co-worker who then befriends her as she convalesces. As she gradually recovers bits of her memory, the black man realizes that she is the daughter of a circus owner he worked for a decade earlier back in Texas. And when he hands her the old tin cup he used to drink from, she recognizes him as the man who nursed her daddy in his final illness. They become friends and Ruby considers herself free of the prejudice that permeated the landscape of her childhood. It isn’t until she and William sit together at the staged trial of fifty black sailors that she realizes how deep her own unacknowledged prejudice runs. And William, sitting beside her realizes how he has always accepted his lot in life because “that’s just the way things are.”

Sitting next to her friend William, looking across at the fifty black faces on trial for their lives, some merely teenagers, Ruby found herself on trial as well, perhaps more so. She remembered her thoughts when she had read in the Oakland Tribune the day after the explosion that the “Death toll may reach 650." She was horrified. The war had come home, right in her backyard.  Other than Pearl Harbor, the Port Chicago disaster would be the worst loss of life on American soil during the war. Then, when the article went on to note that most of the victims had been Negro sailors, she had felt a sense of relief. It could have been worse. They could have been…. Even Ruby’s mind couldn’t finish that sentence.

She wanted to wretch as the enormity of her thought sunk in. Her insides started to tear at her as if she had a tiger in her gut trying to rip something evil out of her, something she hadn’t been aware existed. She started to cry, first inside, and then in quiet sniffles as tears dripped down her cheek.

 

 FINAL ASSIGNMENT:

Is there a more iconic structure in the western United States than San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge?  Its mere mention, or a glimpse of its image conjures up memories and feelings within anyone who has ever seen it or heard of it in literature, song, or film. The novel opens, and closes, on the bridge. It is the first landmark Ruby sees when she arrives in California from Texas. And it continues to recur throughout the novel, even serving as an accidental inciting incident for what will become her career.

Ruby couldn’t wait to start photographing the bridge for real. Each photo would tell the story differently; the bridge itself in different moods – early morning through the shroud of fog, late afternoons of golden sunsets, and the evening as the lights of the City began twinkling on. And her pictures would tell the story of the people of the bridge: those who designed and built it; former circus performers who itched to meet its challenges; and those for whom it promised an escape from an unlivable life. And all of its more mundane denizens; tourists, commuters, pedestrians.

 

Across the bay sits Richmond, nondescript if it weren’t the location of one of the largest military industrial complexes of World War II. This is where the two protagonists meet, as welders on Liberty ships.

            Richmond California sticks out into both San Pablo and San Francisco Bays like a hitchhiker’s thumb. The setting would have been beautiful if the Whites had left it the way the Ohlone’s had it when they came. But, unless your taste in vacations ran to oil refineries, assembly plants, or heavy industry, this other “city by the bay” had little to recommend it by the mid-1940’s. …In less than two years, Richmond’s population had mushroomed from fewer than twenty thousand to well over a hundred thousand souls. By mid-’44 Richmond was a twenty-four seven, three-sixty-five, situation….All four shipyards ran triple shifts. Bus exhaust choked the air, and Susan had to keep her car wheels steered clear of the trolley tracks.  Horns blasted. People were walking everywhere, both with and against the lights, as though they’d all been to pedestrian school in New York City.

 

And the beautiful green hills of Berkely, rising above, geologically and economically, the more pedestrian East Bay communities of Albany, El Cerrito, Oakland, and the aforementioned Richmond. The imported Eucalyptus trees  of Tilden Park tower over Casa Serena, where Ruby recovers from her injuries. And where her discovery of a carousel triggers the return of her memory.

By the first of May, Ruby had been moved to a small facility up in the Berkeley Hills, at the edge of Tilden Park.  It was no accident that the recovery center was located where it was. The setting itself was almost enough to cure anything. The brown California hills turn a brilliant green in the Springtime.  Native Coastal shrub covered the ground and imported Eucalyptus trees  towered above, blanketing everything with their unmistakable aroma, like the fog over the bay. It was believed that the scent emitted by the Eucalyptus oils increased brainwave activity and countered physical and mental fatigue.

And, if one listened closely, she might hear the spirits of the ancient Ohlone’s who inhabited the land before the whites arrived. For perhaps thousands of years prior to the Spaniards conquest, these native peoples had made their homes in this beautiful landscape where God probably took his vacation. If one knew how to look and feel for it; how to open one’s pores to the healing ministrations of the ghosts of those ancient medicine men, she could feel a cleansing, a fullness, and a calm that even the strongest drugs couldn’t duplicate.

 

And Treasure Island, not the fictional setting for Robert Louis Stevenson, but an artificial island anchoring the two spans of the Bay Bridge. It is where the US Navy wrongly tried and convicted fifty black sailors of mutiny following the Port Chicago ammo depot explosion in 1944. The novel’s protagonists are present at both the mutiny trial as well as the aftermath of the explosion itself.

              It didn’t take Ruby but about 10 minutes to realize the trial was a sham. The room was salt and pepper, black and white. The salt was sitting at the front table; older white men in their starched white uniforms, their medals threatening to topple them over. And the two younger white men arguing the fate of the pepper; fifty Black men sitting in uncomfortable chairs along the back wall.

 

One significant scene is set in the “Last Chance Saloon” a hole-in-the-wall drinking establishment on Oakland’s waterfront frequented by the writer Jack London around the turn of the twentieth century.

              The saloon had survived the ‘06 earthquake but it hadn’t escaped unscathed. When they bent their heads, at least Gordon did, to step down to enter, he directed Ruby to sit with him on stools at the far end of the bar as the half dozen tables were already filled. The first thing Ruby noticed was that the bar, the original from when Jack London sat there, slanted from one end of the small building down to where they were sitting, dropping close to a foot.

“This is what happened during the earthquake,” Gordon explained. The bar tilted and they never fixed it. I always sit at this end, to keep my drink from sliding down to another patron. It’s sort of the thing here. Newcomers often wind up finding someone ‘down bar’ finishing their first drink.  Most of them learn after that.”

 

As the novel reaches its conclusion the scene shifts to a small town in Texas’ Hill Country, an hour’s drive from San Antonio. It has become the undisputed domain of the novel’s antagonist, a man who epitomizes both racism and sexism. He controls the town and its citizens including the judge presiding over a trial in a musty courtroom with a foregone conclusion.

              The courthouse in Riverbend sat on a little knoll in the middle of town.  With its three stories and belltower it was the tallest building in the community, and you could see its cupola from anywhere in the city limits. The first floor, called the dungeon by some, contained jail cells and the sheriff’s  and coroner’s offices. The two identical courtrooms were housed on the second floor, accessible up fifteen marble steps through the main entrance. The courtrooms sat on opposite sides of the hall towards the back of the building, past the county clerk and assessor’s offices. Each had a double oak door carved with a blindfolded lady justice holding her scales in balance. The majestic doors belied the simplicity of the courtroom itself. The judge’s bench sat on a raised dais, offset a bit to the left to fit in the jury box on the right side. Opposing counsel each had a small desk facing the judge at floor level and there were four pew-like benches on each side of the room capable of holding six or seven spectators. The rooms gave off a faint musty smell due to the paucity of windows and there was an ominous, almost frightening, feeling about the space. As if the ghosts of criminals, themselves victims of some of the “hanging judges” of the previous century, were hanging around to see who else might share their fate.

[DomGerard]

1. FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement.

In 1918 Philadelphia, three queer people – a young orphaned soldier who finds love in the unlikeliest of places, an Irish nun-in-training who wants to reconcile her body’s desires with her faith, and a Black pastry chef who seeks his family’s acceptance – are drawn together as they attempt to construct lives without a blueprint and thrive in the midst of social upheaval, war, and a global pandemic. 

 

2. SECOND ASSIGNMENT: Antagonistic force in your story.

The antagonistic force against all these characters is traditional American society. Albert constantly struggles against a society that wants to define his love for Vito as something dirty and wrong. Religion and a strict upbringing cause the novice Betsy to divide her life into two distinct parts, as the only way she can engage in her relationship with another woman without feelings of shame. While the Black pastry chef, Elijah, struggles to reconnect with his well-to-do family that has shunned him for years, while also trying to carve out for himself a queer artistic life that values authenticity over assimilation.

In the early 20th century, modern queer identities are being invented, and all three characters fight to create honest lives for themselves without any kind of role models, guidance, or language for the world they are trying to imagine. Without a history or sense of community, they struggle to connect with each other, while society continues to punish them with isolation, discrimination, and violence. 

 

3. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title

Sweet Flag (this is the title I’ve had for months)

Philadelphia Freedom

What Are We Now?

 

4. FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Comparables.

Sweet Flag is essentially John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row meets Brokeback Mountain. A story of working class people defining their own sexual identities in an urban environment. It is historical fiction with strong LGBTQ themes and characters.

As a coming of age novel of self discovery, Sweet Flag is comparable to Tomasz Jedrowski’s Swimming in the Dark published in 2020. Set in 1980s communist Poland, the story is also about one world coming to the end at the dawn of a new age. The innocence of the main characters meeting in a summer work camp only to see themselves separated by a society that does not recognize their connection is similar to my novel. 

In terms of working class context and a variety of burgeon sexual identities, my story also compares well to Gina Marie Guadagnino’s The Parting Glass published in 2019. Set in 1830s New York, the novel follows an Irish immigrant maid and her brother. Both of them develop relationships - him with the boss’s daughter, her with a lesbian prostitute. The swirl of a variety of urban settings, and the examination of sexuality, race, and class in this novel compare well to my story. 

 

5. FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: Hook Line.

Struggling against their own fears and an oppressive society, three working-class queer people fight for love and build their chosen family in 1918 Philadelphia. 

 

6. SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: Primary, Secondary, and Inner Conflict.

Primary Conflict: 

The primary conflict of the novel is the fight to be authentic/honest when traditional society, as personified by the military, the church, and family, rejects you.

The novel begins with Albert and Vito’s rejection from the military under charges of sodomy. This sets up their arrival in Philadelphia and their struggle to create a life with each other, while they are in constant fear that discovery will lead to their ruin. As a nun-in-training, Betsy must keep her outside lesbian relationship a secret and so she creates two separate lives for herself in order to avoid being kicked out of the convent. Rejected by his middle-class family, the pastry chef Elijah attempts to create a family of his own when he is rejected by his biological family once again. 

Secondary conflicts:  

The inability of language to define identity and relationships. Throughout the novel, characters strive to find the words to describe what is happening, how they feel, and who they are. Modern queer identities are just being formed, and so they really are inventing themselves as they go through these experiences. 

Scenario: A scene in an Italian bakery when they first arrive in Philadelphia reflects the struggle for acceptance in a society in which a relationship like theirs cannot be conceived of. An angry Italian neighbor calls Albert a slur and says he and Vito are dirty. While Vito reacts violently against the slur, neither Albert nor Vito really have other words to describe what is happening between them, which is why Albert later asks Vito, “What are we now?” 

The struggle to connect with other queer people and to learn their stories. Queer people do not have histories taught to them – they can only learn them from each other. However, their fear of rejection and violence makes it harder for them to open up and share. The characters are constantly in a Catch-22 of wanting to hear stories but also protecting themselves from harm.

Scenario: Betsy desperately wants to hear her lover Annie’s story. She wants to know about Annie’s past and how she came to be in Philadelphia. Annie constantly draws their time together back to acts of physical pleasure, and when confronted, refuses to share anything about her past, saying it doesn’t matter. At the same time, she becomes increasingly possessive of Betsy. When Betsy pushes back, Annie resorts to intimidation and violence. 

The tension between what one presents to the world and the truth one hides. Even though this is a world before “the closet,” the characters all feel a tension of hiding and showing, presenting an acceptable, appropriate façade to the world, while hiding your true nature, relationships, and feelings away from prying eyes. 

Scenario: When Vito and Albert get their picture made in a photography studio, the photographer thinks of them as just two veterans, friends from the war. As they pose for the picture, however, Vito reaches under Albert’s clothes and starts to caress him in a way the photographer cannot see. Hiding their sexual arousal and still maintaining a look of friendship and propriety, the two men take their first and only picture together. 

 

Inner Conflicts: 

In some ways, a fear of rejection is the core wound for all three main characters. They all had a moment of vulnerability in their past where they were made to feel ashamed and were rejected. 

Albert’s inner conflict: Growing up an orphan and experiencing abuse, Albert constantly fears rejection. While he reaches for love and friendship, he always expects to be hurt. He knows his nature is different from others, but he doesn’t have the words to describe what he feels or who he is. He just knows that he will get hurt if he lets it show.

Scenario: The first night Vito and Albert make love in a Philadelphia boarding house. Albert feels Vito hovering over him and desperately wants him to get into the bed with him, but Albert is terrified of saying anything and being rejected. Once they do make love, Albert feels certain he should leave the bed, because Vito will undoubtedly push him away. However, Vito surprises Albert when he clings to him, breaks down crying, and admits his feelings.

Betsy’s inner conflict: Having been discovered pleasuring herself as a child, Betsy’s mother rejected her as a “filthy girl” and soon after died. She fears sin and being condemned. The shame she feels about her sexuality drives her to join the convent, the only acceptable place she feels she can control her desires through increasing religious devotion.

Scenario: Betsy arrives late to morning prayers and soon settles into focusing on a particular candle. However, she is constantly distracted by the image of St. Theresa in ecstasy as the angel pierces her with an arrow of God’s love. Betsy wishes God’s love fulfilled her in the same way, but has thus far found him lacking. 

Elijah’s inner conflict: Elijah has been rejected by his biological family for years, and he has constructed a chosen family with a young trans girl who came into his life. However, his fear of rejection is rooted in being alone. He is desperate for a family to love him, but having been rejected and abused, he displays a very guarded and imperious personality.

Scenario: Elijah sees a great deal of himself in Albert, who comes to work in the kitchen with him, but he struggles to open up to him. When tragedy befalls Elijah and he comes to work visibly upset, Albert tries to comfort him, only to be rebuffed by a tearful Elijah who tells him to get back to work. 

 

7. FINAL ASSIGNMENT: Settings.

Underneath its stiflingly proper veneer, 1918 Philadelphia teems with change and turmoil. So many places in Philadelphia present themselves as full of propriety and tradition, while their alley-facing rear entries or back rooms reveal greater truths or the “real” Philadelphia. Soldiers returning from war and radical working class politics, immigrants and Southern blacks fighting for space, the approaching Jazz Age and Prohibition restrictions all create a powder keg environment. During the summer of 1918 in which the story takes place, the city faces a race riot, food shortages, and the catastrophe of the Spanish flu epidemic. 

 

Major settings throughout Philadelphia:

Albert and Vito’s room - Living in Signora Spadaro’s boarding house, Albert and Vito carve out a life for themselves in the spare third-story bedroom Signora rents for them. It’s threadbare, sparse furnishings take on greater significance for them as they fill it with their love and artifacts of their life together. 

Cafe L’Aiglon - One of the most luxurious and socially significant restaurants in the city, the Cafe L’Aiglon is the place to see and be seen for Philadelphia patrician society. Albert and Elijah exist in the kitchens of this restaurant, but peek out to get glimpses of accepted society. The backside of the restaurant faces a narrow alleyway where Elijah and Albert have some of their most honest conversations. 

Lattimer Tea Room - Owned by Annie, Betsy’s lover, the Lattimer Tea Room is a proto-speakeasy on the bohemian Camac Street, which serves gin for women who cannot go to saloons. It is filled with the stuff of beauty - artwork, antiques, memorabilia, etc. - that Annie collects around her. Betsy has no idea what all the collections mean to Annie, but at times feels like she herself is being collected. 

The streets and rooftops of Philadelphia - So much of the action in this story takes place in Philadelphia’s theaters, streets, alleyways, squares, and rooftops. For people of different classes, genders, and races, sometimes, the only acceptable places to meet were public. Again, while Philadelphia’s main streets and boulevards feel presentable and safe, danger and desire are always hiding in the back alleys and rooftops. 

[David Stoddard]

1 - WRITE YOUR STORY STATEMENT

Fraud investigator Ian MacCallister exposes a brilliant and greedy scheme involving the illicit transfer of exquisite real estate in Europe and Central America.

2 - SKETCH THE ANTAGONIST FORCE IN THE STORY

The Vice President of the United States is a financial cheater.  He abuses the power of his office by siphoning funds from the US embassy in Belize to enrich himself with luxury property holdings.  With the help of an unsavory staff, he defrauds the country that elected him and rationalizes that doing so is standard fare for politicians in high office.

3 - CREATE A BREAKOUT TITLE

FRAUD JUNGLE:  The Belize Case

FRAUD JUNGLE:  Belize

FRAUD JUNGLE – Belize

4 - DEVELOP TWO SMART COMPARABLES

Written somewhat like a Clive Cussler novel, the protagonist is a cross between Cussler’s Dirk Pitt and Ben Affleck’s character (without autism) in the movie, The Accountant.

5 - WRITE YOUR HOOK LINE

Hired to investigate suspicious financial transactions undertaken by white-collar criminals, a fraud examiner cheats death at the hands of the perpetrators as he learns that busting the fraud could cost him his life, and the lives of those he loves.

6 - SKETCH OUT CONDITIONS FOR INNER CONFLICT

Primary Conflict - The fraudsters and accompanying assailants attempt to throw the investigation off course and resort to assassination attempts against the protagonist and his team.

Secondary Conflict - The wife of the fraud examiner suffers head trauma from a bicycle accident that affects her long-term memory.  He is torn by her inability to remember him as he carries on with his fraud investigation pursuits.

7 - SKETCH OUT SETTING IN DETAIL

The protagonist follows the elusive trail of money across the pristine ski slopes and quaint villages of the Swiss Alps, in a European autobahn high-speed chase, under water during a Caribbean scuba encounter, and while braving the dense jungles of Belize.

[Ariel Slick]

 

[Stephgaff]

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. 

  Amber and Catherine are half sisters that are torn apart by the abuse and lies brought on by Amber’s father, Joe. Once Catherine is removed from the home by child protective services and safe from her step father,  Amber must learn at the age of 8 how to survive her fathers unpredictable rage on her own. The sisters endure their own internal struggle with the lingering effects of the abuse inflicted upon them, when they meet again 8 years later at Joe’s funeral after he commits suicide. Catherine, who by now was an adult with children of her own, came to make sure the bastard was dead. Amber, still a child riddled with shame and guilt, had made her dad a martyr in her mind. He was a good man she thought, he just had demons.  This reunion marks the beginning of the girls' journey to healing their childhood wounds and ending a cycle they were born into. 

 

   

 

SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.

 

    “Oh she is just such a doll”  “what a sweet little girl”  “I’ve never seen a child so well behaved” These were the things that Amber had always heard from her family members, teachers and parents' friends. She had them fooled, so she thought. Amber didn’t remember learning the skill of tricking people into thinking she was sweet, it was more of an instinct. A tool used for survival. She was the youngest child in what was left of her family. Her 5 older siblings had all been removed from the home, either by their own choosing or by the state of Indiana’s. By the age of 8, Amber was often left alone or worse, with her father Joe. Being sweet and quiet was the trick Amber had learned to avoid the beatings she’d seen her siblings take from their father. Using her innocence as a shield, Amber took to heart the phrase “seen and not heard”. Although sometimes this method was not enough to protect her from her fathers lack of healing. 

 

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed).

 

Abusing of the Belt

 

Abuse of the Belt

 

The Belts Get Back

 

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why?

A Child Called It By Dave Pelzer- This book depicts the horrific abuse of a young boy at the hands of his mother, who struggles with addiction. The depiction of the abusive parent and the lasting psychological effects on the young boy's development is similar to Amber's experience with her father.  

Hilbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance- This memoir describes a socioeconomic likeness to the setting in which Amber is living. Poor, lower class and a dysfunctional family structure that has plagued the family for generations. Similar to J.D. in Hillbilly Elegy, if Amber wants a better life for herself, she must do what no one in her family has done before; heal. 

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication. 

 

A sister's bond; Broken by a lie, mended by the truth. 

 

SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction.

 

 Amber knew she was too old for the toys that were placed in front of her as she waited to be questioned, she played with them anyway.   Before she got there, her dad told her that they would be watching her every move. He told her there would be a large mirror, and on the other side of it would be a group of people watching. “I’ll be watching too, you better do exactly as I say”. She had to act like nothing was wrong, like she wasn’t terrified. She had to be a very good liar, although she was always told there was nothing worse than a liar. According to her dad, if they knew the truth, she would be taken away from her parents and sent to live with strangers. Amber’s knees barely fit under the fisher price table she was sitting at as she stacked wooden building blocks. She wondered as she fumbled with the toys if the strangers she would have to live with would let her bring her dog, Buckeye. Her heart sunk as the door opened, two women walked in carrying clip boards. They smiled gently at her and introduced themselves. 

 

Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it?

“Hi Amber, I’m Linda. This is my friend Amy. May we sit with you?” Linda was older, with a soft face and an accent that reminded her of her mamaw. Amber nervously nodded her head yes. The women pulled up chairs and Linda went on to ask Amber questions about herself at first, then the questions that her dad had prepared her for. “Does your dad ever get angry with your sister?” Before she answered, Amber glanced at the large mirror, the one her dad said he would be watching from.  “yeah, sometimes” She answered nervously. “When she lies or talks back, she gets in trouble.” “What does your dad do when Catherine gets in trouble?” Amber twirled her hair and stared at the ground as she answered. “He grounds her or makes her stand in the corner. Sometimes he takes away her boom box or makes her do extra chores”. Linda and Amy made eye contact then looked back at Amber. Linda leaned in and placed her hand on Amber's knee when she asked,  “Does dad ever hurt Catherine?”   Amber responded almost in a whisper “Just when she's getting spanked, for lying. She lies a lot. she gets a whoopin if she locks me in the basement and has boys over.”  She knew that what she had just said wasn’t true.But it was exactly what her dad told her to say.  The truth was that Amber loved when Catherine was watching her. She was 6 years older than Amber, which meant she was young enough to still play in the sprinklers and old enough to make her boxed mac and cheese for dinner. 

  Linda and Amy glanced at each other once again and each wrote something down. After a few more questions they took Amber back down a long hallway and through some secure looking doors, where she was met by her mom and dad. A wave of relief quickly turned to guilt when she realized that Catherine was missing, and the smile on her dads face confirmed that they would not be bringing her sister home with them today, or ever. ‘At least she's safe with those strangers’ she thought to herself while imagining being on stage at some awards show, accepting her award for “most convincing and awful liar”. 

 

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it.

 

 Amber felt a surge of panic travel throughout her body as she realized what she had done. She ran her hands along the damp, sheetless mattress  beneath her.  She let out a hushed cry, “Ooh no no no please no”. Amber still had red lines down her back from the belt she got for peeing in the bed two nights ago. The sun was just beginning to peek through some holes in the black trash bag that her father had taped over her window. She laid there in the stench of her urine for some time, tears rolling down both sides of her face, stinging the soft skin on her temples. She deserved to lay in it, she thought. What was coming next would be worse. Her dad drank a bottle of Jim Beam the night before so she knew he would sleep late, but wake angry. 

  The only thing Amber could do was change herself into dry clothes and somehow try to hide the large oval stain that stretched across where she had slept. ‘That is a lot of piss’ she thought to herself as she stood up and looked down at the naked mattress that rested on the floor . She wondered if she were perhaps dreaming of being on a toilet, or of swimming in the ocean. She tried to come up with some reason as to why she was this way. But the only answer that came to her was that she was just bad. She was a bad kid that was good at pretending to be good. Good kids have clean rooms, with posters of their favorite pop stars on the walls. And a mattress with no stains on a bed frame with a blanket and sheets that matched. Amber's room was decorated with some piles of dirty clothes, a boombox her sister Catherine had left behind and a small yellow bedside table that had been doodled on.  The only sibling she could still remember was Catherine. She used to read books to Amber, and taught her how to do the electric slide. The happiest memories Amber had were with Catherine, but so were the most painful. Thinking about Catherine just reminded Amber of how bad she was. Amber knew that if she hadn't told that lie to those ladies with the clip boards, her sister would still be here to help her flip the mattress over. 

[Pauline]

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement.

Even if she must defy the Moon Goddess, Acalia will make every personal sacrifice to stop the soul thieves to redeem herself and save all those she loves back home on Etherluna and here on Gaia.

SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.

Kernt’s discontent had been building up for centuries as he watched members of other clans bath in the blessings from the Goddess. The discontent slowly turned to anger as unsettled whispers from other clan members lent justification to his thoughts of unfairness. The loud complaints of rejection after rejection from one he swore to protect emphasized a need to force a change to their situation. He was primed to become a cult follower when approached to take destructive action to raise himself up to the level and power he felt he was entitled too. He was quick to latch onto the demented moon witch who’s own twisted logic played into his own skewed reasoning validating his decisions to destroy anyone in his way.

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed).

Soul Matched

Soul Thieves

Abomination

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Read this NWOE article on comparables then return here.

- Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why?

The authors’ books my story is comparable to have strong, ongoing series with beloved characters that readers cling to during the wild misadventure and triumphs over one adversary after another with a twist that gives fresh eyes to the genre. Like Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, my story has relatable, endearing characters that have their own problems that keep the reader rooting for their success and in tears over their losses. My side characters’ lives are complex with their own juicy problems that make the reader want to be their best friend to help fix it or drink a big glass of wine to commiserate with them. Ann Bishops’ Others’ series reinvented the fantasy genre with the voice of the wild, magical creatures saving the world while the humans are trying to prove they aren't the plague that needs destroy. My story’s twist gives a voice to the dark, dangerous, creature from inside the magical Soul Match and revels the world behind the wolf side as no other book has. Invested fans are on the edge of their desire for the next book to be released in Briggs and Bishops series, I know because I’m one, and my series will have the readers hoping the story never ends and craving more.

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication.

Tormented from being tricked into destroying and replacing Bellanna as the wolf side of the Soul Matched werewolf pair drives Acalia to use her Goddess forbidden knowledge from Etherluna to stop the disillusioned Etherwolf, Kernt, and his demented witch from destroying all that she holds dear.

SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction.

Acalia narrowly escapes her own destruction by accidentally participating in the elimination of another innocent Etherwolf. She has always felt compelled to help and stand up for others. Now she finds herself the source of inconsolable pain. She can’t even sacrifice herself to undo the damage and death she was a party of. During each step she takes to stop and punish the ones responsible she is faced with another individual that feels the loss and emptiness her action helped to create. Her guilt compels her to protect those that she she has caused irreparable harm.

Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it?

Treont was blessed to not only find a soul match, but also a soul mate. The long lived life of a werewolf can become lonesome and tiresome. He was fortunate the lander he merged with saw the beauty in Bellana’s lander as he knew she was his as soon as his eyes locked onto hers. His gazed poured down past the lander’s mundane brown irises and connected with the amber flame of Bellana’s soul. Their passion endured for centuries until his soul was torn apart by her abrupt loss when Acalia replaced her in the body of the lander he knew as his.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it.

Etherluna – Acalia felt sorry for those of the lander dimension who can’t see past their non-magical noses even when they have finally found a way to set their undeserving feet on the Mother Goddess’ bosom. Their realistic filtered senses only fathom a cold, hard lifeless, stagnant gray ball surrounded by engulfing, smothering black. Their eyes cannot see into Acalia’s home of the Moon Goddess given dimension called Etherluna. They are denied sight of what brakes up the continuous mundane terrain as Etherluna is filled with shooting white sparkles Her pent up magic randomly explodes across the tundra or gently glitters among the minerals coating Her heavenly body. Their environmental muting suits blocks them from seeing and feeling the magic and warmth that lays across the upper atmosphere in colorful ribbons of streaming mixes of greens, reds, and blues photons that ride across the solar winds creates a veil between them and the vast heavens. Through the visor of their helmets they can see carved out, dry, river beds that were formed during Her youth when magma poured from insides out and across Her flesh weaving among the deep impact craters with wrinkled ridges and mountain ranges that had exploded during her bloom. Only those in the Ether world can see and transverse the rivers of white vapor, nebula energy pouring down the carved channels. The landers are rejected by the Goddess as foreign invaders from discovering the underground basalt formed shoots and tunnels to her children's dens. They believe She is a solid, hard, compact, barren orb, they view in the night sky of their Earth bound home, but they still feel compelled to meet her in the heavens where she is still out of their true reach.

[Marlena]

1.      Story Statement:

Julia must create a new family for herself and fight for equality between mutant females and humans.

2.      Antagonistic Forces

The antagonistic forces in the book are purposely twisted in such a way that the reader is surprised at the biggest antagonist. Julia is a mutant female with superhuman strength. Initially we believe non-mutated humans, most specifically men, are the antagonists. However, as Julia learns about her mutation she realizes that the true antagonists are other mutant females whose goal is to rule society rather than make it equal.  

3.      Title: The Mad-Happy

4.      Comparables:

The Mad-Happy is an upside down version of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale with women gaining the larger portion of the power and restructuring society in a way that puts them in control and men as their servants. The feel of the book is also reminiscent of the X-Men, with mutant females acquiring specific physical characteristics. Additionally, mutant females are fighting other mutant females, as well as defending themselves from regular humans.

5.      Hook Line – Conflict and Core wound

In a post-apocalyptic world, a mutant woman who has lost everyone in her life and is wanted for  brutal experimentation seeks to find a new family, as well as figure out who and what she is.

6.      Inner Conflict: Julia has changed physically due to the mutation.  How does that change what she now is emotionally? Julia needs to figure out what kind of person she now wants to be.

Secondary Conflict: Julia is in love with two brothers who become part of her new family. How does she resolve this without breaking that family?

7.      The world is an empty version of a year reminiscent of 2023. The architectural structure of the cities and suburbs are like any we would see in 2023 around the world: cities with high-rises in their centres, pedestrian neighbourhoods with small shops, outskirts with shopping malls and suburbs with brick and siding family homes. However, it has been about two years since 99% of the world’s population died. The physical structures are not yet reclaimed by nature, but they are slowly entering a state of disrepair. Weeds are cropping up, roots are pushing up roads, shingles and siding pieces are falling off houses. The cities have been looted, and many commercial buildings have smashed windows and torn down doors. Remnants of people’s belongings litter streets, and bodies that there was no one left to bury litter the insides of houses and apartment complexes.  However, in a secret spot outside of the city, a lone survivor creates a haven in an underground bomb shelter that resembles a plush country club. Leather furniture and expensive rugs and paintings decorate the living room. Meanwhile generators and solar power enable all the old comforts that are now almost non-existent, such as electric lights, heat and hot showers. On the other side of the city, a prison facility is converted into a group living centre and experimentation laboratory. This is where about three hundred people have turned the old cells into apartments and communally survive as hunters, gatherers and scavengers.

[Eleni Gabre-Madhin]

Reply to Pre-Assignment 1:   What is the story statement of my memoir?

The goal of the protagonist, me, is to belong.  I have craved belonging for as long as I can remember.  To matter, to be valued, cherished, possibly even loved, to be part of something bigger, a community, a society, a country, essentially, to find home.  I grew up in six different countries, moving between countless cities, schools, and houses as a kid.  I never felt I belonged anywhere, a global citizen at best, but really a citizen of none, ever the outsider looking in. Growing up, I had no special memories of spaces in the places I lived, no shared stories with people I had known all of my life, no one to remember me from decades ago.

My need for an identity, a place and a people to belong to, felt to me as basic as needing oxygen, water, food, and shelter, and so much more monumental.  This need has driven almost all of my important adult decisions, including the most important one of all.  That is, which identity?  Despite speaking four languages, living on three continents, having multiple passports and residencies, and a comfortable, even affluent, life in America, I decided to return home to my native Ethiopia after thirty years abroad.  It wasn’t really a return since I had last lived in Ethiopia as a fifth grader, even then attending an American school and not speaking the local language, and it definitely did not feel like home, since I hardly knew anyone in Ethiopia, nor really understood the culture.  But how desperately I had fought to be there over three decades of plotting, obsessing, and conjuring the belonging I so longed for.  Longing to belong.  

I moved to Ethiopia the same month that I turned forty, leaving my husband and comfortable life behind, with my two young sons and a container of our belongings shipped by sea.  I got to Ethiopia with a big idea. A really big idea that would touch millions of lives. I wanted to build a modern commodity exchange, like the Chicago Board of Trade, to help Ethiopia’s very poor small-scale farmers and transform the way trading had happened for thousands of years.  Three and a half later, and it took everything I had and then some, I became the first CEO of the new and shiny Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, a first not only for Ethiopia, but for all of Africa.  In a few years, annual trading reached over a billion dollars, and the exchange transformed the livelihoods of fifteen million coffee, sesame seed, and bean farmers.

My life changed dramatically too.  An intense media frenzy started around me, as my story caught the attention of people far and wide.  A woman, a returnee, a mother, an Ivy League educated economist, it seemed to be a powerful mix.  I  appeared continuously on media, becoming something of a household name, known equally by the most powerful leaders at helm of government to the simplest coffee and sesame seed farmers in remote corners of the country.  I was invited to speak all over the country and around the world, representing a unique success story, in a country known mostly for famine and war. I was invited by the White House to Camp David to share my story with G8 world leaders, among many other opportunities.  At last, it seemed I belonged. I mattered.

As the years passed, I settled into this identity and even took it for granted.  Until, one day a year ago, just like that, it all came crashing down.  I got caught in the political crossfire of a country at war with itself, with the social fabric of the country unraveled beyond recognition by late 2021.   Through an unfortunate set of circumstances,  I found myself the subject of an incensed public media attack, incredibly and wrongly accused of treason and betrayal of country.  It was sudden, dramatic, vicious, and spread like a raging wildfire.  Once seen as a national hero, now a terrible image of me was displayed continuously on national TV and print media with statements of my terrible deeds.  My treachery became the subject of talk shows and public denouncements on every platform available to Ethiopians, within and outside the country, for weeks and weeks.  People I considered friends, former colleagues, government contacts, and even religious leaders,  came forward, wave after wave, to denounce me publicly.  I received numerous death threats, as well as my sons, anonymous private messages describing horrific acts, while publicly an honorary doctorate awarded to me was taken back, I was dismissed from the council of economic advisors, my office was boarded up, my bank accounts were frozen.  In all of its dimensions, it became clear that the society I thought I finally belonged to had decided to viciously spit me back out.  

My close friends and family looked on with horror on the unfolding of this tsunami wave of hatred and retribution.  I stopped feeling, unable to speak out or defend myself, increasingly numbed and alone as my world collapsed around me.  Had I been living in Ethiopia, I would have certainly been arrested, tortured, attacked, or worse.  Someone called it the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism, and cancel culture rolled into one.  It was devastating and horrific in all of its ugliness, a rejection of every aspect of my being that became more painfully real than I can begin to describe.   It felt like a death, if I could imagine what death would be, and certainly was the death of the identity I had longed for and that had driven almost all of my life.

My protagonist story is not just the journey to belonging but also to the unbelonging, the gut-wrenching painful end of an identity, and what happens after that.  My story is not over. I find myself haunted by these questions, Did I ever belong?  What is it to belong?  Who am I?  What is to become of me now?  What is the worth of my life?  

Now I realize that these are the wrong questions, and have been all along, as, fourteen months after the incident that felt like death, I boarded a plane in New York city, headed home.  

 

[K.S. Evering]

Act of Story Statement: 

Evie must navigate a fantastical new world while battling with her awakening inner demon at every turn. 

 

 

The Antagonist: 

There are three prominent antagonists in my story, but the main antagonistic force would be the Spirit. Evie, my teen-aged protagonist, discovers one day that there is a being living within her, and is fairly certain that this being is a demon. This is unfortunate for many reasons, one of the main being that she’s newly started attending a school where the students are doggedly taught to hunt and kill demons. 

The Spirit is a force that has lived in the ether since the beginning of time. But one fateful day it was forcibly pulled from the heavens and sent crashing down to Earth where it split into two. To stay hidden from those that would use it to do harm, both sides of the broken Spirit entered human vessels, remaining within their souls for as long as the vessels lived. Their possession of the vessels guaranteed that there would now always be a target on the humans' backs as those in pursuit of the Spirit went in search of their human companions.

What’s more, a catastrophic event takes place that causes the Spirit and the vessels they live in to stop hiding, and instead fight on opposite ends of a great battle that involves opening the gates of hell. In this battle both vessels ultimately end up dead. 

Now, hundreds of years later the Spirit has awoken yet again in two new vessels. And the one living within Evie will do anything, at risk to Evie herself, to accomplish the task it started hundreds of years ago.

 

 

Breakout Title:

Volume One

The Other World

 

The Legend of the Scintillant

 

The Vessel and the Spirit

 

 

Genre:

Young Adult Fantasy

 

 

Core Wound and Primary Conflict: 

A teenage girl, imprisoned and betrayed by the woman she thought was her grandmother, takes a Door to a fantastical new world where she finds a new family and friends, only to discover a terrible secret that could ruin the life she’s created forever.

 

 

Other Matters of Conflict:

Evie isn’t a normal girl. Muma (her grandmother) aka Helena Eveningstar (the Fey) made sure of that when she stole her as a baby and made her live as a hermit in a cottage in the woods. Now that she’s free, Evie has a new lease on life. Sure, there are things she has trouble swallowing, like the fact that she’s not of the world she’s lived in for all of her life. But her new world really isn’t that different from her old one (apart from the fact that in the Other the folk once existed, the Fey (part folk/part human) being their progeny.

And, also, demons roam the Earth.

But Evie is determined to create her own identity and finally live the life she wants to live. She is making friends in a school of demon hunters (Mab and George) and she’s kindly been adopted by Senior Harinder Ranaday, a demon hunter himself, and member of a secret society. 

But, of course, Evie has issues. Her inner turmoil stems from several different factors. For one, there’s a part of her that misses Muma, even though she knows that she’s a deceitful creature that kept her as a prisoner and constantly glamored her with Fey dust. 

Her second inner conflict is a very relatable one. She’s a teenage girl going to a new school and she’s desperate to fit in. Most teenagers are conflicted when it comes to finding out who they really are, but with most of her memories being falsehoods, and her one friend before she landed in the Other, a middle aged housewife she was glamored into believing was a teenaged girl, Evie has double the amount of insecurities. She knows nothing of her new world. She doesn’t know what shows everyone is watching. What books are they reading? What’s hot? What’s not? Will every word out of her mouth sound stupid? Will she ever make up for what her faux grandmother did to her? 

Evie greatest inner turmoil happens to be the voice in her head. When she’s first aware of its existence she’s reasonably alarmed. Nothing good could come from one who hears voices. However, Evie soon learns that the voice not only speaks to her, but can control her actions too. Her lessons at the infamous Mab and George taught her most plainly what that means. Evie is possessed! And a soul that’s been taken by a demon cannot be salvaged. What will happen to her once her new family and friends learn what lurks within her? What will she do to make sure they don't?

In the background, there is both a political and demonic issue brewing. Let’s start with the political. No one knows for sure where the now gone continent/country of Elphind was located, but commoners (humans) lives were thrown upside down once the folk survivors made an "exodus" from their battered country, and lived amongst commoners in the outside world. Most especially when they made it known that they both existed and that a lot of the elves amongst them were secretly in rule. A power struggle has brewed ever since, and when the Industrial Revolution took place, and commoners officially got the upper hand, they decided that they would never again lose it. (Fe)y Air was created to keep the descendants of the folk – the Fey – dormant (meaning that their folk side wasn’t active).

Now, hundreds of years later, there has been an uptick of Fey showing signs of activity, and the Home Secretary of Englande thinks the only way to prevent a surge is to spread more (Fe)y Air throughout Englande and crack down on Fey showing signs of activity. The WIS (government controlled wise people, or witches) are visiting homes, and workplaces, at the behest of “concerned neighbors”, to take Fey who have been accused of activity and imprison them at Wexley Royal– a hospital that specializes in patients that were either attacked with conjury, or show signs of conjury themselves. 

Now onto the demonic issue. Dust was something organically created by elves and faeries in centuries past. And while the folk are now extinct there are still some Fey that have the ability to create dust. Those that do are usually outed for being active, and sent to Wexley Royal, where they are then cleansed, and their dust sold to the Dark Market in Sub City. But a "dusthead" by the name of Thom Jones came to learn about the the Old One (demon)– Bacchus; the god that comes. He then went on a soul searching journey where he found a rare thyrsus plant and mixed it with animal blood and dust. This laced concoction came to be known as Bacchic dust and when Thom used it he went into a state of manic ecstasy. It was in this state that he heard the voice of the god that comes who implored him to build a cult of followers to follow his will. 

Evie arrives at Norminster, New London the same day that a terrorist attacked. The government believes this group is a fanatic Fey religious order. But the secret society that created the school that Evie attends believes it is the demonic cult of Bacchic dustheads that are currently terrorizing Englande. Evie isn’t aware of any of this, but from the outside looking in she is starting to notice that New London, which is known for its lack of demonic activity, is slowly yet surely becoming more and more dangerous to live. The students of Mab and George are noticing the changes in their city too, and while they are excited, Evie is terrified. The students think this is an opportunity for them to take their studies into action, but Evie can’t help but wonder why an originally quiet city is now teeming with demons not long after she arrives? And furthermore, how did she wind up being possessed herself?  Once her friends and society learn who she is will she be hunted down like the members of the demonic cult?

 

Setting: 

The story takes place primarily in New London, Englande. Evie goes through a Door that she later finds is the entrance to another world– Other. In Other, the faerie folk are not just characters in bedtime stories, but magical beings that once existed, but have since gone extinct. Now all that remains of the folk are their predecessors, the Fey (part human/part folk). 

Norminster, New London is where Tanner House is located. Tanner House is the headquarters for the New London chapter of the Scintillant Society, a secret community of demon hunters. And the head of Tanner House takes on Evie as his new ward when she accidentally Travels to the Other one fateful night. 

Amongst the four chapters in the UK, New London is deemed quite boring due to their lack of demonic activity. Not as boring as the Trau-Wicklow chapter (set on a sheep farm in the middle of nowhere) but boring all the same. 

Norminster is a beautiful borough in the city of New London, known for its quaint cafes, historical buildings, gleaming statues, and housing the Parliamentary. But across the river is Stepney Tower, which has a neighborhood called “Sub City”. Stepney Tower is the night to Norminster’s day. It’s a congested borough, polluted with (Fe)y Air (synthesized gaseous iron meant to keep the Fey’s folk side dormant) and terrorized by cycops (cyclopean Fey police officers). And the city block of Sub City is somehow even worse. Evie has a particularly life changing moment that takes place at a rave over there. 

The idea of Norminster, Stepney Tower, New London, and Other itself is that at first sight these are places that one recognizes. The fashion may not be exactly the same, but not so outlandish that you couldn’t see it coming into trend on this side of the Door. The entertainment runs in more or less the same vein, with tweaks made to represent how the folk culture influences their society. Most Fey look like commoners (100% human), the only thing making them stand out being the black code tattooed on their left wrist for identification purposes. The Other is recognizable, which very often poses a problem for Evie. For in the off chance that she forgets that she is no longer in the world she’s grown up in she’s reminded of this by happening upon a terrifying cycop, wearing a full face gas mask to protect himself from (Fe)y Air (aka the cure) as he hauls a Fey (showing signs of activity) into his massive police van. 

So, to paraphrase what the High Elder Hildimar Travers tells Evie after she steps through the Door, “It’s a world like your own, but…Other”

 

 

[Eleni Gabre-Madhin]

Pre-Assignments 2 to 7

SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.

To quote William Kenower in Writer’s Digest (July/August 2019), “there are no villains in memoir.”

There are many characters in my memoir whose villainous acts I vividly describe, the husband who took me to a beautiful restaurant on a hilltop overlooking Addis Ababa and told me “you will be this country’s prime minister one day. I don’t think you need me for a husband.”  The second husband who one day disappeared without a trace. The father who repeatedly cheated on my mother and scarred me for life. Malicious, jealous, ignorant people who stood in the way of my dreams.  But none of these are antagonists to my story.  

So who is the villain in my story?  Every good story has one, and my story is no exception. Kenower’s memoirist is a detective, going beyond relating the story to uncovering what lies behind it.  As the protagonist of my story, I am motivated by being happy, fulfilled, doing the right thing.  I blame others, random circumstances, and the world for my problems.

But I, the memoirist, will have to unpack the lies that I, the protagonist, tell myself over and over.  And re-tell my story, uncovering where I have misjudged, feared, failed, misunderstood, covered up, or deluded myself, and gotten in my own way.  Thus, I am both protagonist and antagonist, hero and villain.

 

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed).

1) The Market Maker

 2) Exchanging Love

 3) Belonging

 [Each would need need a more descriptive sub-title ?]

 

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT:  Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why?

I think there are several categories, or sub-genres, of comparables to the memoir I am writing.

First, I am writing my story as an Ethiopian-American woman who longs to go back and do something great for her native country.  This is an immigrant, multi-locational story of connection to roots.

In this genre, I think that Chimamanda Ngoze Adichie’s Americanah might be an interesting comparable as she describes her journey from Princeton back to Lagos and back and forth in the perennial struggle for identity.

Second, I am a highly-educated professional black female economist in a male and white dominated profession who achieved something extraordinary, to build a multi-billion dollar enterprise that impacted tens of millions of lives.  This is a professional and personal achievement story.

In this sub-genre, I think that Michelle Obama’s Becoming, the story of her rise from humble origins in South Side Chicago to achieve a stellar education and all that came beyond.  She and I are exactly the same age, and without sounding totally insane, I feel there are many parallels in our lives.  

Another memoir that also seems a good comparable is Finding Me by Viola Davis, also the story of overcoming her early childhood abject poverty in Rhode Island to coming into her own.

Third, I am a person who has felt like a social misfit on the inside, never feeling like I belong despite my best efforts.  And despite achieving great success in building an identity, it all comes crashing down in 2021 and I am left to pick up the pieces.  This is a universally human story of identity, longing, love, and loss. 

In this sub-genre, an interesting comparable would be More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) by Elaine Welteroth, also an African-American woman who achieved success.

Another comparable would be the highly acclaimed memoir The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, a first generation Chinese immigrant, and published in 1976, about her experience related to moving from Communist China to the US. 

 

 

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication.

 

The Market Maker

Uprooted for most of her life and longing to belong somewhere, the author finds her way back from the US to her native Ethiopia to build a national commodity exchange that transforms the lives of millions of small farmers.

Primary conflict:  Desperation to do something that matters for Ethiopia

 

SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction. 

Inner conflict:  sense of not belonging, struggling to define my identity

Scenario:   When I was four, my family moved from Addis Abab to New York City, specifically Flushing, Queens.  We lived in a red brick two-story house with white and a front yard with a little fence around the yard, just like all the other houses on our middle-class suburban street.  There were no other black people, let alone Ethiopians.  In her desperate attempt to ensure that my sister and I would be liked by the neighborhood kids, my mother would bake cookies and cake every afternoon, and all the kids would come to our house every day, making wild noises, shrieks and laughter as they turned our house upside down, every afternoon, as my poor mother would look on, too afraid of the white American children to say anything.  And I don’t recall a single time we ever went to their houses in all the time we lived there. 

 

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it.

My setting is all the places where my story unfolds: childhood between Ethiopia, New York City, Rwanda, and an American missionary boarding school in Kenya on an escarpment above the great African Rift Valley, overlooking wild buffalo and giraffes.  Then to upstate New York where for my undergraduate years at Cornell where I saw my first snow, and later in Geneva for a year exchange program where met my first husband.  Later, Mali in West Africa where I lived for a year traveling around the arid, super-hot countryside, doing research, escaping near death in the Sahel desert with marauders from Mauritania.  Later my husband and I move to Palo Alto, California, where I attend Stanford for my PhD, and we settle down, followed by Washington DC.  Then my move to Ethiopia, and traveling all over the country to convince people about the commodity exchange, and town hall sessions with hundreds of farmers and traders at a time, as well as interactions with government ministers, visiting delegations, including Melinda Gates, Bob Geldof, Bono, and heads of states and others.   Bringing up my kids in Ethiopia, baking cupcakes and attending school functions. Trips, conferences and speaking engagements all over the world, from Chicago to Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Abu Dhabi.   Then the decision to join the UN and move to New York city, where I presently live.

 

 

[Nick Galluzzi]

Story Statement:

Confined to a pointless labor camp in the fascist apocalyptic city-state of Arcane Umbra, Constant desperately desires to see the sky once again, and one day, upon discovering a mysterious voice in his head, he begins to believe that it might be possible. In pursuit of his goals, it seems as if Constant might have to escape or even overcome his fascist government, but if Constant really wants to come to terms with his desires, and what exactly they mean for his place in the world, the only truly effective method is to change his perspective.

Antagonist Forces:

The most obvious outward antagonistic force within the novel is the city-state’s government, a power which has almost entirely been overtaken by its military. Constant thinks that it has its priorities backwards, focusing too highly on projecting the image of power, endangering its own citizens with its incompetence.

In the government’s eyes, Constant’s first crime was living outside of the easily protected and monitored inner city, and his lack of patriotism towards them is his second crime, for which he’s been sent to an unpaid work camp to keep him occupied and out of trouble.

Escaping being his third strike, Constant spends most of the novel fearing the government, and due to his innate misunderstanding of it and its motives, the government ends up feeling all the more terrifying as an antagonistic force to him.

In contrast to the government, the results of its actions in the form of the Panathema box monsters, cut a more classically evil figure, inspired by the myth of Pandora.

And yet most visible in the novel is the antagonistic force of Constant’s own defeated outlook, which would decry any attempted liberation as useless.

 

Title Ideas:

An Attempted Liberation of the Soul

Constant Prometheus

Falling Empyrean Fire

 

Comparisons:

In tone, I’d say that the primary source of inspiration for my novel was the world of 1984 by George Orwell. And indeed, the city of Arcane Umbra deliberately comes off as a sort of Orwellian Fantasy location, what with the authoritarian militaristic government, the destruction of nature, the degradation of infrastructure, the lack of sustainability, and the bleak sense of political hope for the future. My novel’s government may lack in comparative subtlety and all-encompassing sight, but as reality can prove, these aren’t strictly necessary for a regime.

Another difference with 1984 is the addition of a tone-morphing audience representative in the form of Prometheus who would encourage the drive for self-determination and adventure from within the main character’s head. In terms of character concept, Prometheus is a bit similar to Bartimaeus from the Bartimaeus trilogy. Looking back, the origin for him probably came from a mangled idea for a similar companion, (hopefully) sharing Bartimaeus’s satirical edge despite being less physically present and more even benevolent.

 

Conflict/Core Wound statement:

After hearing a voice in his head urging him to escape, a young man must break away from his labor camp and find it within himself to hope for the future, even when he’s lost faith in the use of trying to actively improve his life.

 

Inner/secondary Conflicts:

Throughout most of the first act of the story, Constant holds inner conflict for exactly how much he should trust the voice in his head; an unknown and worryingly naive force which seems as though it’s trying to help him. His main secondary conflict is largely in argument with this voice on what exactly he should be doing in response to the various dangers they face.

Constant’s stance on violence, and the power with which to use it, is also a source of inner conflict for him. His mother’s voice and her peaceful ideals often getting tested by the terrifying reality of the world he finds himself in and the goal he finds himself trying to accomplish.

There is more than one secondary villain who must be overcome with conflict in a man-vs-nature sort of setting. And of course, there is Constant’s inner struggle against his core wound: the lack of trust he places in his own ability to actively improve things.

 

Setting:

Constant’s world is a world of magic and potential and has been from the very beginning right up through the ages to this pseudo-modern day.

Through the power of a soul and the force of a trained personality, all types of different people can utilize magic for some form of powerful effect: from spontaneously pulling clean drinking water out of the air, to growing trees out so fast that they seem to attack you, to conjuring a barrier around a city with such thorough application that not even a soul could escape. Around the world, the development of magic is being treated just as any other sort of science, though for more ease of access, the prevalence of religion and the blessings of “Gods” who can perform such miracles for you, are even more common.

Unfortunately, Constant’s immediate surrounding region, the city-state of Arcane Umbra, seems as if it’s gradually turning into a hellscape through mismanagement, bad decisions, and a pseudo fascist government hell-bent on maintaining the legitimacy of its own power. The city’s democracy has been almost completely eroded away. Freedom of religion is on the decline with the government sanctioning a new and violent god of war. The peace and high standing it used to have in the world have been brought low by the recent war and many of its suburbs have been bombed to rubble. It’s legacy of ancient evils have been pried open in a disastrous political stunt, releasing both monsters and smog. Revolutionary fervor stirs in the sewers and the enormous magical barrier that should be keeping all of their enemies out is instead keeping all of these problems in.

Now, stuck in a fog of distrust and uncertainly, confined to a purposeless workcamp, and walking the ruins of his once great city, our main character Constant can only find a sense of hope and motivation through urging of a mysterious voice in his head named Prometheus, who straddles the line between a god and a monster but manages at least, to be a friend.

[J.M. Getz]

1.       Story Statement:

Unsuspecting teenager Aleks Sultanas, must reunite her ancient bloodline while uncovering a sinister alien plot that intrinsically connects our reality to the dream world and threatens the lives of all conscious beings in the universe.

 

2.       Antagonist/Antagonistic Force:

The main antagonist in this trilogy are the Annanuki race, a widespread ruling alien race that have systematically gained control over most conscious beings in the universe on two separate planes of existence ("dream world" and "waking world"). Each novel has its own separate manifestation of the Annanuki, whom, as the trilogy goes on become more and more menacing, powerful and high ranking.

 

The first major protagonist is Aleks’ childhood bully, Petra, who has been harassing her incessantly since the disappearance of her father at a young age. Petra, or “Pete”, and his cronies have been shamelessly bullying Aleks for over a decade when they take it to the next level by trying to eliminate the Sultanas bloodline. This attempt puts Aleks’ grandfather in a coma, nearly kills her, and functions as the first novel's main catalyst.

 

Later in the novel, when Aleks learns that Petra is an Annanuki spy who was sent to Earth to keep an eye on her family, the friction between the two heats up to a boiling point. Petra, and his associates represent the greed and deception that have plagued conscious life for some time now and progressively get more and more sinister as the story develops to the point where one may even compare them to Assef and his goons.

 

3.       Title Options:

• The Dreamer: Before I Wake
• Waiting for Waking
• Lost Diary of a Lucid Dreamer

 

4.       Comparable Titles:

• Silver Trilogy by Kerstin Gier (2015-2017)
  • The Silver trilogy is similar to my own trilogy in the sense that they both revolve around a young female protagonist who is dealing with consequential lucid dreaming that is intertwined with reality. The Silver trilogy has a more localized plot that deals with mundane teenage conflicts whereas my protagonist is wrapped up in an ancient conflict between good and evil that transcends Earth and implicates the whole Universe.

 

• Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)
  • Neuromancer is most widely known as being the inspiration for the Matrix trilogy. There are several parallels between my story and Neuromancer starting with the parallels between the "dream world" and the "matrix". When the protagonist in each story unlocks their mind in the matrix/dream world, they are able to completely control their reality. The limit of what they can do is only defined by the limit of their mind. There are also themes of artificial intelligence, free will, and totalitarian control in each story.

 

 

5.       Log Line:

As 14-year-old Aleks Sultanas tries to reunite her family and confront her overactive lucid dreaming, her ancient Greek bloodline is pulled into a battle for the control of all conscious beings in the universe through the capitalization of the dream world.

 

6.       Conflict:

•  Primary Dramatic Conflict:
  • The primary dramatic conflict in this series is the lost connection between the dream world and our waking lives, and how to restore the balance between the two worlds.
• Secondary Conflicts:
  • Aleks struggles to balance her home and school lives, causing a clash of two worlds in her own day-to-day. She struggles to feel worthy enough to fit in with girls at her private school and struggles to feel unprivileged enough to fit in with her neighbors in the rundown projects that her family can afford to live in.
• Core Wound:
  • Aleks’ core wound comes from the absence of her father who mysteriously left when she was four years old. The absence of her father forced Aleks and her mother into poverty and they still carry this scar along with them every day. As a child who has been seemingly abandoned, Aleks blames herself for everything and is prone to random mood swings and outbursts of emotion whenever her father is brought up. This wound begins to resolve when her father is reintroduced, however the scar that his absence left will seemingly always be present.

7.       Setting:

To sketch out all of the worlds, dreams, and places on Earth that Aleks finds herself in would take far too long for the purposes of this exercise. However, the story takes place in a vast setting, ranging from Aleks’ families run-down house in the undesirable south side suburb of Lakeside, to futuristic uptown cityscape, to distant planets with fantastical features. As the story switches back and forth between the waking world and the dream world, so do the settings switch back and forth between futuristic urban areas filled with poverty and filth, to utopian floating castles in the sky.

At its base level, this story draws a thematic conflict between nature and society. In this sense, when Aleks is in the world controlled by Annanuki, the environment is defined as dull, lifeless, and grey. Whenever Aleks is at her rebel camp and with her family, the environment is ethereal, decadent, and unique. These two sides of the story work to juxtapose one another and create an easily definable comparison of tone/mood throughout the novel.

At first, the distinction between reality and dreams are stark, and so are the differences in their descriptions. The industrial, lifeless city is contrasted by the imaginative world that beckons Aleks; just as the Annunaki are contrasted by the rebels who seek to destroy them. As the story progresses, however, the lines between dream and reality, between fact and fiction, become more and more increasingly blurred. The waking reality that she inhabits becomes more egalitarian and sophisticated while the dream world becomes more complex and complicated as the lines blur.

[Ben_R]

1. Story Statement

A young architect arrives in a small town eager to start her career with a well know architect. Hopeful of finding a quiet place to raise her twin brother’s son, Meghan and Alex find a secluded place that suits them both. A friendly neighbor offers to take Alex canoeing on the river. His wife, a gregarious matchmaker, entertains Meghan, offering to introduce her to someone she knows. But a series of events challenges Meghan and Alex’s lives as they could never predict. On the river, Alex witnesses a racist cop threaten the neighbor after which the two paddle through a furious storm that has them rescuing a group of campers. The same weekend, a soldier from her brother’s infantry company in Afghanistan leaves Meghan a business card in her door. He tells her the man who shot her brother is in the country and may try to contact her. All she wishes for is quiet solitude so she can create designs for structures that will both delight and endure. She finds that her wish is but a forced dream when she must deal with her employer’s sexual advances, a building contractor’s aggressive demands and a neighbor’s son who assaults Alex. But these are minor issues that occupy her and Alex while dealing with her brother’s army comrade and the potential threat of a Taliban soldier.

2. Antagonists

There are several antagonists in this story aimed at different characters. The summation of their actions and behaviors creates an atmosphere within which Meghan, the main character, must confront her human and extra-human demons. The foremost in Meghan’s mind is Kashif, a Taliban soldier who killed her brother in Afghanistan and now seems bent on tracking her down. Behind Kashif is Sandy, a comrade-in-arms of Meghan’s brother in Afghanistan and now a self-appointed vigilante. Sandy needs Meghan’s help in gunning down Kashif, help she is reluctant to provide. In the background is her employer, a building contractor, and a neighbor whose son torments and hurts her nephew. The minor characters—black neighbors and a homeless man—confront their demons in different ways, but it is Meghan who internalizes their shared experiences, complicating her efforts to calm her own demons.

3. Breakout Title

Searching for the Bridge

The Good of Jambalaya

A Place by the River

4. Comps

I’m sure there are many, but I can’t seem to find any.

5. Hook Line

* A young architect, starting her career and raising her nephew, faces angry contractors and the advances of her employer as she learns her brother’s killer is searching for her.
* A young architect faces challenges at work and home while her brother’s killer, a Taliban terrorist, searches for her.

6. Protagonist’s Inner Conflicts

Primary conflicts: Meghan is a young woman beginning her professional career. She is confident of her abilities but lacks experience in how best to apply them. When faced with her employer’s unwanted advances, she questions her professional decisions. Knowing she is learning from his tutelage, she puts up with the man. Seeking to provide the widest opportunities for her nephew’s growth, Meghan struggles to know what grip to use on the reins. She questions her decisions when Alex is bullied and forced to kill a bird. Confronting the bully’s father, she must defend herself from his angry threats. Living beneath the building where she works—a converted house in town—is a homeless vet whom Meghan befriends. She wishes to waterproof the area beneath the porch for the man, but her employer quashes the idea. She seeks other alternatives with the help of friends, all the while wrestling with the decisions she faces concerning her brother’s killer.

Hypothetical scenario: Sandy alerts Meghan of Kashif’s intent to force her to help him find an Afghan girl studying in the US. Sandy wants to intercept Kashif and kill him. His plan is to camp out in Meghan’s back yard, install trip wire around the perimeter and wait for his quarry. Meghan is skeptical of this hare-brained plan and contacts various government agencies to see what threat she faces. She gets no suitable answers. All she wants is to be left alone to create original designs, but her world tightens with every breath she takes.

Secondary conflicts: Meghan and Alex live on a cul-de-sac with two other families: a retired black couple and a family with two boys. The boy's father is a racist bully whose ways have rubbed off on his older son, a sulky and battered boy. This triangle of troubles lives together in sometimes calm and other times heated confines.

7. Setting

A small town in Virginia where churches are many and the Civil War lingers. Meghan works on the second floor of a Victorian home. A black church where Meghan meets Red, a young attorney. Through the town and beyond, a river curls up close to tall trees that bow to its banks. Where hummingbirds flit and cicadas sing in the late spring is where Meghan and Alex live. A small house with a yard of lethargic grass and weeds on a cul-de-sac close to the river. This is the quiet and solitude Meghan seeks. The river. Soporific in its slide through forests and farmland under a warming sun. Until a freak storm arises in the west, racing east with Alex and his neighbor in a canoe. Lightning cracks open black clouds. Drums of thunder announce a furious rain, causing a tsunami of water to run the river’s length. It is absurd fun and high danger. A grand adventure. All a prelude, a symbol of what follows.

[mhnicholas]

Marcy H. Nicholas

Pre-Event Responses-Writer’s Retreat September 2023

July 30, 2023

1.      Story Statement

 

After being denied tenure, Oliver must find a way to create a new life outside of academia and beyond the Northeast by discovering a new home, new friends, a new love interest, and new experiences.

2.      Antagonist Force

At this point, I would characterize my novel as nascent. I haven’t thought about an antagonist yet. At the beginning of the novel the Dean of Liberal Arts serves as one force of antagonism as he tells Oliver that she has been denied tenure. In addition, Oliver has problems with another character Cameron, a privileged academic who does get tenure the same year that Oliver does not. I don’t know if Cameron could continue to intersect with Oliver or not. Why would she? Oliver is certainly divided between wanting to “return” to the life she knew in some form (at another school) or to lean into this new life in Florida. Ultimately, the novel is about one woman finding a new “tribe” of people around whom she can build a life. So the antagonist would have to be someone who is trying to mess that up in some way or who wants to convince her that she’s not equipped to do this or who is encouraging her to leave this new life. I don’t think that could be her parents or someone in Florida. Maybe it could be a long-term friend from her hometown; maybe it could be a guy she went to grad school with who always had a crush on her and now is trying to reconnect with her and convince her to be with him and become an adjunct.

I just finished reader Allison Larkin's novel, and for that novel, Larkin has a series of protagonists who can upend the protagonist's  life in many different ways. Again my novel is still in the beginning stages so I have a lot to think about.

3.      Breakout Titles

These titles are terrible. 

Finding Home

Leaving, Arriving, Staying

Three Months in Del Ray Beach (Or Whatever Beach in Florida I decide to set the novel

4.      Comparables

Lily King’s Writers and Lovers because it’s about a woman around the age of my character who is struggling with her identity and career while in the midst of grief about her mother. King writes in first person so it’s a good model of first-person POV. My character is grieving about a loss as well.

I read After the Parade by Lori Ostlund a long time ago. She uses the journey archetype in the novel, which is what I am doing and what so many works of literature do. My character’s journey is not the organizational strategy of the novel, but in the tradition of the journey archetype, my character does meet characters that she must learn from once she gets to Florida

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.  I love this novel because even though Erdrich writes in third person, readers are still in the head and heart of the main character. Erdrich doesn’t interject these expository passages to “inform” her readers.  The story is not that comparable to mine, but the novel is a good model of third-person point of view.

The People We Keep by Allison Larkin. I just discovered this book that has some of the same themes that I will be working with.

Did You Ever Have a Family?  Bill Clegg

5.      Hook Line with Conflict and Core Wound

After being denied tenure, a thirty-five-year-old Oliver must deal with the shame she feels about this failure and confront her own inadequacies before she can accept and embrace her new life, friends, and love in Florida.

6.       A. Sketch of the conditions for the inner conflict of the protagonist. 

Oliver’s inner conflict has to do with her feelings of shame and inadequacy after she is denied tenure. She thinks she must find another job, which will give her the credibility she is longing for. She begins to experience life outside of the walls of academia and is enjoying it, but her inner conflict keeps her from fully committing to the life that has been evolving around her in Florida and from fully accepting that she deserves love and friendship.

One possible scenario. She spends the weekend with Michael her new love interest, but on Monday morning she gets an email from a university wanting to set up a video interview. She completely blows off Michael. Or maybe the antagonist, this former graduate school colleague, invites her up for a supposed job interview, and once she makes the trip, he was only asking her so he could convince her to move in with him and teach as an adjunct.

 

 Sketch of hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. 

A good question. I’m not sure if I have a good answer to this. Maybe she experiences the conservatism of Florida or the tension between transplants—the whole population boom in Florida in some way and wonders if she can fit in Florida.  Maybe she goes to a book reading, asks a question, and gets embarrassed about something.

                                                                                     

7.      Sketch of Setting

 

The prologue begins in Binghamton, New York at a small liberal arts college (fabricated). Then a year later, Oliver the protagonist, leaves Binghamton, thinking that she is going to drive the four hours to her parents’ house in Pennsylvania, move in with them, until she finds another job. However at the exit for York,  she makes a split-second decision to keep driving to Florida, specifically to Del Ray Beach, (?) where Stan Sanders, a retired colleague lives. Oliver lands in a beach motel for a couple of nights and then ends up rooming with Stan for a while. In a very rough draft of this novel that I wrote a few years ago, I noticed that I was playing around with that tension between the uptight and dark and gloomy Northeast and the more open and sunnier Florida. The main character must “come out” in a sense from that dark and gloom of the northeast and of her life to embrace the sunny and new life that she can have in Florida.

I may have her take a side trip before she would get to York to the school where she received her PhD because one of her former professors invites her to do so. She thinks he's going to help her get a job; he wants something else: he thinks she would be the perfect academic wife. Intelligent but not too ambitious.) She gets the hell out of there, drive toward York and then  skips her parents' place.

(After reading the page about writing groups, I realized I committed the first error of starting a novel: the first chapter starts in--you guessed it--a car. Looking forward to the discussion.)

[Criss]

1. Story statement. 

A mathematician struggles to do the right thing in an alternative world that only wants to use her work for profit and exploitation.
(This is an alternative history in which John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry was successful. The majority of the story takes place in the alternative present.)

2. Antagonist:

The antagonist, Eber, is a predatory venture capitalist who seeks through charm and artifice to co-opt the protagonist's (Em's) business partner(s) into exploiting for profit the protagonist's mathematical discovery. Protagonist, antagonist, and business partner(s) all have a shared inter-generational history going back to John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry. The behavioral drivers for their ancestors also drive them. The antagonist's father was a cult leader in a biodiversity commune in Western Africa in which the protagonist's father (a technologist turned Faulkneresque/Cootzeesque curmudgeon) and mother (a tropical diseases doctor) participated. Em never really understood that the cult leader was evil and responsible for her parents' split and her mother's death; she understands him as having been good, even heroic, and that his son, Eber, must similarly be in her corner.

3. Title:

Prophit  [a mashup of "profit" and "prophet"]
God Only Knows and So Can You [playing up the discovery of perfect predictability]
Mirror Symmetry [playing on the symmetry between alternative past and alternative present]

4. Comparables and genre:

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
Agency by William Gibson
A friend suggested some adjacency to the work of Jeff VanderMeer, but I haven't read any and don't know.

genre: alternative history / weird fiction  / Southern Gothic / Southern weird

5. Hook line and core wound: 

The protagonist, Em, believes that as a young child she failed to take a simple action that would have saved her mother's life. This underlying sense of guilt is what drives her moral/ethical struggle as stated in the first assignment. However, this shame/guilt is hidden or disavowed until the end of the story.

6. Conflict:

Being in the messy world outside of academia is painful for Em. She has to confront the messiness of commerce and business, estrangement from her father, exploitation by her partners, and the sins of her ancestors.

7.  Setting:

Harpers Ferry during John Brown's raid
Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies, an ivory tower where Em would prefer stay rather than the "real" world
Rural North Carolina around Mount Airy and East Bend: the ancestoral homes for  Em's family
A biodiversity commune in the Fouta Djallon Highlands, Guinea
 

[Matt H]

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. 

 

A man fights for his land and his family as the encroaching local kingpin makes his final push to claim his prize.

 

SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.

 

Men like JB Hoyt view the world as their own, to be manipulated as they see fit. His eyes, cold and dark, everything in this world is his prey. JB’s Southern hospitality masks an ever-present desire for control, and the six-shooter on his hip hints at the ends he’d go to achieve it. For Hoyt, he’s always gotten what he wanted, except a successor. He sees that in the feared and respected Lucian Swailes, the number two who has always eluded him. Hoyt, forty years ruling Truett County with an iron fist, has grown his illegal operations with corruption and intimidation. His unassuming mountain lifestyle belies his reach. The last piece of the empire remains unfinished, and Hoyt knows winning Swailes’ allegiance, one way or another, is all that stands in his way.

 

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed).

 

Truett County

or

Then the Foothills Run Red

 

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT:

- Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why

Genre – Rural Noir

 

Comparable Works–

Bull Mountain (Bull Mountain, #1) by Brian Panowich

 

Clayton Burroughs comes from a long line of outlaws. For generations, the Burroughs clan has made its home on Bull Mountain in North Georgia, running shine, pot, and meth over six state lines, virtually untouched by the rule of law. To distance himself from his family’s criminal empire, Clayton took the job of sheriff in a neighboring community to keep what peace he can. But when a federal agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms shows up at Clayton’s office with a plan to shut down the mountain, his hidden agenda will pit brother against brother, test loyalties, and could lead Clayton down a path to self-destruction.

 

The Ranger by Ace Atkins

Northeast Mississippi, hill country, rugged and notorious for outlaws since the Civil War, where killings are as commonplace as in the Old West. To Quinn Colson, it's home -- but not the home he left when he went to Afghanistan.

Now an Army Ranger, he returns to a place overrun by corruption, and finds his uncle, the county sheriff, dead -- a suicide, he's told, but others whisper murder. In the days that follow, it will be up to Colson to discover the truth, not only about his uncle, but about his family, his friends, his town, and not least about himself. And once the truth is discovered, there is no turning back.

 

Why –

 

My work is similar to these two because of the gritty characters and rural settings, along with the intensity of righting wrongs and surviving crooked antagonists’ best plans to overpower and compromise the headstrong protagonists.

 

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound.

 

Logline:

A Georgia farmer with a military past struggling with the recent and past loss of family becomes tragically enmeshed in a decades old feud between the local kingpin and the Youngstown mafia.

 

Core Wound:

His father’s absence and the spiraling consequences of that loss.

 

OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS

file:///C:/Users/hamburg/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.jpg SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction.

Lucian’s father, Barrett (Bear) Swailes left his family when Lucian was in his pre-teen years. Because of his abrupt departure, Lucian’s mother was forced to uproot their family from his childhood home in the foothills of the Appalachians in Truett County, Georgia to the metropolis of Atlanta. Without much information about his father’s work and past, except that he was a contracted bootlegger and heavy hand for JB Hoyt, the now kingpin of Truett County, Lucian struggles to reconcile his dad’s disappearance and JB’s current interest in getting Lucian to follow in his father’s footsteps as one of JB’s men. Lucian clearly doesn’t want any involvement in the crime syndicate JB and his boys have built in Truett County, but how close can Lucian get to the answers about his father’s disappearance if he doesn’t also get close to JB? Will he be putting his own family and farm at risk if he seeks the closure he so desperately needs?

Scenario:

Lucian stands in his apple orchard, grappling with the upcoming harvest and all it entails. As he’s considering the current state of his land and the pressure to pay the mortgage each month, in comes JB with an offer to make Lucian rich, and quickly. Lucian knows that JB is up to no good almost all of the time, and any entrance into Lucian’s life and farm could ultimately put both his homestead and his reputation at risk. However, he also firmly believes that JB holds the answers to his father’s disappearance and abandonment of his family. Heck, he doesn’t even know if his father is alive or dead. The only certainty is that JB is somehow involved, and Lucian needs an in to be able to dig deeper into Hoyt’s past and corruption. With the harvest pending, but money needed even sooner, Lucian must decide if JB’s offer to ensure his bills are paid is worth the risks involved.

 

Secondary Conflict –

While trying to find answers to his past and balance keeping his farm, Lucian resists JB’s pleas to become one of his leading men. However, a car accident, which results in the death of Pauly Longo’s (head of the Youngstown mafia) nephew (Dom), provides JB and his ringleaders an opportunity to force Lucian’s hand. JB and Boyd, the compromised town sheriff, threaten to leak Lucian’s name to the mafia as the one who caused the accident. Lucian knows Pauly’s name from his father’s past, and he is fully aware of what the Don will do to avenge the death of his nephew. Unwilling to play into JB and Boyd’s stratagems, Lucian tries to balance keeping the locals at bay while also fending off the mafia. Furst, Pauly’s cleaner, is sent to Truett County to sort out the mess, and Lucian has to rely on his instincts as a Marine and father to protect himself from both. 

Scenario:

Lucian returns to his farm after the accident, knowing full-well that the man driving the vehicle was alive when he left him and in the hands of Boyd. However, he has a sinking feeling that this accident is just the opportunity JB and Boyd need to finally get their claws in Lucian and ultimately control his life. The next day, Boyd stops by the farm and casually mentions that Dom didn’t make it and that JB wants to have a chat with Lucian about next steps. Lucian realizes he has no choice but to hear JB out. Later, Lucian if forced on a drive with JB to meet with Pauly Longo to discuss his nephew’s death. The usual mafia stereotypes are at this clandestine meeting, and Lucian’s presence at such an important sit down immediately implies his involvement in what is being spun as an intentional hit. Pauly is not amenable to the conditions that JB sets for reconciliation, and the meeting ends with the silent understanding that vengeance is on its way south. Now that he’s been seen with JB, Lucian is certain that Pauly will send anyone and everyone after him to get retribution. Now, Lucian is not only trying to fend off JB, but he’s apparently at war with the mafia.

 

 

file:///C:/Users/hamburg/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.jpg FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it.

 

The story is primarily set in Truett County, Georgia in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. During the day, the rolling hills, sometimes with a herd of Holstein cattle grazing on them, provide an idyllic backdrop for the story. However, when a heavy fog or storm rolls in, the gray blanket that envelops the mountaintops calls to the ancestral past and echoes the mystery that goes hand in hand with a geography so ancient. Mountain towns like Truett County feel the fervor of all four seasons: Winter can bring snow and cold that rivals that in the North, lending to a slowly perking spring with the air of new life all around. Doe and their fawns paired with wildflowers juxtapose the recently awakened beasts from their hibernation. Summer can be unbearably hot, sparse with rain, the perfect condition for dirt roads to spew up dust clouds the size of the mountains themselves when rusty trucks with loud mufflers go down them just a little too carelessly. One might easily see a tractor followed by a trailer bursting with bales as he would a luxury car occupied by tourists going down the road. Streams full that swell and recede with the weather seem to cut fields everywhere as well as run along the side of the main thoroughfares. Katydids, tree frogs and cicadas are the music of the night, and sunrise comes early. Fall is a time of great energy as every farmer is either doing his second, sometimes third, cutting of the year, or an array of crops are begging to be harvested. Main Street is decorated to match whatever the holiday of the season is: Storefronts quickly take down Christmas regalia, replaced by hearts and carnations for Valentine’s. Sidewalks follow a patriotic theme for most of the summer, beginning with Memorial Day and ending with Labor Day. The town loves parades and festivals, with the Harvest Festival signifying the true beginning of Autumn.

While the heart of the town and the sprawling farms surrounding it portray abundance, there are places on the outskirts that never seem to see the light of the sun. Trailers with overgrown vegetation, broken windows and lights, and cars on blocks serve as a reminder that not everyone in town has the means, or sometimes the desire, to be on the “inside.” The forests around, from a distance, seem silent and innocent. Yet, marijuana fields, shanty houses, and stills can be found if one dares to explore. The people in the town know of these places, but they also know that if they stay on the beaten path, trouble will leave them alone.

   

 

 

[tvaughan]

1. Story statement

Tanit, the protagonist, a deaf and enslaved girl, must avenge her family, protect her friends, and escape her enslaver without becoming him. She and her friends must find a talisman believed to have the power to cure the Great Blight, before her enslaver can claim it for his own ends.

2. Antagonist

Kur is a warlord of the disintegrating Kanem Empire.  His birth mother discarded him as an infant.  He was raised in an orphanage. The staff and the older children were brutalized and enslaved by warriors from a rival tribe.  Kur learned that you have to be stronger, more ruthless, and more deadly than your enemies, to survive.  He took the sobriquet Ngubdo (“the Discarded”). 

Kur is intelligent, even wise, but utterly ruthless. He is a huge man: tall, broad, and heavy-set. He wears an enchanted necklace of leopard teeth. 

Much of Kur’s wealth derives from enslaving less fortunate people. Some slaves he sells, while others work for him.

He has captured the matriarch of a clan of were-hyenas. By holding her hostage, he forces them to do his bidding. 

Kur’s relationship to Tanit, the protagonist, is complex. She is his slave, but he also sees in her a mirror of himself, and he often converses with her and teaches her. He disparages his son, saying that he is not half as tough or clever as Tanit, which makes the son hate both Tanit and his father.  And yet Kur threatens to kill Tanit if she harms his son.

3. Breakout title

Working title: _Become Desert_

(Conceived as a trilogy, followed by _Become Sea_ and _Become Sky_.)

Others considered:
- _Become Ruin_
- _A Gift to Bestow_

4. Genre and comparables

Primary genre: epic fantasy.  Secondary genre: alternate history.

Comparables:

- _Moon Witch, Spider King_, Marlon James. This is an epic fantasy, told in first person, based on a mélange of mythologies from both eastern and western sub-Saharan Africa. The protagonist begins life (and her story) as a destitute girl living in a termite mound, enslaved by her own brothers. But she escapes, and through grit, talent, and sheer ferocity, she grows to become a powerful witch.  She then joins a “fellowship” of adventurers traversing a dramatic landscape, encountering wondrous places and things, opposed by powerful and terrifying antagonists, on a quest that ultimately fails. 

- _She Who Became the Sun_, Shelley Parker-Chan.  This is an alternate-history epic fantasy (albeit without much magic), taking place in an alternate version of 14th century China. The protagonist begins her life as a destitute peasant girl whose family suffers during a famine; the father is murdered by bandits, and the brother also dies.  But through grit, talent, and sheer ferocity, she grows to become a powerful military general and political leader. She leads a revolution that overthrows the Mongol oppressors.

Both of these books skew “literary,” especially MWSK.  

5. Logline with conflict and core wound

A newly freed slave girl joins a party of reluctant adventurers — a bookish scholar, a grieving musician, and a homesick warrior — in a race to find a mysterious talisman believed to have the power to cure the Great Blight, before her former enslaver can claim it for his own acquisitive ends.

6a. Protagonist’s inner conflict

Tanit is a deaf girl who grew up with a loving family in a city that is largely abandoned and crumbling into ruins due to a century-long drought that has depleted the once-great river that runs through it.  A warlord from a faraway land wants to order lots of weapons for cheap from her father, a smith.  When her father refuses, the warlord’s son and men scare away all of their other customers, driving the family into poverty and hunger.  When her father still refuses to capitulate, the warlord’s son and soldiers come and beat Tanit’s parents, kill her beloved pet dog Pekko, and abduct both Tanit and her 16-year old sister Dahiya.  They take Tanit and Dahiya across the growing desert to their compound in the Kanem Empire.

In this world, deaf people are often enslaved.  “Silencing” people by destroying their hearing is a means of controlling them.  Tanit has always thought that she was born deaf.  She learns, however, that her parents were not her biological parents and that they had, in fact, purchased her as a baby from a young mother who had been so destitute and desperate that she had silenced her own infant daughter in order to sell her.  The fact that Tanit’s “parents” had raised her as their own daughter does not lessen the degree to which this news upends her world and her very sense of self.

Sef, the warlord’s son, takes Dahiya as his “domestic servant.”  Despite this, Dahiya bears no children.  Finally, about six years later, Dahiya bears a daughter.  Sef believes that the baby is his.  However, he discovers that Dahiya has been spending a lot of time with a young merchant in the market, and he becomes convinced that the child is the merchant’s.  He accuses Dahiya of adultery (an absurd accusation as they are not married and she has never even consented to being with him) and then he murders her.  He intends to kill the baby girl as well, but Tanit convinces him not to.  She tries to take care of the child herself, but she has no resources of her own, does not know what to do, and receives no help.  The child goes hungry, grows ill, and dies.  Tanit convinces herself that Sef is responsible for the child’s death; she buries the part of her deep inside that feels she is responsible.

In short, Tanit is driven by yearning for the life and loved ones she has lost, by hatred for those who took everything from her, and by a desire to wield sufficient power to protect herself and her loved ones.  She desperately desires revenge.  Yet, what all of the events above show is that the root of Tanit’s passion is a yawning, unresolved — and _unresolvable_ — grief.  

The version of the above story she tells her companions ends with Sef killing the baby.  She never tells them the child’s name, and she is vague about exactly how the child died.

Yet the warlord antagonist, Kur (Sef’s father), knows exactly what happened.  By the time we reach the final battle with Kur and his forces, Tanit has become a formidable warrior, fighting with speed and skill and an enchanted blade called _Tanabaa_ (Arabic for foresight) that enables her to foresee her opponent’s next move.  Kur, however, blinds her foresight and negates her strengths by provoking her grief so powerfully that it overcomes and disables her.  First he asks her, gently, what the name of Dahiya’s baby was.  Then he asks her how the child died.  Then he asks her who was really responsible.  All of Tanit’s grief surfaces, after being suppressed for so long under righteous, incandescent fury.  She admits that she was responsible, and the admission breaks her.  Kur then recalls the dynamic of their former relationship in which he had, at times, almost been a father figure to Tanit, and he hugs her.  At first it is gentle, but then he begins to crush and asphyxiate her.  She’s going to need a little help from her friends....

6b. Protagonist’s secondary (social) conflict

Tanit is a 15-year old girl without hearing.  Her companions are three hearing adults. Fortunately, one of them, Rafayil the Mamluk, speaks the hand-dancing language of the Silents (q.v., Setting). In this world, Mamluks (technically slaves themselves) have adopted this gesture-based language for use on the battlefield. Also, Tanit is fascinated by combat and wants to become a fierce warrior one day. Rafa eventually trains Tanit in hand-to-hand combat skills. On top of all this, Rafa defends her against Sef, her enslaver, and treats her with uncommon kindness.  Meanwhile, Rafa desperately misses his wife and daughter in Cairo, and Tanit reminds him somewhat of his daughter.  So these two characters become very close.

But the three adult characters with whom she joins are on a different mission from hers.  She wants to gain power and skill and then exact revenge on Kur the warlord, who, along with his son, enslaved Tanit and her sister.  After that, she hasn’t thought about it much.  The adult characters are on a quest to find a talisman that they believe may have the power to end the drought and stop the growth of the Great Blight, thereby restoring prosperity to many people across the land.  Tanit doesn’t much care about this quest.  This will lead to some conflict; she will argue for attacking Kur while they will argue that Kur is a distraction from the real goal.  (Eventually Kur will capture all of them, anyway, so Tanit will get what she wants... sort of.)

 7. Setting

**History and Geography**

The novel is set in an alternate version of pre-Plague, 14th Century North Africa. In this world, the transformation of this region from savanna and woodland into the Sahara desert was mysteriously halted 5000 years before, affecting only the northeastern quadrant of the continent. The monsoons continued to bring rain to the Maghreb (roughly the northwestern and north-central regions of the continent), exhausting themselves by the time they reached the eastern desert near Khemet (Egypt). Thus, the Maghreb remained lush and verdant until about 150 or so years before the story begins, when the monsoon brought no rain, only wind, lightning, and wildfires—and then eventually the monsoon no longer came at all.  

In the novel, as in our world, the mechanism that causes the desertification is the precession of the Earth’s axis.  The continent of Africa alternates between arid and humid periods every 20,000 years.  This is important, because it means that the Great Blight is a natural process; this implies some limits to human power, even magically aided, to stop or constrain the growth of the desert.  But the characters in the novel do not know this.

While the rains still fell, the land was inhabited by nomadic tribes and agricultural civilizations.  These people erected thousands of solitary menhirs, which remain scattered across the Maghreb.  Throughout this region, massive lakes and rivers persisted which, in our world, are known to have existed before the desertification of the Sahara—such as Lake Megachad and the paleoriver Tamanrasset.  In the novel these are known as Njikura (Kanuri for “Inland Sea”) and the River Gher.  

After over a century of drought, most of the people who inhabited the woodlands and savannas of the Maghreb have fled quite literally to greener pastures, swelling cities such as Sijilmasa, Tangiers, Carthage, Tomboq (Timbuktu), and even Cordoba, with destitute refugees vulnerable to enslavement. 

In the novel’s history, the Carthaginian Empire controlled much of the rich, fertile region of the Maghreb, enabling it to supply Hannibal Barca with sufficient resources to conquer the Roman Republic, thereby creating a different version of the Roman Empire.  This date marks _Anno Victoria_ 0 (216 BCE in our world — the date of the Battle of Canae).  (The novel takes place in AV 1537, equivalent to our 1321.)  Rome remained the capital of the empire, ruled by the Barccid emperors.  When the Empire eventually broke apart, it split into three parts instead of two: the Eastern, Western, and Southern Roman Empires, with capitals at Constantinople, Rome, and Carthage, respectively.  

The narrator is a scholar at Sankoré University in Tomboq (Timbuktu), within the Manden Federation (the Empire of Mali). The Manden was even larger in this world than in ours, bordering the Southern Roman Empire in the north and the Endless Sea (Atlantic) in the west and south.

The protagonist comes from Agadir, an ancient and formerly great city on the River Gher, located in the extreme western region of Algeria today.  Agadir was already old before it was conquered by the Carthaginians some 1500 years before the novel begins.  The River Gher is a now a paltry stream, and the city has been largely abandoned.  A dwindling population inhabits its crumbling ruins.

In the 13th century of our world, the Mongols successfully exploited social and political divisions in their Chinese and Islamic enemies, enabling them to destroy them one by one. In the novel, these civilizations banded together to resist the Mongols with some success.  As a result, the Mongols focused more of their resources on conquering Europe.  As such, in the novel, Europe comprises essentially four powers: the diminished Eastern Roman Empire, Northmen (Britons and Scandinavians), the kingdom and sultanate of Al-Andalus (Iberian peninsula), and the Holy Golden Horde.  

In the novel, El Cid united all of Al-Andalus, which is now ruled from Cordoba by his descendant Rodrigo Díaz III. Al-Andalus—especially Cordoba—is a remarkably cosmopolitan, multi-cultural realm.  The rulers of the Díaz dynasty are recognized as both kings and sultans.  One of the main characters grew up an orphan on the streets of Cordoba before some nuns sold him to the Mamluks.

**Silents and Slaves**

In the novel, children born deaf are often sold into slavery.  Moreover, some children and even adults are “silenced” — their eardrums pierced — and enslaved.  Such slaves are called Silents.  These practices are common across the continent.  Over the centuries, generations of Silents have developed a sign language called _bolodun_ in Mandinka (literally “hand dancing”).  The Mamluks, technically slaves themselves, have adopted this language for communication on the battlefield.

In 1236 of our world, slavery was enshrined in Articles 1 and 20 of the Manden Charter (considered by some to be the world’s first written national constitution).  In the novel, however, slavery is banned by the Manden Charter.  Unfortunately, the practices of silencing and enslaving people continue.  The drought has exacerbated the problem, as it has generated large numbers of refugees vulnerable to enslavement while simultaneously decreasing options for accruing wealth or making a living.  Thus, ambitious and ruthless men find themselves with both motivation and opportunity to capitalize on the institution of slavery.

**The Ways of Man**

The narrator is a scholar of history and the Ways of Man. In the novel, religions and philosophies are called Ways. These include:

- The Way of Submission (which corresponds to what we call Islam)
- The Way of Ablution (Christianity)
- The Way of the Book (Judaism)
- The Way of Light and Shadow (Zoroastrianism)
- The Way of the Horse (state religion of the Mongol Empire)
- The Way of the Ancestors (ancestor worship) 
- The Way of the Natural Spirits (pantheism)
- The Way of the Elder Gods (Paganism, especially worship of Semitic, Mesopotamian, Greco-Roman, Norse, and Egyptian pantheons)
- etc.

In some cases there are differences between the novel’s Way and the corresponding religion in our world.  For example, in the novel, the great Prophet of the Way of Submission was not Mohammed but, rather, his daughter Fatima.  (The Father of the Prophet is still regarded as a holy wise man.)  In the novel, Fatima’s Recitation (i.e., the Quran) denounces slavery, in no uncertain terms, as evil.  It was this portion of the Recitation that inspired the Article in the Manden Charter forbidding slavery.   The Recitation also approves of female nuns and other holy women.  

**Magic**

Magic, though, exceedingly rare, plays a significant role in the novel.  The overarching quest is for a talisman referenced in a fragment of ancient text as having enabled people to stop the growth of the desert some 5000 years before.  However, the narrator does not believe that magic exists, much less such a device, even though he’s leading the expedition to find it.

Enchanted beings still inhabit the world of the novel, though they are inexorably fading from existence and rarely appear to mortals.  They are known by different terms in different places: djinn, fae, kami, etc.  A popular creation myth says that when the Creator created humans, all the creatures of the world offered something of themselves to assist the feeble, new beings, but the djinn refused to offer anything to their mortal brethren, and so the Creator, citing their barren hearts, cursed their kind to “become as desert.”  An especially powerful tribe of the djinn, the ifrit, despises humans.

Rare, magical artifacts also exist, all of which were created either by djinn/fae or by humans and djinn together.  Humans, unaided, are incapable of magical feats. 

Finally, there are some exceedingly rare creatures that are neither human nor djinn, which we might call monsters. These include the Bultungin (were-hyenas). The antagonist, Kur, has captured the matriarch of a clan of Bultungin; by holding her hostage, he compels them to do his bidding.

[Rachel Griffin]

Algonkian assignments.pdf

[Tom McCarthy]

ASSIGNMENT ONE

Story Statement:

Find the missing cross and the murderer without getting killed by narco-ranchers and return the cross to its rightful home in the wild borderlands

 

ASSIGNMENT TWO

Antagonist:

Wade Baudette knows that God chose him for great things. Born into poverty to shiftless, heathen parents, he left home the day after graduating high school and travelled Central and South America, scraping by on odd jobs, learning the language and connecting with the people. He learned that he was endowed with three undeniable qualities that propelled him to be an instrument of the Divine: faith, eloquence and ambition. Over the subsequent decades, he built his Miracle Ministry into an international brand and multimillion-dollar juggernaut, filling stadiums and proclaiming the “Prosperous Miracle of Belief.” He’s a true believer who never took a false or dishonest step.

Then came the pandemic. Unable to fill stadiums, travel, or sustain his Dallas mansion and megachurch, he and wife Sharon decamped to her family ranch in West Texas. Even in the depths of poverty as a boy, he never knew the kind of desperation that consumed him as he watched his empire collapse. There’s nothing he won’t do to fulfill his destiny and re-establish his rightful position atop the spiritual hierarchy, even if it means the sacrifice of lesser lives. 

 

ASSIGNMENT THREE

Breakout Title:  Border Cross

Alternatives:

Crossbreed

Daughter of None

American Girl

 

ASSIGNMENT FOUR

Comparables: 

Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden [2020, DEBUT fiction]

Comparable to Border Cross in the following ways:

·      Setting: small town, rural, fairly isolated community but vast in terms of geographical area

·      Protagonist: recently returned to birthplace, about which he has mixed feelings; minority identity; seeks justice

·      Spiritual element/theme/undercurrent

·      Cross-cultural and Indigenous themes

·      Drug issues and drug cartel

·      In the end, protagonist embraces and is embraced by community and finds personal redemption

·      Gritty and raw, but with a heart

 

Old Bones [2019] and the Nora Kelly series (Scorpion’s Tail [2021], Diablo Mesa [2022] and Dead Mountain[2023]) by Preston and Child

·      Set in American southwest

·      Historical artifact with cultural significance is at the heart of the mystery

·      Wilderness and nature play key role in atmosphere, mystery, themes, character and resolution

·      Within that context, (wo)man vs. man remains the primary conflict

·      Strong women characters with inner conflict 

·      Long-hidden history erupting into present

 

ASSIGNMENT FIVE

Hook Line:

A deputy sheriff must overcome a desperate killer and confront the truth about her own birth in order to expose the narco-ranching operation, recover a priceless artifact and return the artifact to its home in the remote US-Mexican borderlands.

  

ASSIGNMENT SIX

 Inner Conflict

Conditions:

Terra grew up as Teresa Flynn. She has known from a young age that she was adopted. She has always had a small cross that her parents told her was with her at the time of adoption. They knew nothing about her biological parents. Raised in an Irish-Catholic family, she was lovingly taught to disregard her light brown skin, black hair and dark eyes, that she was no different from her fair-skinned, red-haired parents and (not-adopted) sister. Growing up, these earnest reassurances were undermined by manifest realities—she was short and restless, her sister statuesque and scholarly—and by her own feelings. Through her teenage years, the emotional and psychological gap between her and her family became harder for her to ignore. The appreciation she felt for their attempt to elide the differences was supplanted by questions and resentment. When she joined the military after high school, she decided to research her adoption and discovered that her given name was Terra and that her birthplace was someplace called Hades, Texas. Google Maps showed a small town east of El Paso and about an hour from the Mexican border. Under “Mother’s Name” and “Father’s Name,” the papers indicated “Unknown.” She decides in that moment to call herself Terra, but her newfound knowledge brings mixed feelings and more questions: she wanted to learn more but was afraid of what she might find. She desperately wants to know more about her origin and identity, and possibly forge a connection to people—Does she have blood relatives?—and a place. But will her efforts only drive a greater wedge between her and her adopted family? And what if she learns something that only makes her feel like more of a misfit than she already is? Should she, instead, put her energy into repairing ties with her parents and sister and trying to forge more of a connection with them? She decides to take job that will put her face-to-face with all these questions—and more.

Scenario:

She knows she is “from” this town but doesn’t feel like it, feels nothing like a sense of “hometown” or roots. Since she moved to town, people ask her where she’s from and she doesn’t know what to say. What did she expect? Before, she had always said Boston. Since researching her adoption papers, the question of origin has become hopelessly complicated. 

After Alma (the woman who cared for her for her first several months) provides more details (trigger)—that she was found as a newborn in the arms of her dead mother somewhere in the borderlands along the Rio Grande, that a migrant came upon her and rescued her, along with the small silver cross that hung from a chain around her mother’s neck—Terra’s first impulse (reaction) is to get away from this town, this job. As far away from the border as possible. She feels both more intrigued by her own origin story, drawn to explore the borderlands, and yet horrified, saddened, afraid to learn more. Moreover, Alma tells her that the Atrial Cross stolen from the church must, like Terra herself, return to its origins. And that Terra herself must undertake that journey.

Terra knows little about her origin and birth. Her adopted family has told her next to nothing and despite her skin color and features, they tell her she’s as Irish Catholic as they are. As she grew to adulthood, she could no longer deny the feeling of disconnect from them and their whitewashed sense of her identity. Hoping to learn more about who she is, after her discharge from the Army she has taken a job in the West Texas town where her adoption papers say she was first found. She wants to learn everything she can about her background and parents, though something tells her it’s complicated and that she may not like what she finds.

Trigger: Within a few months of beginning her new job, Terra accompanies the sheriff on an emergency call to the border. Border Patrol is asking for assistance with a group of migrants on the run, some of whom are reportedly injured. When Terra arrives on scene, her heart is pumping. Despite never having been here and knowing full well that her job is law enforcement not search and rescue, nevertheless something visceral stirs in her gut. She feels some kind of connection to these strangers fleeing for their lives. Without consciously deciding to do so, she finds herself disregarding the sheriff’s order and undertaking an arduous and treacherous effort to reach two migrants rimrocked in a canyon. Risking her own life, Terra eventually reaches a young mother clinging to the side of a rock face gazing down at the lifeless body of her little girl a hundred feet below. Terra calmly and skillfully harnesses herself to the mother and leads her to safety. Throughout the emotional ordeal of laying the child’s broken body in the woman’s arms one last time, then staying with the woman as she was taken to the county hospital, Terra remained more composed and self-controlled than most of her male colleagues. 

Later that evening, upon arriving home, Terra closed her apartment door, removed her gun, lay on her bed, curled up in a ball and sobbed as she could never recall having done before. She wants to be here, to search out her origin story, to ask the hard questions, but does she want the answers? She wants to do the work, but does she want to see the pain?

 

Secondary Conflict

An unremarkable cross hanging at a side altar of the Holy Angels Catholic Church has recently been attributed with the power to work miracles. Desperate believers are flocking from afar to seek miracle cures, and the town is in the national spotlight. While Deputy Sheriff Terra Flynn finds such claims to be nutty, she can’t deny the cross’s importance: when the cross suddenly goes missing, the parish priest reveals to Sheriff Cal Wetter and Terra that the it is actually a rare and valuable Aztec artifact with a complex origin far beyond Holy Angels or even Christianity. Belying her initial impression, the cross fascinates Terra with its unusual, hybrid identity. Early in the investigation, she begins to suspect that her boss, Sheriff Wetter, may have stolen it. He has been sheriff for many years and is leading the investigation, and she’s relatively new to the job and the town, putting her in a delicate and tenuous position. What should she do about her suspicions? How can she pursue them without alerting the sheriff or one of his allies? What if she’s wrong? The extraordinarily rare cross captivates nearly everyone, and Terra knows that it must be recovered, no matter the cost.

 

ASSIGNMENT SEVEN

Hades, Texas. Population 7,238. Cutler County seat. A couple hours east of El Paso and an hour from the Mexican border. Summers are hot and muggy, winters are cold and windy. The horizon feels a long way off, and skies are usually cloudy or partly cloudy. Ranching is big around Hades, but it draws a smattering of tourists. 

Some key sub-settings depicted in the novel:

·      Known as an artsy town with galleries selling unusual gems, paintings and one-of-a-kind handcrafted products. Proud of its quaint downtown, with a handful of cafes, restaurants and coffee shops and a historic library overlooking the peaceful and inviting village green. An hour from canyons, rock faces, mountains and the Rio Grande, it provides the perfect base for hikers, rock climbers, off-road cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts looking for wilderness adventure away from the crowd.

·      From the beginning—which depicts migrants on the run from cartel thugs while being pursued by a US sheriff’s deputy—to the end—where that same deputy, our protagonist, is herself being pursued by the villain, himself a collaborator with the cartel—the novel takes readers into rugged wilderness in its varying landscapes and topography. Between Hades and the border, vast open stretches of Chihuahuan Desert sit side-by-side with rolling hills that give way suddenly to dramatic cliffs and rock faces which, in turn, spill open and cascade down into the waters of the Rio Grande itself. Near the novel’s first plot point, the body of Cutler County Sheriff Cal Wetter is found along the banks of the Rio Grande.

·      Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park: two enormous areas of rugged natural beauty and deadly terrain rarely if ever trodden by human feet. Deep canyons, sheer drops, dramatic rock outcroppings, remote and little-known slot canyons. 

·      Zino Ranch: 50,000 acres that span the distance between Hades and the Rio Grande. A vast spread of majestic isolation where it’s not unusual to stumble upon a carcass—even a human one—which could go undiscovered for days, weeks, or indefinitely. Home to Patsy Zino, whose husband of 55 years died of COVID two years ago. During his illness, it also became home to their daughter, Sharon and her husband Wade Baudette, who live in a separate house on the ranch. The ranch consists of several houses and guest houses along with countless other buildings and facilities, including barns, stables and, since COVID forced him out of his expensive Dallas location, a small bakery that produces Wade Baudette’s communion wafers for his Miracle Ministry. Zino Ranch is ostensibly a normal Texas ranch, on whose southern border are security cameras that help the US government catch drug smugglers. What the government doesn’t know is that the ranch foreman runs a narco-ranching operation. Herds of cattle are legally brought across the border onto Zino land, after which select heifers are herded and prodded into stalls where they are injected with a vaccination against Blackleg—all of which is normal and legal. During the vaccination, however, bags of fentanyl are swiftly and deftly extracted from the heifer’s vagina. The fentanyl is then moved to the bakery facility, where it is baked into communion wafers and distributed throughout the Southwest in unassuming station wagons marked with the Bread of Heaven logo.

·      In the two years since Wade and Sharon have lived on the ranch full-time, the Big House has become a reflection of Sharon’s extravagant taste. While the views from its generous windows and wrap-around porch are expansive and breathtaking, the visitor’s eye is drawn at least as irresistibly to the interior furnishings thoughtfully procured from around the globe.

·      For the past several months, claims have been made that a small cross in Holy Angels Catholic Church has been the source of miracles. These claims have gone viral, bringing a steady stream of hopeful and desperate pilgrims from near and far to the small town of Hades—and with them a throng of media. Outside the church, a long line of these miracle-seekers snakes around the church and down the block, a mix of migrants and Anglos, rich and poor, young and old, many manifestly hobbled, sick, weak or disabled. Once inside, they kneel before the cross and submit written prayers and petitions. Some pray in breathless silence, others wail and cry out, all with desperation in their eyes. Hades is ill-equipped for the spectacle, and conflict ensues: among the miracle-seekers, jostling and vying for position; for Holy Angels pastor, Fr. Tim Day; and especially for Sheriff Cal Wetter and his deputies, who have their hands full.

·      When the cross goes missing, Wade Baudette has an idea for shifting attention from Holy Angels to his own Miracle Ministry. He will host weekend a Grand and Godly Revival weekend. It is a spectacle attracting several thousand participants who gather beneath enormous marquee tents to be inspired by Baudette’s unique brand of preaching. Loudspeakers, huge video screens, cameras that livestream the event, port-a-johns, food trucks, and emergency medical people/vehicle, which comes in handy when people start swooning and passing out. 

·      In several scenes, the reader is taken behind the small house that the Dzul family has called home for over 100 years. Its current resident, Alma Dzul, is a 69-year-old artist, craftswoman, woodworker, stone-carver and blacksmith. She is a member of Holy Angels parish but also a practitioner of Indigenous and Aztec (spi)ritual dance. She privately performs this dance at night within a carefully cultivated and curated bower on the edge of her property that borders but is indistinguishable from an endless landscape of desert and mountain. In and around the well-stocked workshop that she first constructed as a young girl and has lovingly re-fashioned and extended ever since, she exercises her craft, using an array of chisels, knives, hand saws and hand planes, hammers and mallets, files, carving gouges, rasps and countless other tools and implements. Hanging from the walls and ceiling are colorful drawings of Aztec gods and figures, along with objects hewn from stone and carved in wood, earthy as well as brightly-colored objects and works of art depicting the sun, moon and figures from Aztec religious practice.

[Missy Sheldrake]

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. 

To break free from the grip of the Lake Lady and reclaim control of her own life.

 

SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, and the ways they react to the world about them.

She doesn’t know who she once was. Her name has been lost to time, devoured by the need for vengeance. She knows humans are thieving, wicked, greedy tricksters. She has learned over decades how their fear and negativity feed her power.

 

Her world was once filled with color and merriment, but those memories have long faded to murk and milfoil. Now she is bound to the depths of a man-made lake where she plots vengeance for wrongs long forgotten.

 

The girl was a special opportunity for her. A trade. A name for a wish. Easy enough. She invested all her energy into the bargain, certain it would one day pay off. She stole the girl’s young cousin to fuel panic, mystery, and strife. Some years later, she plucked away the girl’s parents. She debilitated the girl, who calls herself Ophelia now, with crippling torment at every opportunity. Her allies, dark creatures of the lake, see her rising power and rally to her aid. 15 years into the bargain, she obsesses over Ophelia constantly from the lake shore, drinking her fear and misery, fueling her confusion and fame, and growing into a force no human will ever dare trifle with again.

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title (list several options, not more than three, and revisit to edit as needed).

Candlewood Cray

Milfoil and Malice

Drowned  Wishes

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Read this NWOE article on comparables then return here.

- Develop two smart comparables for your novel. This is a good opportunity to immerse yourself in your chosen genre. Who compares to you? And why?

How does one cope with the crippling self-doubt and impostor syndrome that stems from this assignment? Asking for a friend. (Stuck a pin in this one for now.) (Leaving this comment here because this is the assignment I struggled with the most.)

1. Holly Black The Folk of the Air series: A mortal girl finds herself caught in a web of royal faerie intrigue.

     Real world/fantasy world crossover, fairies, a mortal girl caught in a web of magic, modern setting

2. Alice Feeney Sometimes I Lie: My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie.

    Unreliable narrator, thriller, first person, casual, conversational prose.

 

 

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound following the format above. Though you may not have one now, keep in mind this is a great developmental tool. In other words, you best begin focusing on this if you're serious about commercial publication.

Paralyzed by fear and trapped by greed, superstar artist Ophelia Kellan must wade through what is real and what is psychotic to overcome an innocent childhood wish granted by a sinister figure lurking in Candlewood lake.  

 

SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction. 

Why does Ophelia feel in turmoil? Nobody believes her. They pump her with anti-psychosis drugs and force her into therapy and manage every aspect of her life for her. They install cameras all over her cabin to show her that the sounds she hears aren’t there and the creatures she sees aren’t real.

Ophelia is sure the Lake Lady exists, though. She spoke to her when she made that wish at age six, the same moment her cousin Anna vanished from the shore of Candlewood lake right in front of her entire family. She sees her watching from the shore every day and every night, even though no one else does. She knows the creatures that plague her, the eyes in the trees that watch her, the fear that encompasses her daily is all orchestrated by the one entity who gave her what she thought she wanted. 

Ophelia blames herself for her turmoil. She knows her cousin’s disappearance was her own fault. She knows the terrible boating accident that lost her parents to the lake was part of her payment for all she’s been given. She knows she made a stupid bargain, and that the Lake Lady took advantage of her naivety as a child, but now she’s too deep into it. She has lost too much that she can never regain, and it’s all her own fault. And if everyone thinks all of this is just in her head, how will she ever overcome it?

Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment. Will this involve family? Friends? Associates? What is the nature of it?

Ophelia’s secondary conflict focuses on her brother. Ben was there, too, when Anna disappeared. As the older sibling/cousin, he was supposed to be watching them by the water. Now, all grown up and orphaned, Ben has taken control of all aspects of Ophelia’s fame. After their parents died in the boating accident, he assumed responsibility for all aspects of his sister’s business. He had already been working with their dad in that capacity before he was lost to the lake, so stepping into that role was relatively seamless. 

Ben’s relationship with Ophelia (Fee) is severely strained. He resents all the attention she got after Anna’s disappearance. After her therapy painting of the Lake Lady went viral and sold for millions when she was 10, Ben was sent away to a prestigious boarding school so the family could focus on Fee’s therapy and the effects of sudden fame.

After the boating accident that took their parents, 16-year-old Fee went on a drug-fueled rebellious rampage of partying and self-destructive behavior which forced Ben to enter her into a conservatorship and take firm control of every aspect of her life. 

Now he’s 29 and she’s 23, and he’s sick of her paranoia and psychosis. She lives on their family’s lakefront property where there’s a decadent mansion. She could afford to have private chefs, a butler, people waiting on her hand and foot…but she chooses to seclude herself in their grandparents’ old run-down cabin instead, surrounded by security guards and cameras, sleeping all day while he wheels and deals in New York, working his ass off to make sure she stays relevant. 

How hard is it to just paint? All she needs to do is paint, and she can’t even do that without problems. 

Scenario (not really hypothetical. This is chapter one of the book)

It’s 2PM on a Tuesday and Fee is in the kitchen cooking oatmeal. In the next room, she hears strange noises. She’s heard these noises before and she knows exactly what they are. Terrified, she turns off the stovetop burner and pulls out her phone to text Ben, who is currently working in New York.

Ben, they’re here, she tells him. He replies asking her if she’s painting. They’re here, she insists, which is so weird because they never come during the day!

He tells her he doesn’t have time for this and asks her if she’s taken her meds for the day. Ophelia goes off on him, furious he won’t believe her. All the while, the disgusting sloshing noises slurp across the sitting room floor one room over. 

She slips into her studio, protected by the lines of salt she laid out carefully earlier. Her studio is a place of solace, filled with wards mostly aimed toward faeries: Iron horseshoes, rowan berries, etc. 

The front door opens and Cate, her favorite security guard comes in. Cate walks through the sitting room to the kitchen and Fee is relieved when nothing happens. Cate only remarks that the floor is wet. Fee returns to the kitchen to greet Cate, who has taken Fee’s meds box out of the cupboard. She shows Fee the little box for Tuesday, which still has pills in it. Fee curses Ben for being right about the meds. 

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene, to allow for uniqueness and cinema in your narrative and story? Please don't simply repeat what you already have which may well be too quiet. You can change it. That's why you're here! Start now. Imagination is your best friend, and be aggressive with it. 

Fee’s whole world is her cabin.

My setting is broadly Candlewood Lake. It’s the largest lake in Connecticut, and is man-made. The lake spans several towns and counties in the western part of the state, and is just an hour and a half from New York City which makes it prime real estate for NYC weekenders. 

Ophelia’s grandparents owned a little cabin on a broad swath of land on the lake, which was a summer gathering place for siblings and cousins of her family for generations. When Fee rose to fame, her parents bought the land and built an enormous, ostentatious modern mansion on the property which they called the lake house. They kept the cabin, intending for the grandparents to live there with them. But the grandparents died before they could move in, so they converted it to a "sleepover studio" for Fee. 

After the boating accident that took her parents and the drama that followed, Fee couldn’t bear to live in the big house alone. She moved everything to the cabin, and she lives there now while the lake house stands empty unless Ben pops over from the city to entertain there.

Fee’s little cabin consists of a bedroom and bathroom in the loft upstairs, a sitting room and a galley kitchen downstairs, and her painting studio attached to the kitchen. 

The property is in a private gated community, and also includes a personal gate house and accommodations for her 24/7 security team (4-5 guards during any rotation).

The lake is an entity in itself. In 1926, through an incredible feat of engineering that was world-renowned at the time, the Connecticut Light and Power company imposed imminent domain on hundreds of acres of land in order to flood it to create electrical turbines. Generational properties were bought up, manor houses and estates were burned to the ground, farmland was decimated, and more than 400 graves were interred and moved to new cemeteries in surrounding towns to make way for the lake. Property owners who refused to sell were able to keep the rights to their land, but of course the land was still flooded in order to create the lake. 

Of course a lake with such a strange, rich history would be the source of countless urban legends and creepy tales. As a child, my family boated there several times a week. We would anchor out in the deep water and I’d swim off the boat with my sister. In the water, I'd remember tales my great-grandma spun about how there are churches and houses beneath me, and I’d imagine cold, dead hands reaching up through fields of milfoil to pull me under. 

The history of the lake and my memories there are rich fodder for storytelling. In Fee’s story, all her turmoil comes from the lake. The Lake Lady watches her constantly from the shore. At night, orbs of light drift across the surface of the water, lost souls searching for their own remains. Anna disappeared into it. Her parents sunk into it after the boat incident and were never recovered. Her crush spends his days on the lake, giving canoe tours and paddleboard lessons. The first plot point puts her into crisis when her brother’s dinner party guests insist she join them on a moonlit cruise in their fancy yacht. The lake taunts her at every turn. Worst of all, when she ventures too far from it, Fee suffers debilitating migraines, nosebleeds, and unconquerable feelings of uselessness. 

Midway through the book, Fee has a dream about the lake in which she sinks into it and discovers a faerie world beneath it. Her cousin Anna is there, married to a faerie king. Anna tells Fee how the Lake Lady has grown in power, threatening their world, and the only way for Fee to stop her is to discover her name and take her power from her. Oh, and also, she has her parents captive.

Of course when Fee wakes up she convinces herself a dream is a dream. But she starts to have second thoughts when her crush, Emerson, (who had vanished in the lake on the same night as the moonlit cruise that never happened, and who was also there in the dream) reemerges from the lake and tells her “they sent him back”.

               

[brehmkr]

First Through The Door - story statement.docx

[Robert Curtis]

1. STORY STATEMENT

When protagonist Joe Spector’s one-man, startup business burns to the ground, he’s left with no income and a pile of debt. Reluctantly, he accepts an offer to become caretaker of a small, rural farm owned by three aging siblings. Because he was abandoned as a child by his fake-fortune-teller mother, Spector chafes at the siblings’ supposed extrasensory perception. Then fate reveals his own keen supernatural abilities. Suddenly arrested for a rape and murder he didn’t commit, Spector’s psychic talent is his key to freedom. He becomes entangled in an ever-expanding paranormal web, psychically solving crimes. To fend off attacks by criminals he accepts an intelligence agency’s protection. Since the only way out is through, Spector has no choice but to accept his role as the “CIA Psychic.”

 

2. ANATGONISTS

Sergeant Dale Boone likes wielding police authority almost as much as he likes the money and sex he purloins. Besides shaking down folks when he can, he also sells intel to keep a small drug ring in business. When that ring is busted with the help of a local psychic, Boone fears being fingered. Then he’s offered big money by major drug operatives who also fear the psychics and want them dead.

Like Boone, bad actors in intelligence agencies clandestinely help criminals come after Spector. Also, certain belligerently skeptical politicians and religious zealots publicly rebuke the “sinner” psychic spy being supported by the CIA.

 

3. PROSPECTIVE TITLES (first in a series)

Spector Rising

Thee Orb ~ One Lane

Thee Orb ~ Tale of a Reluctant Psychic

 

4. COMPARABLE PARANORMAL THRILLERS

The Beginning ~ Psychic Crime Fighters Volume 1  (1st in a series) by David Grisham. Reserve police officer, Darrel Winston, has a psychic ability to be at specific places in advance so he can witness and sometimes prevent crimes. Like Spector, this brings Winston suspicion and rebuke.

Retribution (1st in a series) by C. M. Sutter.  As does Spector, Kate Pierce, “a known psychic detective” reluctantly uses her psychic ability to track down a killer no one else can identify. She, too, must overcome roadblocks and suspicion.

 

5. HOOKS

BRIEF: A crime-fighting psychic targeted by criminals must help the CIA in return for protection.

MORE DETAILED: A reluctant crime-fighting psychic is targeted by criminals and must use his psychic readings to help the CIA in return for the Agency’s protection.

 

6. CONFLICTS

Protagonist Joe Spector’s primary conflict is whether or not to accept and use his newfound psychic ability. That and his inner conflict stemming from female abandonment are both illustrated in this scene which occurs after his psychic ability has been revealed. Joe goes on a “just-friends date" with Aiden, the married daughter of aging Thee Orb psychic, Beverly Ford. They enter a Mexican restaurant dressed up for Halloween in flashy cowboy and cowgirl outfits.

 

… all eyes are on the couple as they enter Rosalita’s. The mariachi band setting up for the night’s entertainment stops to cheer and whistle.

Aiden goes to make a request in decent Spanish. The guitarist replies, “Sí, tocaremos Beatles si tú y el vaquero bailan.”

After they order drinks, Joe asks, “What’s up with the band?”

She offers her movie star smile and says, “I asked if they play the Beatles. He said, yes, if the cowboy and I dance.”

“So I have to dance, too?” She gives him that look so Joe just accepts his fate.

With the band ready, the guitarist calls out, “Welcome to Rosalita on a Halloween. We are Mariachi Carolina an’ is our pleasure to play tonigh’.” They start with Guantanamera.

Joe suggests, “How about we dance after we order.” His iced tea, her margarita, chips and salsa arrive. She orders carnitas and he orders Mike’s favorite, cabra birria tacos.

After the band finishes their next song, the couple approaches the dance floor. Aiden drops a twenty in the tip jar and makes a request.

The guitarist says, “Folk, we gotta repor’ a crime. Yeah, we been bribed an’, well, it work ever’time. So we got especial reques’ from a pretty cowgirl and a guapo cowboy. Ella Te Ama.”

The band plays a slow version of She Loves You. Joe feels almost giddy holding her in his arms. When the song ends, the band, customers, and staff applaud.

As they dine, Aiden asks, “So, Joe, how do you feel about all this psychic stuff you and Mama are into?”

He smiles. “You first.”

Aiden explains how she never wanted to read her Grandmother Rosemary’s paranormal, post-apocalyptic novel,Thee Orb, and didn’t like her mother’s psychic inclinations. “I know the book made them a lot of money and a good many locals like Mama’s readings but it doesn’t feel Christian to me.” Pause. “So what about you, Joe?” she asks.

“Oh, mixed feelings I guess. I mean, I never bought in to woo-woo voodoo before. You see, my mother used to pretend she was psychic. You know, palm reading, tarot cards. Anything for a buck. She called it easy money from dumbasses.”

“I thought you were raised by your Grandpa Rich.”

“Yeah, I was. Mama left me with her parents when I was five. Then, a few months later, Grandma Ruth died. We never heard from Mama again.”

Aiden says, “I’m so sorry you went through all that.”

“Ah. Stuff happens for a reason, right? I mean, I’d hadn’t been to kindergarten because Mama kept moving us around so much. But one thing Grandpa Rich made sure of, though, was me going to school. Even pushed me into going to college.”

“Oh yeah? Where’d you go? What did you study?”

He chuckles lightly. “Well, Lincoln State’s kinda different. Besides academics, it’s also an active farm. That I liked. My last two years Grandpa Rich could only pay for one semester so I worked a semester to pay for the next. That’s when I learned to roast coffee. Anyhow, unlike you who got a degree you can use and a spouse, I doubled-majored in Philosophy and heartbreak.”

“Aw.” Aiden frowns. “Heartbreak?”

“Yeah. Since I was on the five-year plan, my college girlfriend graduated, found herself another guy, and got hitched.”

After a moment, she suggests, “Surely you dated other women since then.”

“Oh, I had lots of one-date-wonders.” Joe smirks. “You know, go on a date and then wonder why you wasted your time.”

She chuckles. “But nothing serious?”

“I had a couple of what I guess you might call short-term relationships but nothing that lasted. Not even Maria who introduced me to your mom.” Joe considers. “Anyhow, what your mom does, and now me, seems to help people. So I guess I'm okay with that.”

 

After his psychic readings help NCDOJ bust a statewide drug ring, Spector is kidnapped by rogue CIA agents who surreptitiously aid the national cartel of which that ring was part. Once rescued, he must decide whether to accept CIA protection in exchange for doing Agency readings or, as he’s inclined, just disappear. Since the aging siblings for whom Spector is caretaker urge him to stay, he and they agree to a psychic reading for advice. The Voice says he should stay and accept the Agency’s deal. Thus, Spector becomes further entangled in a paranormal web he previously refused to believe existed, didn’t seek, and doesn’t want.

 

7. SETTING

Around 30,000 mostly conservative, Christian folks reside in sleepy Silverton, North Carolina. Outside town along a short, rural dirt road called One Lane rest three farmhouses with one of three aging siblings living in each. Although the story starts with Spector living in half a duplex in town, after his business burns and with nowhere else to go the reluctant psychic comes to live in a cabin behind the last farmhouse, Thee Orb.

Most of this story takes place along One Lane. However, events ultimately lead the protagonist to Sedona, Arizona, the North Carolina coast, various Caribbean Islands, a CIA research facility, the halls of Congress, and the White House.

[brehmkr]

First Through The Door (Kevin Brehm)
 

1. Story Statement:

     Justine, a narcotics detective, is the first transgender member of the police department of a large city. She faces anger and hostility from many of her colleagues as well as members of the community. Her cousin, Samuel, also on the narcotics squad, is supportive but concerned for her safety. During a raid on a suspected drug house (operated by drug dealer Tommy Boy), Samuel disappears. Soon after, Justine is contacted by an unknown person who offers to return Samuel in exchange for whoever has recently been killing transgenders in their city. With the aid of a fellow detective, Charlotte, her only friend and ally in the department, Justine searches for the killer. As they pursue the investigation, they encounter danger and violence. When they finally discover the surprising identity of the murderer, Justine faces one more challenge before she can rescue Samuel.

 

2. Antagonist:

A.    Person who kidnapped Samuel: the drug kingpin known as Tommy Boy (who is also transgender)

B.    Person killing transgenders: Captain Spencer of the vice squad (who is Charlotte’s stepfather)

C.    Police officers and community members hostile to transgenders

 

3. Breakout Titles:

A.    FIRST THROUGH THE DOOR (current title)

B.    Gender Killer

C.    Saving Samuel

 

4. Genre Comparables: suspense/thriller/mystery with social issues

A.    Blackwater Falls (Ausma Zehamat Khan): female Muslim detective turns to women colleagues to help investigate missing and murdered girls

B.    The Lost Ones (Sheena Kamal): strong but damaged female protagonist searches for missing daughter she had put up for adoption years earlier

 

5. Hook Line (logline):

    Justine, a transgender narcotics detective, who faces hostility from colleagues, must find the person killing other transgenders, and turn that culprit over to the drug kingpin who has kidnapped Samuel, her cousin, in exchange for Samuel’s release.

 

6. Conflict:

A.    Inner Conflict (core wound): having recently changed gender, Justine struggles with new feelings, both emotional and physical. As a police officer, she struggles with concerns about doing her job well, and also whether she should arrest the suspected killer and go through the justice system or heed the demand of the kidnapper and swap the killer for Samuel.

B.    Secondary Conflict: Justine has to deal with the anger and hostility she faces from her colleagues and members of the community regarding her gender change.

 

7. Setting: the story takes place in a large American city, against the backdrop of the police department and the drug world. Unlike other stories, the details of setting might not be that significant compared to the motivations of the characters, which arise from loyalty to family and from attitudes toward gender and sexual orientation.