Innocent Blood
THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT
Discover the truth about a woman whose life turns out to be nothing but lie after lie.
THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT
Josephine Chapman is a woman on a mission. She fights what she sees as injustice, using every means at her disposal, legal or otherwise. She is smart and canny, and is always two steps ahead of anyone who opposes her. Or who tries to find out the truth about her, even her ex-girlfriend. She was the victim once, she will never be the victim again.
CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE
Innocent Blood
DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES
Legal thriller
comparables -
The It Girl by Ruth Ware
Misguided by James Chandler
The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith
CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT
Josephine Chapman cripples a man for trying to assault her, and she turns to her ex-girlfriend Claire Lynch for legal help. When the man dies from his injuries, Jo now faces murder charges, and her story about the ‘stranger’ starts to unravel. Claire finds that almost nothing she knew about her ex-girlfriend was true, and then learns the shocking reason for the duplicity.
OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS
Secondary conflicts - As Claire helps Jo and represents her, she comes up against her brother Jake, who is the District Attorney and has been after Jo for years. Claire also discovers that almost nothing she knew about Jo was true, even though they were together for five years.
Inner conflicts - Even though Jo and Claire lived together for five years, Claire has never come out to her parents. As the facts of the case develop, a local reporter intends to out Claire in an upcoming article. To get out in front of it, Claire has to come out to her mother; it doesn’t go as Claire expected.
THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING
The setting is Austin, Texas. The Lynch family is an old, established family with a thriving law office. Claire runs that office, while her brother Jake is the District Attorney. Their brother Travis is the black sheep, who has turned his back on the family legacy and practices law in a barely-making-it law practice of hs own. The city of Austin provides many different locations and many different characters to draw from.
