1. Story Statement: In the midst of an impoverished city and without her mother to guide her, Bernadette must discover the strength to find her own place of refuge and break free from generational patters.
2. Antagonistic Force: Time and space, the loss of Bernadette's mother and the idea that her mother left her. The generational effects of toxic relationships and being confronted with understanding what has been keeping her mother from her.
3. Breakout title: Philadelphia is Full of Ghosts
Other options: Mother Nature’s Daughter , The Daughter of None
4. Genre: Upmarket Fiction, Comparable Novels: The Moonshiner’s Daughter by Donna Everhardt , The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. My book is comparable to The Moonshiner's Daughter because of the emphasis on the natural world, the coming-of-age narrative, and the theme of longing for one's mother and being desperate to find her. My book is comparable to The Memory Keeper's Daughter because both books illustrate the unbreakable bond of motherhood, even through death, secrets, and loneliness.
5. Hook with Conflict and Core Wound: It isn’t until a chance encounter with a beguiling stranger that the pieces of Bernadette’s life start to come into focus. What emerges over the course of an evening is the portrait of a family, the indelible, fierce bond between mother and child, and one girl’s fight to be free from generational trauma.
6. Inner Conflict & Hypothetical Scenario:
Bernadette's childhood was anything but conventional. While her father drank and raged against the world, her free-spirited mother introduced Bernadette to the beauty of nature. She teaches Bernadette the power of the natural world, its ability to provide solace, and even to heal. But the day Bernadette’s beloved mother leaves, the refuge she provided slips away and soon so do her letters.
Scene that demonstrates Bernadette's pain and longing for her mother:
To my right there were houses on generous yards but not nearly as impressive as the houses neighboring Noelle’s. A wooden fence covered in moss lined the right-hand side of the road. According to my phone, the train station was a twenty-minute walk away. As I continued to walk my heart rate slowed to a normal pace. I looked around to see if there was anyone out in their yards, but I saw no one, only a few lights turned on in the windows. It was peaceful walking down the road, the only noise was my own footsteps and the uniformed singing of the crickets. I noticed a firefly blinking a few feet in front of me, then another one, and another. My mother used to take me to catch fireflies in Fairmount Park. I would bring a mason jar and catch so many that the jar would light up like a lamp in the darkness of the outdoors. Ever since she left, there came certain moments, flashes of recollection, where I missed my mother with a pain so sharp it is truly unspeakable. And I still struggle now to find the words to articulate such a pain. For what is more painful, more unnatural, than losing your mother as a child? And as the fireflies lit up around me, with each pulse of light my heart throbbed.
Secondary Conflict and Hypothetical Scenario :
Since the departure of her mother, the world no longer makes sense until the day Bernadette meets Johnny. Charming and attractive Johnny becomes Bernadette’s first love, but soon their relationship grows darker. In the midst of an impoverished city that offers little to girls and women, Bernadette discovers, much like her friends, they have unknowingly followed in their mother’s footsteps. Without her mother to guide her, Bernadette must discover the strength to find her own place of refuge.
Scene that demonstrates secondary conflict:
The rage boiled inside me. For a moment I had a flashback to Aaron’s face, him standing over me, sneering, saying I don’t know what you think you saw.
“What I think I saw?” I scoffed. “You’re a scumbag, Johnny.” I jerked my shoulder out of his grasp and began to tug my shoes on. When I stood back up, Johnny was in front of the door.
“I’m leaving. Get out of the way.” I blinked my eyes rapidly to stop the tears from coming. I could not cry in front of him. If I did it would make me look weak.
“I’m not moving until you talk to me. You haven’t even told me what’s wrong!”
I realized, in that moment, with a startling clarity, I was afraid of him. As he stood before me blocking my only way of leaving, he possessed all the frightfulness of a strange, grown man. The circles under his eyes were dark from his night of drinking. Suddenly, he reminded me of my father with his unshaven face and his swollen, sallow eyes. This must have been how my mother felt. The one thing she must have known clearly was that she had to leave I closed my eyes. I tried to imagine I was somewhere else. The beach perhaps, or the woods, or standing in an open meadow, the breeze gentle against my face, or perhaps that is not the wind, perhaps those are my mother’s fingers.
“Open your eyes and tell me what the fuck is wrong!” Johnny’s hands tightened around my shoulders, and he shook me.
His grasp was painful, digging into my shoulders, but I was determined not to let it show. “Who is Jenna King,” I asked as stony as I could muster.
Johnny scrunched his face into a look of confusion, but I could see through it easily. “She’s just a friend. Some random girl from my class. What are you even upset about?”
I scoffed. My body felt so hot it was as if I could feel the blood rushing to different parts, like my chest and my temples and my hands. “Get out of my way.”
“I’m not moving until you explain to me what you're upset about. You’re not even making any sense.”
I tried to push him away, but I couldn't.
“Stop!” He yelled. “You’re being crazy. Maybe you’re just in your head, seeing things that aren’t there. Have you ever thought of that? Maybe you’re just trapped in your own fucked up head.”
7. Setting in Detail: Bernadette is born in a poor neighborhood in Philadelphia. The row houses are disheveled with chipping paint and rusty fences hanging off the hinges. When Bernadette is very young, her whimsical and nature-loving mother takes her often to Fairmount Park to roam in the meadow and sit under the great Oak trees. Her mother often told her tales about Mother Nature, and even after her mother leaves, the natural world seems to have a special pull on Bernadette. She remembers her mother telling her how to find omens in the night sky. Snowflakes are filled with memory and meaning and shadows lurk in the darkness of the Winter. Although this story takes place in the depth of an impoverished city, there is a strong description of the natural world.
Bernadette attends an affluent public high school in the suburbs by boundary hopping (lying about her address). She’s determined to start a new life for herself there amongst her wealthy peers. However, she can’t shake where she is really from or the strangeness of the natural world which she inherited from her mother. Bernadette’s best friend from high school, Noelle, lives in a stone mansion with a pool. Bernadette has never seen a house so big. On the other hand, Johnny, Bernadette’s boyfriend, lives in a less than affluent part of the suburbs that borders the train tracks. Johnny soon moves to a local community college where Bernadette often stays with him.
