2025 and 2026 New York Write to Pitch - Seven A

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The Rise and Fall of the Cat Vampire 

If you had to choose between virtue and loyalty, would you bite the hand that feeds you?

Perkins the labrador is the personal valet of Whiskershire the cat-vampire king. Raised in court, his political acumen surpasses that of the king himself. The king, Whiskershire, occupied with his thirst for blood, hunger for power, and the felines in his court, has no time for trivial matters such as the public good. In a kingdom depleted by the king’s egocentricities, mysterious forces conspire to organize a coup d’état. With rebellion knocking on the door, Perkins must decide: betray his king and save the kingdom, or betray his own kind and remain loyal to his lifelong master.

 

 

1)      Story Statement:

In this 18^th century fable, an undervalued labrador valet must choose between virtue and loyalty and decide whether to do right by his own kind or fulfill his duty toward his lifelong, tyrannical, cat-vampire master.

 

2)      Antagonist:

This book is largely written from the POV of both Perkins and Whiskershire. For that reason, and due to my personal belief that there is no ultimate evil in most individuals—only distorted perspective and projected wounds—Whiskershire is portrayed as both an antagonist and protagonist. He’s the villain in many characters’ stories, yet he’s the hero in others, especially Perkins.

To make up for that, I’ve also introduced another antagonist opposing Whiskershire, a mysterious force that drives the rebellion against his rule.

 

a)      Whiskershire is a cat-vampire king that governs the kingdom of Whiskeria. Across the river lies the kingdom of Westriver with which Whiskershire signed a treaty cat centuries ago. The treaty demanded that Westriver supply harvest, and rabbits for Whiskeria’s special and quotidian needs. In return, Whiskeshire vowed not to wage war or harm the citizens of Westriver. Tension rises between the two countries when the treaty is broken and the cat-vampire king is the only suspect.

While the king is busy chasing his new love interest, rebellion brews in the horizon. Pressured by the imminence of his doom and the ultimatums of an impatient feline, Whiskershire must choose between mortal love and infinite power.

 

b)      A mysterious character is organizing a coup d’état. Driven by ambition, the character turns key players in the story against one another, stirring a rebellion and sparking a war, leading to the ultimate fall of Whiskeria. The puppet master is revealed in the third act.

 

3)      Title:

Whiskershire: Cat Vampire

Chronicles of a Cat Vampire

The Rise and Fall of Whiskeria

The Cat Vampire King

4)      Comparable:

This work was largely influenced by George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and will appeal to lovers of the classic ‘Puss in Boots’ and Rita Mae Brown’s ‘Mrs. Murphy’ series due to their elements of mystery, whimsy, and politically-driven plot.

5)      Core Wound:

Since both Perkins and Whiskershire are main characters, I will delve into the core wounds of each.

a)      Perkins: A tyrant cat-vampire king forces his personal valet Perkins to reflect on the ambiguity of loyalty.

b)      Whiskershire: An impending rebellion and illusive love interest force the tyrant, vampire king to choose between mortal love and unlimited power.

6)      Deeper Levels of Conflict:

a)      Perkins:

i)                   Triggered by the deteriorating living conditions of his hometown and a harsh accusation from a childhood best friend, Perkins begins to question his loyalty to the king he has served his entire life.

ii)                 Perkins is an underpaid and undervalued worker. He has no family or loved ones to comfort him. He works around the clock and barely sleeps to ensure the king’s affairs are in order during the day, and to be present as his personal valet at night. When the king forms a friendship with a knighted golden retriever, Perkins feels lonelier than ever. The reality of his own mortality sets in, and he wonders if he should dedicate his few remaining years in pursuit of something that rewards him for his dedication.

b)      Whiskershire:

i)                    Whiskershire is notorious for acquiring the love of any feline he desires with a snap of his fingers. When he meets Perla Reeds, a reporter for the Cat Times, he is enchanted. Her elusive tactics drive him to possessive madness. He must have her at all costs. And the cost may be his kingdom.

ii)                 Whiskershire has a reality check after a séance the rat high priestess performs on him in her dilapidated shack. He realizes that his old ways were a cry for affection, and that in order to find the love he craves, he must first defeat the vampire within.

7)      Settings:

a)      Castle: grand, dark, and gothic, the castle is the setting where most the events of the story take place. It’s extravagant interior and exterior juxtapose the decrepit dog town on the kingdom’s northern border.

b)      Westriver: a self-sufficient kingdom, Westriver lives in a utopian state where everyone’s needs are met and no one feels more superior to the other. The war with Whiskeria shifts the balance and poverty spreads like contagion.

c)      The ancient forest: the land that houses both kingdoms as well as the Wild Country on the top of the mountain and the human world at the bottom.

Theory of Wind

A Contemporary YA Fantasy by Rebecca Nevius

 

Assignment 1:

An ordinary girl with no belief in the supernatural, Dylan discovers her mother’s spirit is trapped inside the Nike of Samothrace. Soon after, she’s drawn into a hidden world of dangerous Immortals and must master inherited powers to recover the statue’s missing wings before her uncle destroys them and her chance to bring her mother back to life.

 

Assignment 2: 

At first, the deepest threat to Dylan appears to be  the supernatural world she encounters in her nightmares, yet at the heart of her struggle is Nan, her adoptive grandmother. Out of a desire to protect, Nan kept Dylan in the dark about her mother and her true lineage as the daughter of Alexander the Great and the Nike of Samothrace in the Louvre. Nan’s secrecy leaves Dylan unprepared for the dangers that await, making her a moral antagonist. Her protective intentions create the very obstacles Dylan must overcome.

Mabel, a self-serving  Immortal, intensifies Dylan’s challenges. Pretending to be twenty-five, she works at Moomaids ice cream shop near the town green and is sent to spy on Dylan. Her break in awakens Dylan’s latent powers—abilities to hear voices in the wind, glimpse ghostly faces, and sense the missing pieces of her mother’s wings—forcing Dylan into the dangerous supernatural world before she is ready. Thankfully the Morgans are there to welcome Dylan and give her the one thing that makes sense of it all: Nan’s journal.  

Duncan, the charming archaeologist who uncovers the Nike’s missing wing with Jim Morgan, appears to be an ally. Suspicion soon arises after Duncan tries to steal the wing they uncovered. Dylan and the Morgans realize he is Olethus, son of West Wind and the Nike’s brother. He was responsible for tearing off her wing and turning Dylan’s family to stone 2,000 years before.. His motives in stealing the wing are misunderstood, making him a deceptive antagonist whose actions complicate Dylan’s journey and misdirect her away from the true villain and architect of the Nike’s fall: her father, West Wind. He orchestrated her mother’s betrayal, pinning the blame on his son, and has been manipulating events in order to destroy the truth of what really happened.  Together, these forces shape Dylan’s path and define the challenges she must overcome to save her mother. 

 

Assignment 3: 

Theory of Wind: Named for Nan’s journal, which records her theories about the wind and the source of her own supernatural abilities.

The Weight of Wings: Dylan’s grief over the deaths of her Nan and brother, combin with the heavy responsibility of her own hidden powers. Also, her mother’s form weighs two tons, and the task of stealing her from the Louvre feels impossible.

The Winged Silence: Her mother has stood as a winged figure in stone for two millennia. Dylan’s brother became an invisible Immortal at his death—present but silent—and she struggles to hear him.

 

Assignment 4: 

My novel evokes the found-family dynamics of Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, the legacy-driven suspense of Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ The Inheritance Games, and the historical grounding of The Art Spy by Michelle Young.

Assignment 5: 

When teenage Dylan Jensen discovers her mother’s spirit is trapped inside the Nike of Samothrace, she must clumsily navigates the strange powers she’s inherited while outwitting her immortal uncle to retrieve the statue’s missing wings—the only way to bring her mother back from two millennia of silence.

Assignment 6:  

Internal Conflict (Emotional/Existential)

Dylan struggles with grief over the loss of her mother and brother, resentment toward Nan for hiding the truth, and feelings of inadequacy as she navigates powers she barely understands. Also, the introduction of an unseen realm she previously had never considered has her on edge and questioning the nature of her own identity.

Her emotions are further complicated by a resentment toward the Morgans for being spared the secrecy, and as the Morgans’ expectation that she steal her mother’s statue from the Louvre becomes apparent, her anxiety and self-doubt intensifies, alienating her from her newfound family. 

Trigger: After dinner at the Morgans’ house, Dylan inadvertently uses her ability and vanishes to an Aegean island where inhuman voices chant her demise.  

Reaction: Terrified and disoriented, she rages into the night air, wondering if this too was one of Nan’s secrets. Upon hearing the Morgans’ explanation, she resents their effortless mastery of their powers as her own abilities continue to misfire. Her heightened sense of powerlessness and frustration causes her to oscillate between anger and determination, loneliness and a sense of belonging. 

Secondary Conflict (Environmental/Social/Moral)

Dylan has undeniable attraction to Ethan, the Morgan’s eldest son, and despite her best efforts she continues to come off as idiodic. Ethan’s attentions toward her are constantly distracted by his younger brother Jaego, a ball of energy, who rarely thinks about danger and constantly asks dumb questions. 

Trigger: Dylan, Ethan, and Jaego are led down a hall by a supernatural force and discover a pair of brand-new crates amid a pile of musty antiquities. Dylan must manage not only her expectations about the contents of the crates but also the diverging personalities of the brothers and their constant bickering. When Dr. Morgan’s partner, Duncan, arrives with a sketchy individual who turns a guard to stone, they are forced to hide in the cramped confines of a nearby closet.

Reaction: Dylan feels overwhelmed by the responsibility of protecting the crates’ contents while dealing with the bickering brothers. She struggles to keep her own emotions in check in order to make the split-second decision that could save a wing fragment. The situation forces her to balance her newfound authority with the wily emotions of the two brothers, all while facing the constant possibility of being discovered. Questions flood her mind: Should they steal it? Is it really stealing if it’s not a thing, but a person? The whole scenario makes her realize just how fragile her situation is—how something as small as an unchecked emotion or a stumble in the closet could ruin everything.

Assignment 7: 

The story opens in the farthest reaches of England, in Newlyn, a salt-scoured fishing village clinging to Cornwall’s southernmost tip. This is where the rail line ends and the sea begins. Dylan’s inherited cottage, with its old fireplace and peeling wallpaper, breathes with memory. Its windows have been witness to the razing of pirates in centuries past and the plentiful hauls of fortunate wreckers. Even in the 1990s, Newlyn feels ancient, suspended between eras, a perfect liminal space for a girl who doesn’t yet know where she belongs.

From these fog-wrapped coasts, Dylan’s world expands through mysterious portals that open and close without warning.  First, she is dumped unceremoniously onto Samothrace, an Aegean island where an ancient temple pulses with the energy of an invisible power, then on St. Michael’s Mount in Marazion, a tidal castle tethered to the mainland only at low tide. 

The Louvre’s echoing halls hold her mother’s petrified form, and Cairo’s Egyptian Museum hums with the restless energy of their dead. The unopened tomb in KV5 hides not only the last piece of her mother’s wing, but an unseen danger as dark as its myriad of yet undiscovered rooms. Bodies of water and the sea itself become living characters, a mirror to her true identity and a test of her endurance. 

Across continents, the settings remain bound by one atmosphere: places where legendary figures and invisible power press close to the skin of the present and where history refuses to stay buried.

A Ripe Republic

A literary-historical novel by Ethan Joselow

 

1. Story Statement: 

For the story writ large: To come out on top or become nothing.

There are three protagonists. Here’s a statement for each:

Lee Christmas: To reclaim all he lost and to go home an important man.

Manuel Bonilla: To redeem his country from its cycle of ruin.

Sam Zemurray: To take his place among the captains of industry despite the odds.  

2. Antagonist: Due to the split nature of the narrative, there are a few key antagonists.

The central antagonist is Minor Keith, a railroad tycoon with a heavy stake in the banana business, who became semi-royalty in Costa Rica, and has designs on Honduras. He employs Lee on the railroads, belittling him at every opportunity, calling him out on his earlier failures in wrecking his train, calling him "good enough."  To Manuel, he sees a fifth-rate leader of a tenth-rate country with no power of his own. To Sam, he simply sees someone to run out of business. Keith is the embodiment of Manifest Destiny-- the idea that there are those who are simply superior, and are therefore "destined" to dominate everyone else. All three men fight against this idea for their own reasons, and Keith serves as the idea's human embodiment. 

Winfield Christmas (Lee): The ghost of Lee’s father, who appears in his dreams. Winfield once owned a large tract in antebellum Louisiana only to be dispossessed during the Civil War, and end up scraping by in a rundown sawmill town. Winfield is a constant reminder of all Lee lost but never had. He is cruel and intensely depressing figure—a drunkard with nothing but a bad attitude, but nonetheless Lee’s father, to whom Lee feels an instinctive respect. Lee is forever running from Winfield in his psyche, trying to correct the seeming injustices in both Winfield’s and Lee’s lives, trying to do something more than become a pattern of behavior himself.  

Policarpo Bonilla (Manuel): A powerful and handsome young deputy in the Honduran congress who dreams of his country becoming fully integrated in a hemispheric economy, where all his citizens are educated and productive. It emerges that Policarpo mentioned Manuel Bonilla’s mixed race in arguing that he was the right suitor for a governor’s daughter, whom Manuel was enamored with. Over time, he becomes president of Honduras, with Manuel as his vice president. Manuel grows ever more resentful about Policarpo’s politics and foppish disposition, driven by his personal disliking. Through this antagonism, Manuel comes to believe that only he can fix the country’s problems—but only at the cost of his own moral center. 

Philander Knox (Sam): Once an aide to President McKinley in his Central American exploits, Philander Knox grows to become an important man in American politics, eventually serving as Secretary of State under a few presidents. Philander Knox represents the old blue-blooded families and interests that dominate America—people like J.P. Morgan, and Andrew Preston, one of the founders of the banana trade in Central America. He is himself a cold pragmatist with a natural dislike for the “inferior races,” and an understanding of the world as simply a matter of “finance and coercion.” He attempts to wipe out Sam out of a mix of personal contempt and as a threat to what he sees the dominant economic players he sees as pure representations of American interests. Sam must keep Philander off his tail until he can become powerful enough himself to be under Philander’s protection— by bankrolling a coup d’etat. 

3. Titles:  

A Ripe Republic: How three outsiders won it all and lost themselves

Greenback Paradise: The seizure of an overripe kingdom

If You Can Keep It: A fable of power, prosperity, and holding on for all it’s worth 

4. Comps: 

Hernan Diaz’s TRUST: A split narrative encompassing a broad swath of time and place, following several protagonists as they navigate the worlds of finance and power. It is an idea-driven narrative that interrogates how capitalism distorts morality. 

Christina Henriquez’s THE GREAT DIVIDE: The story of the construction of the Panama Canal; a massive engineering project in Central America, driven by powerful American interests. THE GREAT DIVIDE’s characters intersect with high relational stakes, exploring ambition, displacement, and the moral cost of progress.

5. Hook Line: 

Lost in the Gilded Age, three outsiders—an exiled railroad man, a disillusioned soldier, and a hungry immigrant—collide in Central America, where their dreams ripen to rot. 

-or-

At the turn of the Twentieth Century, three outsiders—an exiled railroad man, a disillusioned soldier, and a hungry immigrant confront a Gilded Age tycoon with religious conviction that Central America is his. Faced with the impossible, they turn to the improbable, and win. 

-or-

If you can’t join them, beat them. A Ripe Republic is the tale of three outsiders who win an empire and lose themselves in the bargain.

6. Inner Conflict: 

Overall, the inner conflicts in A Ripe Republic follow the good old Freudian id vs. superego framework: Do you go with your urges, or with the higher-level ideas you believe to be right? Each protagonist goes through multiple cycles of this, and in the end, it seems, the id wins, with varying degrees of regret and reflection depending on the protagonist. 

Lee’s conflict is simplest. Do I drink, gamble, and wreck things, or do I settle down, do what I need to do in a disciplined way, and achieve my actual goal of a nice house with kids running around? The hard part for Lee is that he is rewarded for the “wreck things” aspect of his personality, becoming very powerful in the process. This is what actually works in his life, and it is the source of much of his pride. The ghost of his father is a reminder of both sides. On one hand, he rages against it. On the other, he wants to right his family’s wrongs. He is given numerous off-ramps, both in New Orleans with his increasingly powerful friends, and with the well-to-do families he marries into in Honduras. Each time, his urges win out. In the end, he finds himself in the very same place as his father—dispossessed, drunk, and with dwindling fortunes. He never escapes his conflict. 

Hypothetical scenario (Lee): Lee’s friend Remy tells him to relax, that things will be fine once he gains political office. Remy keeps making offers of real prosperity and notoriety, but Lee rejects it each time. Lee repeats again and again in his interactions with Remy and elsewhere that he is his “own man.” It is both a point of pride, and a way out of becoming subordinate to something, even if it’s a sure thing. It’s always easier to be one’s “own man” when this means drinking and gambling. 

Manuel’s conflict is most cerebral. Do I seek power because I care about the people, or do I let my resentment and cynicism drive my ambition? At his purest, he is very concerned with the well-being of the average Honduran. He struggles with the high-minded ideas of the progressives, but is in his own way more of a radical than a conservative. Over time, witnessing the endless battles for power in his country forever dictated by shady American interests, he becomes more and more certain that nothing will change, despite his wish that it would. His cynical side is pushed harder by his resentment for his antagonist, wherein what he really wants above any political ideal is to dominate everything. His idealist side is pushed by his encounters with people, and the absence of such encounters by his peers. In the end, Manuel sees his own life running short, and comes to believe that there is no way out of the endless cycle of coups; that the only goal is to come out on top. Dying as president is his life’s last aspiration, and he will cut any deals to make sure that is how it ends. 

Hypothetical scenario (Manuel): There are two intensive dialogues between Manuel and Policarpo Bonilla. In the first, it is a friendly discussion on what matters more— big investment in the country, or listening to people and understanding what they themselves want. Later in the book Manuel meets Policarpo, who is now locked in a jail cell on Manuel’s orders. He lectures Policarpo on the true nature of power, and how people like Policarpo never get it. For Manuel in that moment, the true nature of power is that he is president, and his nemesis is in a cell.

Sam is driven by an unending restlessness to do more, to grow, to be better. He cares about his family, who have been kind and caring towards him, but he loses sight of how to meet their own needs. He senses his own inadequacies, and tries to make reparations in his own way—sending money to them, but it’s not what they want. Throughout his story, Sam finds any sort of intimacy difficult-to-impossible. In situations where intimacy or “the personal” is called for, he always reverts back to what is safe for him-- business. In later chapters it emerges that this is rooted in a childhood trauma. In certain moments it seems that Sam wants to slow down, to take in the sights, but his restlessness seems to be nipping at his heels no matter the situation. 

Hypothetical Scenario (Sam): Towards the end of the book, now hugely successful but essentially orphaned and alone in the world, Sam tries to make small talk with one of his employees, Rachel. She is a few years younger, smart, attractive, from the same background as Sam—an obvious choice to ask out. He tries to talk to her about anything other than business, but finds that he simply can’t. He’s not capable, and there are other more “important” things, like the latest message from Central America that came in off the wire.

7. Setting: 

There are more than a dozen locales in A Ripe Republic. I’ll keep it open-ended.

1. New Orleans: This is home for Lee, the place of business for Sam, and the place for bringing together a conspiracy to Manuel. Cook’s bar is Lee’s home, or perhaps a default state for him. It is rundown, its air is heavy, its patrons are seedy, and the music is supplied by a piano whose major notes were “made minor by neglect.” The docks are where Sam spends most of his time, arranging for shipments, dealing with business matters. Most of the energy of the docks focuses on the process of loading and unloading cargo. The difficult jobs of the stevedores who toil at all hours. The shouts in various languages, the writing in chalk on barrels and boxes. A crescendo of the book takes place in a bordello, where Lee, Sam, and Manuel all meet face-to-face to launch their takeover of Honduras. The bordello is stately but gaudy as it should be. The house was the small mansion of some antebellum family, and has all the trappings of it, even if disused. Lee takes special note of a brass doorknocker that on close inspection depicts a Roman orgy.   

2. Honduras: The country is green, hilly, stormy, and peppered with small towns and cities that are mostly oriented towards the extraction of things like bananas from the earth. The coast is windswept and forlorn; a place that was important in the days of the Spanish, but had been forgotten as the capital moved inland to Tegucigalpa. It is where Manuel feels most at home, patrolling along the rocks and crags of the scrubland. Lee’s experience there is in his homebase of Puerto Córtez, which is a rough town driven in large part by the predilections of the expatriate ne’er-do-wells who work for the railroads and plantations. He lives behind a cantina and spends his days either working, or drinking and gambling. Trujillo is where Manuel feels most comfortable, with the decaying fortress of Santa Barbara, where he likes to spend time alone when not on patrol. It is where he hoped to settle down as a landed caudillo with noble intentions. The lowlands of Honduras are forest, banana groves, swamp, and rail lines. The highlands are where Tegucigalpa is, with its faster pace, trappings of high society, and removal from the populace. Sam never goes there. Lee goes there only as a brutish military/police leader. Manuel goes there because that is where power is, though he never really likes it. 

Up Pops the Sun
~80,000 Upmarket Fiction

Assignment 1: The Act of Story Statement

Prevent a high stakes investor from hijacking Elysium, severing Ellie’s relationship with her departed mother, and auctioning off her afterlife tech to the highest bidder.
____________________________________________________

Assignment 2: The Antagonist Plots the Point

Spaulding was born into privilege and entitlement. He takes from others because he believes it's his right. To the public, he appears to be a shrewd business investor, but beneath the surface, he’s ruthless, manipulative, and willing to use blackmail to get what he wants. Operating in the shadows, he poses as a generous philanthropist, drawing in the hopeful with false promises. Meanwhile, he sabotages the very companies he invests in, setting them up to fail so he can seize control and sell their technology to the highest bidder.

He leaves Elysium vulnerable to cyberattacks, resulting in a potential data breach. He coerces the company’s therapist into spying on Ellie, threatening to revoke their license if they refuse. When he attempts to replicate Elysium’s technology, a test subject dies by suicide. Spaulding pins the blame on Ellie, using the tragedy as leverage to take over the company.

His actions force Ellie to confront her reliance on Elysium and the lengths she’ll go to avoid facing her mother’s death and her own guilt. Without Spaulding’s interference, Ellie might have built a successful, thriving company; but she may never have come to terms with her loss and continued to live in denial.
____________________________________________________

Assignment 3: Conjuring Your Breakout Title

•    Up Pops the Sun
•    I Will Hear Your Footsteps
•    Mirror the Departed
____________________________________________________
 

Assignment 4: Deciding Your Genre and Approaching Comparables

Genre: Upmarket (grounded) Speculative Fiction

Comp 1: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (2021) This speculative novel explores the emotional complexity of clinging to a lost loved one through digital replication, despite knowing the replica can never truly replace the original. It parallels Ellie’s longing to preserve her connection with her mother, even if that link can only be obtained through a digital facsimile.

Comp 2: Memory Collectors by Dete Meserve (2025) A grounded speculative thriller that examines the human urge to relive the past, even though the present is unchangeable. As characters uncover hidden memories, they come to accept that while the past can’t be altered, deeper understanding can lead to peace and acceptance. This novel resonates with the suspenseful dimension of my story, where Ellie struggles to hold onto her mother without causing harm to others, forcing Ellie to confront the loss of her mother, and accept life without her.

Comp 3: My Murder by Katie Williams (2023) A grounded speculative thriller where main character Lou is resurrected after being murdered by a notorious serial killer. Lou becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth about her murder, leading her down a path to catch the real killer and learning how to live as a replica of the person she once was. This narrative mirrors Ellie’s own journey to understand why someone is determined for her to uncover the truth about Lillith Taylor’s death. Like Lou, Ellie’s pursuit of answers forces her to confront hidden realities, putting everything she holds dear at risk.

____________________________________________________

Assignment 5: Core Wound and Primary Conflict (Hook/Logline)

Betrayed and wrongfully accused of fraud by her business partner, Ellie Adams must decide whether to cut her losses and protect herself or fight back and dismantle the Boston-based startup she built, giving up her last connection to her departed mother.
____________________________________________________
 

Assignment 6: Other Matters of Conflict: Two More Levels

Inner Conflict: 
Ellie feels turmoil over her mother’s death. She feels guilty for taking her mother for granted and always believing there would be more time. Ellie also feels guilty she hasn’t been there for Andi, her best friend, the way Andi was there for her when Ellie’s mother died. Ellie feels conflicted because she can’t empathize with Andi’s attachment and loss of Sam, Andi’s toxic ex. Finally, Ellie feels anxiety over her company and what she’s built, wondering if she’s done enough to get it off the ground and help people. All of these anxieties are evident in the scene where Andi tells Ellie Sam is missing. 

Scene summary:
After months of silence, Andi finally breaks the ice, asking Ellie to meet. Ellie arrives with her mind elsewhere, still unsettled by the strange email she received at her mother’s grave. It’s cryptic, possibly a remnant of the cyberattack they narrowly avoided. She hasn’t had time to decode it, but its timing feels ominous.

As she steps into Ramero’s, their favorite dining spot, Ellie spots Andi hunched over a basket of untouched chips. One look at her friend’s wan face and trembling hands, and Ellie knows: Sam has done something again.

Andi barely keeps it together as she explains: Sam has vanished without warning, leaving behind a worrying text: “I can’t live without you anymore.” Andi is convinced Sam has hurt herself. Ellie, less charitable, hopes Sam has simply moved on to wreak havoc elsewhere.

Ellie wraps an arm around Andi, offering comfort and the promise to help find Sam. But as she holds her friend close, her own thoughts spiral. The email. The hack. The mounting pressure at work. The secrets she’s keeping. The lies she’s told. 

And then there’s Marcus.

He’s been her anchor these past two years. Steady, kind, and maddeningly perceptive. Ellie feels herself drawn to him in ways she hadn’t expected, but the risk of ruining their friendship keeps him at arm’s length. Still, in her worst moments, she always finds herself dialing his number. He never hesitates to respond, always there to help. Marcus always shows up. And Ellie, despite everything, finds herself hoping he always will.

She wonders, not for the first time, if she’s in over her head.

Secondary conflict:
On top of the mounting pressure at work, Ellie is overwhelmed by Andi’s emotional fallout over Sam’s sudden disappearance. Ellie finds herself constantly second-guessing what to say, how to help, how to be the steady presence Andi needs. More often than not, she feels like she’s failing. Their bond is one of the most important in Ellie’s life; Andi is the last person she truly considers family. But the strain is growing. Ellie’s dislike for Sam paired Andi’s blind devotion has created a rift that neither of them knows how to overcome.

Meanwhile, Ellie’s feelings for Marcus continually deepen. He’s the one she turns to when everything feels like too much. Work stress, Andi’s unraveling, or even her own loneliness. She cherishes their friendship and fears jeopardizing it by admitting how much she wants more. Her thoughts drift to him constantly, and the emotional distance she tries to maintain is wearing thin.

But when Marcus urges Ellie to set firmer boundaries with Andi and begins to question her dependence on her digital mother, Ellie feels her support system begin to fracture. The people she leans on are pulling away, and she’s not sure who’s left to catch her if she falls.

This is most evident in Ellie and Andi’s road trip.

Scene Summary: 
Ellie and Andi drive in tense silence. Andi’s curt responses make conversation impossible. Ellie suspects Andi is angry because of the overheard conversation with Marcus, who warned Ellie against enabling Andi’s impulsive search for Sam. For the first time, Ellie feels that Marcus may not be as supportive as she wants.

Despite Marcus’s concerns, Ellie borrowed his car and agreed to the trip, torn between loyalty and exasperation. The silence finally breaks when Ellie snaps, begging Andi to talk. Their argument escalates until Andi admits she’s sick of the drama, sick of Sam, and terrified that after all of her fear and anxiety, Sam might just be with someone else.
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Assignment 7: The Incredible Importance of Setting
This story is based in Boston, alternating between downtown and Boston’s North end. She has a love/hate relationship with Boston. It contains many memories, good and bad, of her time with mother which lend to the nostalgia of the novel. 

It’s also very walkable and gives a more immersive feel to the story. Each location holds greater weight than just being a restaurant, office building, or bar. Each location holds a specific memory or meaning to the character, especially because Ellie’s greatest desire was to leave Boston and find her own life, only to be drawn back in by her mother’s death. 

Additionally, Boston works for this story because it is close enough to New York for seed funding/investor oversight, but far enough away to feel more intimate as a startup (rather than a place like Silicon Valley where there are hundreds of startups clustered together). Elysium was never meant to make millions, and because the product offering is so niche, there isn’t a lot of competition. The location’s comparative isolation adds to Elysium’s authenticity. 

All of this lend to the city of Boston becoming as much a character in the story as the people are.
____________________________________________________

Hello.  Here are my seven completed assignments in advance of the conference in December.  I reordered them a bit for purposes of presentation.  Thank you.

 

Assignment 3: The Breakout Title

“The Aztlan Codex, Part One: The Obsidian Empire”

This title is meant to convey a sense of the setting and cause intrigue while keeping the major plot points a mystery.  It is also stated up front that it is the first in a series of books (outlined currently as six books in total) at signal to the reader they are beginning an epic journey. 

 

Assignment 4: Genre and Comparable Works

The genre that describes this work is an epic fantasy.  The books are rather long and form a multi-part story while and set in an exotic locations with magic (called Sorcery in-world). Also, as in most epic fantasy, the story features the points of view of many characters in disparate locations.

First Comparable Work: The Daevabad Trilogy (author S. A. Chakraborty)

The Daevabad Trilogy uses the unique myths, creatures, history and cultures of the Near East to create an engaging setting and a unique blend of magical and political turmoil.  The Aztlan Codex does something similar using New World myth, legend, geography and cultural touchstones from North, South, and Central America.  Also tonally the books are similar in that they are neither “grim and gritty” fantasy like Game of Thrones but not the classical “high” fantasy of the Lord of the Rings or the Chronicles of Narnia.  The characters have physical needs: they sweat and lust, but it is not graphically portrayed.  

Second Comparable Work: The Temeraire Series (author Naomi Novak)

The Temeraire Series are wonderful fantasy books that blend real history with fictional elements, specifically a world where the Napoleonic Wars have intermixed the presence of dragons that have been harnessed as military assets and formed into aerial corps, as well as other magical implications.  Likewise, the Aztlan Codex uses actual historical practices and cultures of the New World and overlays magic and other legends into their lived experience.  What if the world had been doomed to end in 2012 (the end of the 13^th Bak’tun of the Calendar Round) and human beings not only knew this, but were actively seeking to either prevent or bring this end about?  What if the gods of the Popol Vuh and the Dresden Codex were not only real, but could interact with the societies that worshipped them?  What would it mean if Sorcery were tied to blood, spirits, and the Calendar Round?   And more intriguing, what if the great cultures of the Americas (Maya, Aztec, Teotihuacan, Inca, Olmec, Mapuche, Muisca and Pueblo) traded and formed stable governments interactive with each other?

 

Assignment 7: The Importance of Setting

Aztlan refers to the land the Mexica (aka Aztecs) believed they had journeyed from before arriving in the Valley of Mexico.  This is the origin of Aztlan as it appears in my story.  Aztlan is that mythic world of gods, monsters and magic.  In Aztlan great tribes based on the actual cultures of the New World have risen up and formed powerful alliances and governments. 

To create an immersive and living world, I have drawn on their real-life technology, cuisine, economics and other cultural considerations but also deviated now and then for purposes of storytelling.  So for instance, the common liquors of the world such as chicha and balche are based on real liquors from the New World drunk by the Inca and Mexica (made from corn and honey) but tepache, a pineapple-based liquor, comes from trade with the Sunset Isles, a corollary with our world’s Polynesia though there is no evidence of trans-pacific trade.  This is a small example of the kind of blending of fact and fiction to create a small detail of life, and has been done to the nth degree with everything including religion, trade, food, metallurgy, warfare, politics, etc. 

Also, the architecture and buildings of the various tribes is often reflected our world as well.  As an example, the Thunderbird, one of the northernmost of the Great Tribes, build and live in massive cliff cities such as Mesa Verde in Colorado or Montezuma’s Castle in Arizona (albeit on a much larger scale).  The Condor meanwhile live on terraces based on sites such as Machu Picchu.  The Tree Frog build large cities in the treetops of the Flooded Forest, a region based on the flooding of the Amazon River Basin (albeit the idea of a large tree-top city is pure fantasy).  Coatepec, the imperial capital city, is a large floating city on a lake that recalls Tenochtitlan.  People familiar with the subject will see many more parallels in the descriptions and maps of the important areas of Aztlan. 

Using the New World and its peoples as the base for an epic fantasy was a deliberate choice, first because of my fascination with the region, and second because I feel we have enough stories based on European cultures and history.  Thus magic, for example, is based on the turning of the Calendar Round (an important part of many Mesoamerican cultures), blood sacrifice, and shamanistic/animalist practices.  There are no magic wands or broomsticks.  I believe this setting will make The Aztlan Codex stand out as something different and (hopefully) well-regarded.

 

Assignment 1: Story Statement

This story is primarily based on the perspectives of three main protagonists whose paths are drawn closer together: 

The first, Ahuatzi, is a young man whose sister has been kidnapped.  Coming from a home of strict pacifists he nevertheless sets out hoping to find her and, if possible, bring her back.  He wants to hold to his family's ideals, but can he do so and still accomplish his goal?  What must he sacrifice to save her, assuming she can in fact be saved?

The second main protagonist is Caxcal.  Born into a world of wealth and privilege, he has spent his adult life trying to distance himself from the politics and plots of the empire’s elites.  But when his father recalls him to the court, Caxcal finds himself enmeshed in their intrigues and political maneuvers despite all he can do.  His only way out might be to not only learn to play but to beat his rivals at their own games. 

The third major character is Tozi, a brilliant but troubled scholar, who sees in the stars above the signs of impending doom for the empire.  But while she struggles to be heard and raise the voice of warning, someone dear to her is threatened by a sinister conspiracy intent on upending the empire from top to bottom.  Tozi must now prove the threat she warns of is real, or the ones she loves will pay the price. 

 

Assignment 2: The Antagonist(s)

The Antagonist of the story is a secret cabal known as the Brotherhood of the New Moon.  The members of this conspiracy range from some of the greatest in the empire to the humblest.  The motives of this company are mixed: some believe they can save the empire through unsavory means, others are merely seeking power and profit for themselves, and others seek to bring about the very calamity the others wish to prevent.  For the first half of the book, each protagonist is not even aware of the brotherhood’s existence.  The secrecy of the organization means that members can and often are revealed in ways designed to heighten the story’s tension.   

One overarching feature of the Brotherhood worth noting is they are complicit in bringing back the forbidden practice of Blood Sorcery, long since banned in the empire.  They wish to harness this power for their own ends.  It is for this purpose that innocents such as Ahuatzi’s sister are being taken from their homes, and it is through the actions of members of this cabal that Tozi and Caxcal end up having to work together to save someone dear to them both.

As the stories progress the leaders of the Brotherhood of the New Moon will take on more POV chapters.  The current head of the order, not met in this book, is Iklo, a sociopath who believes that rise of the gods of Outer Night (Xibalba) is inevitable.  In light of this he works to bring about the end of the world not with the hopes of saving humanity (who are not in his opinion worth saving) but with the idea that his service will lead to his joining them as a god himself.  The Lords of Xibalba have promised him this, and even though he is skeptical of their promises, he considers resistance futile and the only logical course to do as they wish and hope they make good on their promise.  He kills or saves, does good or bad, solely based on whether the act furthers this ultimate goal.  Almost no one in brotherhood knows his true purpose.

The brotherhood is the active threat in the first books, but soon the Lords of Outer Night (thanks to the brotherhood’s actions) begin to take a more active role in the world.  It is up to our heroes and others they meet along the way to find the ways and means to fight back and save their world, or watch it be destroyed.

 

Assignment 5: Core Wounds and Hook Lines

As there are three major characters in this matter, I will write three different hook lines that draw the readers along the major story arcs:

First Hook: Ahuatzi has always struggled to live up to the high ideals of his tribe and family.  But when his sister is kidnapped, his choice is to abandon her to her fate or walk a path that might make him forever an outcast among his own people.

Second Hook:  Caxcal wants to be a better man than his father, a powerful politician who uses any means necessary to obtain his ends.  At the same time, he is desperate to win his father’s approval.  Can Caxcal do this and stay true to his own beliefs?

Third Hook: Abandoned after a childhood tragedy, Tozi struggles to find love and prove her own worth.  But just when her goals are within her grasp, everything she has worked for is threatened.  Can she find the way to stop it, or will everything and everything she loves be torn away from her once again?

 

Assignment 6: Two more levels of conflict

To demonstrate this, I will provide two extracts from the book showing the internal conflict of one major character.  The first is from Caxcal, who has been brought to Coatepec (the capital of the empire) by his father and ordered to make friends with other young nobles.  The conversation occurs during dinner after a discussion of a war between the tribes of the north (Serpent, Jaguar and Quetzal) and the south (Condor and Tree Frog):

“All that said,” Four Yunan said thoughtfully, “are we truly so much better?  By Nakón, but we send many of our own down that path daily, and for what?  As you say, the Pachamama and Amazonas are miserable places, littler better than Xibalba!”

Caxcal shrugged.  Here he would need to mind his tongue.  “The Sapa makes himself equal to the Emperor,” he said, thinking on his father’s words.  “The Condor and Tree Frog follow him, and him alone.  If he would but submit…”

“He will not,” Four Yunan said.  “And he does not come to fight us, so we must go to him.  And every day, more Jaguar blood is spilled.”

“The entire empire bleeds,” Caxcal said diplomatically.  “But by Nakón, the Jaguar are always the first and the fiercest.”  Caxcal knew his flattery was obvious, and the soft words left an unhappy taste in his mouth.  But to his surprise, Caxcal was developing a feel for these conversations, and right now he could tell they were nearing something important if he could just get his guest to say it. 

I spend seasons defying father but once back in his clutches I do everything he wishes.  Why?  Why do I not tell him to go the Outer Night and have done with all this?

He put down the xocolatl and poured himself another cup of chicha.  Four Yunan, meanwhile, took another long drink of his xocolatl.  He looked into the cup for a minute, drumming his fingers on the table. 

“We shall obey the Emperor, of course,” Four Yunan said at last.  “That is our tribe’s duty, and we will always do our duty.  Who knows?  The Emperor, may the gods favor and preserve him, is not long for this world.  Perhaps it shall please him to make peace in his last days.  If so…”

The big Jaguar shrugged.  His tone sounded as if he were merely thinking aloud, but Caxcal knew better.  Even the fierce Jaguar Tribe favored ending the war, so much so they were willing to let the Serpent know it.  Otherwise, Four Yunan would never have said that aloud, at least, not in Caxcal’s presence.  However, the musings of one Jaguar youth, spoken after a heavy meal and many cups of balche and chicha, did not commit the Jaguar Tribe in any way. 

Which was the whole point.

Caxcal shrugged as well as he drained his cup.  “As for that, who can say?  But it is getting late.  What do you say to another cup of xocolatl, and then back to the city?”

“I should like it very much,” Four Yunan said.  “We must do this again some time.  Next time, we shall watch these divers you mention!” 

Caxcal smiled and summoned their waiter.  They spoke and sipped their drinks, chatting again of nothing but trivialities. 

You handled yourself well, he thought, even as he continued the pleasant chatter.  Sensible and diplomatic.  And you learned something of value.  Father will be pleased with you.  Is that not what you want?  Is that not why you do this?

By all the gods, Caxcal wished he could have answered no.

 

The second occurs when Ahuatzi, a member of the Butterfly Tribe, arrives home to find his brother is dead and his sister is taken.  His father holds his dead son, and is horrified to here that his youngest son may defy their tribe’s fundamental beliefs.

Ahuatzi struggled back to his feet.  He needed to find papa.  Xichán.  Lala.  Xochi.  He had to get to them.  He spun in place, temporarily lost in the village where he had lived his entire life.  Finally, he came to his senses, enough that his legs began to move toward his home.  The thatch of the roof burned in patches, but it stood.  He pushed himself onward.  From inside the hut, he heard sobbing.  He ran across the threshold, and his eyes adjusted to the dim light within.

His father, the solid, strong Nopaltzin, cried like a baby.  He held Xichán in his arms.  Blood was drying on Xichán’s chest and side, and his eyes were as empty as the boy Ahuatzi had found.

“Xichán!” Ahuatzi cried.  He dropped to the ground next to his big brother. 

Nopaltzin looked up at Ahuatzi, just now noticing him.  “Son!” he pulled Ahuatzi to him with one massive arm, the other still holding Xichán.  “Praise Kukulkán you are safe!”  Nopaltzin turned his face to look upward and said, “Thank you, Lord.  You do not abandon your people.” 

“Papa, what happened?”

“Robbers came to the village,” Nopaltzin said, smoothing back Xichán’s hair.  “So many of them.  When they took the food and a few tools we just watched and waited.  But then…” Nopaltzin’s shoulders shook again.  “They took our people.  Lala.  Xochi.  Xochi!”  Nopaltzin broke down completely. 

Oh Kukulkán, not that!  Not her!  Ahuatzi’s heart swelled up inside and he began tremble all over.  His brother was dead, his sister in the hands of robbers.  Ahuatzi should have been here, and…

And what?  What could you have done if you had been here? 

Probably nothing.  Yet he still felt guilty.

“The women ran carrying the smaller children.  Some of the older boys fought back, even though we told them not to,” Nopaltzin said.  “The robbers hurt them.  Killed them.  Then they began to burn, just for fun, I think.”

Nopaltzin looked at Xichán’s lifeless body.  “Xichán held on to Lala.  He did not fight them, but he did not let go.  He said he would rather die than let her go.  So, they killed him.  He did not even try to stop them.”  Nopaltzin started crying again, rocking Xichán in his arms.  “You were so brave, my boy.  So brave.” 

“Papa.”

Nopaltzin did not look up. 

“Papa!”

“Sorry, son,” Nopaltzin said.  He wiped his eyes and looked up at Ahuatzi again.

“Where did they take Xochi and Lala?” Ahuatzi asked. 

Nopaltzin just shook his head.

“We must go after them!”  Ahautzi said.  “If we leave now we can catch them!”

“And what?” Nopaltzin asked.  “And when we find them, what?  What would you have me do, son?” 

“We must save Xochi!”

“What would you have me do?” Nopaltzin roared the question so loudly that Ahuatzi took a step back.  “I cannot fight them, I have Pledged, son.  And that Pledge was to Kukulkán!  Would you have me break it?”

Ahuatzi was frightened, he had never heard his father yell like this before.  Nevertheless, he answered.  “These are not Kinkajous making trouble on a chinampa, papa!”

“You think I do not know that?  That this is somehow unclear to me?  I assure you son, I know what this is!  This is the worst!  The very worst!  The fiends of Xibalba come from the Outer Night to torment us!  But when it is hardest, that is when the Pledge truly matters.  Your brother understood that, even if you do not!”

The words landed on Ahuatzi heavily, and he staggered back.  His father looked angry and ashamed. 

Ahuatzi looked at his brother’s body.  He reached out and gently closed his brother’s eyes, so Xichán looked like he was merely asleep.  He looked at him a long time.  “You are right,” Ahuatzi said quietly.  “Xichán was the better man.  I see that.  I am sorry.”  He got up, grabbed his travel bag, and started packing it.

“Where do you go?” Nopaltzin asked.

“I go after the robbers, papa.”  He took a little of the cacao, he may need it on the road ahead.  He grabbed some corn cakes and dried beans, and a small copper cup that he could use to drink from or warm the beans in. 

“Ahuatzi, no!” Nopaltzin stopped his son and grabbed him by the shoulders.  “Please, son, do not go!” 

“I must!  They have Xochi!”

“They will kill you,” Nopaltzin said, his pleading changing to heavy despair.  “Or, you will kill them.  Either way, I lose my only child.”

“I have not made the Pledge, father!  Perhaps that was wise.  Perhaps Kukulkán needs me to do this.  I cannot break a promise I have not made!”

“And you cannot live a promise you intend to break!” Nopaltzin said, voice nearly frantic.  “You know our ways; you know the Pledge.  If you cannot keep it today, you never will!  Sooner or later, you will fall away and be an outcast.  But you can choose, son.  Stay here with me.  Forsake this plan.”

“Forsake Xochi?” Ahuatzi yelled the question into his father’s face.  

“Would she want you to do this?” Nopaltzin said quietly back.

Ahuatzi met his father’s eyes.  The thought of leaving his father, especially this way, was almost unbearable.  Then he thought of Xochi, bound for a life of slavery or worse at the hand of robbers, and that was even more so.  

Is there a right choice?  Or at least a choice that is less wrong?

“No,” he said.  “She would have me stay.  But I cannot.”

Assignment 1: The Act of Story Statement

 

 Protect his home and his way of life from a dangerous revolution, using his power, and the second chance he was given, to follow the dreams of those who came before.

 

Assignment 2: The Antagonist Plots the Point

 

This work is intended to expand into a multi-book series, focusing mainly (or more accurately, firstly) on the threat of the Paradigm Army, a revolutionary army that believes that Echoes, those who hold supernatural powers, hold an unfair position as arbiters of the human race, and seek to create a new world held in their values, shifting the meaning of power by shifting the foundation the world is built upon, using force through their infantry, and politics via the lobbying of officials, and the garnering of public support.

In the first book (this manuscript), this is represented through Captain Varrick Cross, a young man driven to revenge for the death of his brother, Varron, at the hands of The Reaper, a dangerous hunter who goes on to become Cynthia Grace, the protagonist’s mentor. Captain Cross is a man of intellect who supports the P.A. in half-measures, both because the founder gave him a chance at life, and a chance at revenge. While he questions his own actions, rationalizing them to be for the greater good and his greater revenge, he is more often than not driven by a self-destructive depression that endangers ally and foe alike.

 

Assignment 3: The Breakout Title

 

Deadsoul: Overture Redux (current working title)

Dead Echo: First Verse

Soulsong: Prelude

 

Assignment 4: Deciding Your Genre And Approaching Comparables

 

This series can mostly be described as YA Urban Fantasy, with a few elements of Epic fantasy mixed into the worldbuilding. The setting of the series is a magical, alternate history Earth with added territories, artificial islands, and magical threats to distinguish this modern mystic world from our own.

 

Comp 1: Mob Sorcery Series (by K.D. Robertson)

In the Mob Sorcery novels, the  author blends together a modern city with an interesting and dangerous cast of demons, birdfolk, and a mafia of wolf-human hybrids, with a straight-forward but interesting take on magic spells and mage rankings, using the premise of a criminal underworld to drive the plot forward with a dystopian, grounded setting that uses supernatural elements in what should be a mundane setting to great effect.

D:OR, while not as closely tied to a single city in its world, hopes to accomplish a similar effect by weaving its power system into daily life and plot-relevant events, with characters and conflicts defined by the supernatural force driving them. (I must add that unlike Mob Sorcery, D:OR is not that high on the spicy/horny spectrum. My manuscript is rather conservative with how it describes physical features.)

 

Comp 2: City of Last Chances (by Adrian Tchaikovsky)

The first installment in The Tyrant Philosophers series, Adrian Tchaikovsky balances the imaginative and vivid nature of a city under pressure, building a hostile world that threatens to spark alight due to occupation, civil unrest, ancient curses, thieves, murderers, and everything in-between, setting up the tension and narrative for a revolution.

This work’s themes and moral subtlety resonates with what D:OR attempts to set up in its first entry (which snowballs HEAVILY in its w.i.p. sequel, D:H, Deadsoul: Harmony), with a world that is, at its core, very angry and hurting, and in due for change. What the first entry seeks to accomplish is setting up the context for the Paradigm Army’s grievances against the magical powers that “govern” the world, and their “justified” (albeit insane) casus belli for waging a seemingly impossible war on the world, and usurping control to make the world a fairer place in their vision. (Contrary to City of Last Chances, D:OR utilizes fewer POV points, but goes for the same idea of using perspectives to paint different sides to the same conflict.)

 

Assignment 5: Core Wound And the Primary Conflict

 

First entry logline: 

 

After losing his life and gaining a second chance, a young man with strange abilities struggles to stop a revenge-drunk soldier and his revolutionary ideals, both of which threaten to upend the roots of justice.

 

Series logline:

Being given a second chance and fate that never belonged to him, a boy burdened with power must stop an endless war hell-bent on destroying the supernatural and threatening to erase the dreams of peace given to him by his predecessors. 

 

Assignment 6: Other Matters of Conflict: Two More Levels

 

Inner conflict:

Adriene, for the better half of his life, has felt aimless, like a cog in a machine that turns but produces no power. He’s the average, the median, the “just good enough”. Even the power he awakened to, the one he had wished for with all of his might, was nothing but a swiss army knife with dull blades and rusted tools. He finds himself at odds with his own cowardly nature, and after losing his life, and finally gaining a purpose, further devolves as he struggles to meet the expectations of the ones who came before him, and the mentor who put her burdens on his shoulders. Now with a mission to complete and a direction to turn to, he seeks to find that the person he wishes to be, and the person he currently is, cannot co-exist.


Scene Summary:

In a chance meeting during unconsciousness, Adriene is transported onto the spiritual Heavenly Plane, where he re-convenes with the 13 Symphonies, living deities who ascended to godhood for unknown reasons.

Conversing with them, he subconsciously vents his frustration at his weakness and inability to be proactive in his mission, knowing that he is unworthy and undeserving of the power he was cursed with. Under the guise of a training lesson, a god he bears a faint connection to gives him the tools to focus and ground himself, not only to distract him from his self-destructive thoughts, but set him on the path to being the person he was meant to be.

 

Secondary Conflict:

As a Jager in training, Adriene is naturally at odds with the Paradigm Army, who wish to control and/or eradicate Echoes, those who possess souls and their unique powers, from the world in order to create a fairer society. In this sense, the response to the Paradigm Army is to combat them, as what happens in any war, but the conflict mainly comes from both sides having a similar but clashing reason for wanting to exist. Jagers and the Jager order have perpetuated the idea of Echo superiority by acting as national peacekeepers and law enforcers, and while the Paradigm Army seeks to even the playing field for those without those powers, they too still abide by a hierarchy of those who have, and those who don’t, changing the overall power dynamic from magical energy, to a wealth check of having the money to purchase physical armaments in the absence of supernatural power. Regardless of what larger powers are at play, both sides of this conflict are being fought by people, who believe in a better world, and believe in a better future for their loved ones. Adriene is caught in the middle of wanting to help fight in the war, and recognizing that there’s more to conflict than simply fighting.

Scene Summary:

 

On the search for the Captain leading the current outfit of Paradigm Army soldiers, Adriene and his friends hear a call for help from a collapsed building.

Hearing danger nearby, Adriene quickly rushes by and the group clears the rubble, only to find a Paradigm Army soldier, no older than the kids themselves. Confused and concerned, they talk to the young man, finding out his personal reason for fighting, as well as his platoon’s beliefs and hopes.

Hearing his words, and being swayed by their dreams of hearth and home, Adriene’s resolve deepens as he begins to disobey his mentor’s teachings, and begins to humanize, and empathize with, the enemies he is supposed to be fighting without remorse.

Assignment 7: The Incredible Importance of setting

 

This work and the rest of the multi-part series will take place on an alternate earth in fictional alterations to the geopolitical landscape, mostly due to the existence of Soul Energy.

Some framework and context:

Soul Energy is a mysterious power and energy that radiates from things both living and dead. Animals, bacteria, and humans all contain some amount of it, lingering even in death. It is driven by focus, will, and fear, and serves as a driving force in historical events. For the main races that use this power in the series, there are three main categories: Echoes, Soulless, and Soundless.

Echoes: Humans born with a Soul, a semi-corporeal conduit for channeling soul energy through. This can resemble something as small as a feather, to something much larger, like a large clock. Echoes are born with a singular power fueled by Soul Energy, a Soul Ability, that is usually representative of their personality and ideals, as well as their desires and fears. Possessing a weakness to Bloodstones (mineral gems that are formed from the blood and agony of many living things dying in a small area), they represent a very small portion of the human race, but their power and ferocity make them a benefit and detriment, depending on their temperament.

 

Soulless: In this world, considered “normal” humans. They do not possess the Soul or reinforced bodies that Echoes do, but on average, have a higher capacity of Soul Energy. If seeking power on the level of an Echo, a Soulless human has two available paths:

1. Scholar: Scholars are much like Soul Energy scientists, testing the energy for its limits and pushing the boundaries of its effects on reality. Specializing in Rune Archaic Sorcery, Scholars draw power from Soul Energy by infusing a Bloodstone’s latent energy with their own, drawing shapes using the “ink” they create, and casting spells by essentially programming Soul Energy to perform tasks. This can be something as simple as a rune of circles creating a soap bubble of energy, to a complex formation of lines creating an arrow of pure, potent Soul Energy to strike and pierce opponents.

2. Sibling: Siblings of the church are comparable to Paladins and Clerics in other forms of media, drawing strength from belief, and using that emotion as a medium for their power. By convening with a higher power, a Sibling asks them for divinity, and will have a Divine Inscription etched into their body as a result. By recalling the story bestowed upon them, and reinforcing their belief in such miracles, they are able to call upon that magic in the form of Inscribed Runes, often recreating the legendary deeds told to them in the form of lightning strikes, healing warmth, and cleansing bonfires. Though this practice requires less raw intelligence and talent than learning Scholar rune magic, it requires an inhuman amount of devotion and piety to master. Siblings are often called to exorcise Daemons, bless locations, and protect holy sites from sacrilege and intrusion.

Soundless: A race of artificial humans, fashioned from flesh and soul energy bonded together over a core of Bloodstone and marble. Once enslaved by the kingdoms of old, the Silent King, believing in a better future for his people, fought in the First War, drawing the human deities and their forces to a standstill, earning his fellow Soundless their freedom, and their nation a home in the form of Umbra, a man-made island meant to serve as a haven for Soundless from around the world. In the modern day, the Silent King awaits the next threat to his people, sitting upon his throne and watching the actions of the humans with intent to defend what he loves.

Soundless, being fundamentally different from humans, cannot possess souls, but possess a natural ability named Contractual Obligation, allowing them to form contracts with other living things by using Soul Energy as a medium, giving them access to eccentric and outlandish powers by forming unconventional contracts with others for power. (For example, by forming a contract with a dog to feed and shelter it for an amount of time, the Soundless may gain the ability to use a canine’s advanced smell to seek out targets.)

Deadlight is the polar opposite of Soul Energy, sparking forth from Ambition, and amplified by Drive and Hatred. Though not normally accessible to living things, shards of it can attach themselves to humans, giving them the ability to heal from injuries quickly, disrupt the Soul Energy of others, and otherwise reject the wills of others by turning their ambition and anger into raw power.

Concerning physical locations, countries formed by the deities of old during the First War remain, as ways to prepare the world for other conflicts, set the stage for the coming Paradigm Army and the collapse of order and peace in the wake of extremist rhetoric concerning the status of Echoes as peacekeepers in the modern day. This includes Haven, the home of the main cast and a country founded by the Symphonies (warriors ascended to godhood through some unknown method) to prepare hunters, Jagers, for combat against supernatural and human threats. Landlocked in North America, Haven is the setting of the first three entries into the series, with the first focusing on Solis, a town offshooting from the Capital, Haven City, that is used to train future Jagers (and has a notable addiction to coffee!). Chimera, dangerous animals mutated by high amounts of ambient energy, often roam outside of cities, causing many human civilizations to concentrate around urban hubs to avoid being overrun. Though many familiar locations still exist, like the United States, Canada, China, and places one could find in the real world, they are burdened, altered, and scarred by the existence of such a commonplace but volatile power such as Soul Energy.
 

EDGE OF THE WAGON WHEEL

A science fiction story told with tongue planted firmly in cheek

 

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT 

Buzz wants to get back to earth without dying. And without setting off a second Civil War.

- or -

Buzz wants to get back to earth without dying or making anyone mad.

 

SECOND ASSIGNMENT: THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT 

Thurston Hoard is President of the Best States of America (BSA), where the highest office is always occupied by the richest citizen. No elections, no royal lineage, no polling--the biggest mountain of money simply wins. The citizens believe it keeps their President on his toes to (quite literally) earn his office. 

Hoard believes his gajillionaire status affords him a unique perspective for understanding the wants and needs of the common man. He believes that what they want AND need more than anything is to worship their insanely wealthy and powerful President who makes the most important decisions for them. He’s arrogant. He’s brash. He’s volatile. He’s…not the smartest guy in the room. It’s a dangerous combination.

Averse to science, he is responsible for the Apollo mission that puts Buzz’s life in danger by sending him to find the edge of Flat Earth. The BSA doesn’t know how to get him back safely. When Buzz accidentally broadcasts a live view of the globe, Hoard plots a “tragic accident” to erase the mission, and he threatens war on any country that tries to interfere with his plan.

 

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE

• Edge of the Wagon Wheel
• Last Stop Before the Space Bar
• Buzz Skittles and the Edge of the World

 

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES

Recent humorous Science Fiction titles:

• Starter Villain (2023) by John Scalzi

Quirky humor, an unmotivated loser forced into a high-stakes situation, and a mostly real-world setting that is off just a tad in some absurd ways.

• Dungeon Crawler Carl (2024) by Matt Dinniman

More humor, a pair of unlikely heroes, a nefarious off-screen government threat, and a world-wide television audience.

 

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT  

A child-prodigy astronaut discovers that his country and president never intended for him to make it back to earth alive, so he must rely on his own wits and unexpected allies to survive.

 

SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS

Inner Conflict

Buzz has grown up in the BSA, where the official position on astronomy is based on a Flat Earth model. It’s all Buzz has ever known, and he is now aboard the rocket that will fly to the edge and provide incontrovertible proof. As his mission progresses, the evidence of a globe becomes more difficult to disregard. He ultimately travels far enough from Earth to see the whole globe clearly with his own eyes, forcing him to question everything he thought he knew.

Scene Summary

Buzz begins the journey as a true believer in Flat Earth. He believes his mission will carry him “due south,” away from the center of the flat disk-shaped planet and toward to the edge. Once he crosses Antarctica, he begins to formulate theories of parallel flat planets to explain the world he sees below him. The explanations become more difficult when he completes a full orbit and is contacted again by ground control. He remains in denial until a team from the Left States of America (LSA) guide him to adjust his trajectory, sending him toward the moon. When he reaches a certain distance, he sees the full globe and suffers a full crisis of faith and must reevaluate how to discern fact from fiction.

Secondary Conflict

Buzz and Riley are opposites in most ways. One is from the BSA, and the other is from the LSA. One is a child prodigy while the other is an adult slacker. One is full of hope and dreams, but the other is a disgruntled cynic. Yin and yang. Day and night. Peanut butter and Vegemite. But they have to work together. For Buzz, it is a matter of life and death. Beyond their differences on a personal level, they each represent a country who were formerly united but are now separated by a fragile and uneasy pact of noninvolvement.

Scene Summary

It is Riley who, from his low-level government job, inadvertently detects Buzz’s launch and makes radio contact. The news quickly travels all the way up the chain-of-command and leads to tense international coordination between the presidents of the four countries that formerly comprised the USA. Meanwhile, Riley is conscripted to continue as the Left States’ primary point-of-contact with Buzz. Buzz and Riley begin to develop a mutual trust and admiration for one another, which becomes even more crucial when Buzz’s sense of trust is completely pulled out from under him. 

 

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING

The story is set in the near future, where (when?), at the relatively youthful age of two hundred and sixty-two, the United States had an identity crisis. On the day that the final melting of the global ice caps live-streamed around the world, in-fighting reached the breaking point. Both ends of the country’s political spectrum threw up their hands and agreed to split up, admitting it was all more than one governing body was equipped to handle.

Unlike every previous secession in history, it was completely amicable: the Great Civil Parting of Ways began on November 4, 2038. Three weeks later, the dis-united states hammered out the final details of the breakup over a traditionally awkward Thanksgiving weekend. Like a couple who, after years of dating, realize they have nothing in common and that they’re better off apart, they packed their proverbial box of CDs and concert t-shirts and went their separate ways. 

To the surprise of none and the relief of many, Texas declared independence from both sides and crowned football as king. No one outside Texas knows what that means or how it works. 

Forgotten by the continental states during the ruckus, Alaska and Hawaii made a side-deal of their own. They kept the name “United States of America” (USA) for themselves and Washington, DC, which was granted statehood, creating a rather impractical, but plucky, country.

Meanwhile, the self-designated Best States of America (BSA), the Left States of America (LSA) and Texas (FTBL) stepped wide-eyed and eager into the international community, each ready to start fresh and unencumbered by their shared past. They got along by interacting as seldom as possible, while watching each other across their borders like nosey neighbors peeking through the curtains.

Within this world, in conjunction with the 100^th anniversary of the original moon landing, Buzz Skittles of the BSA is launched on a historic mission to prove the earth is flat. Riley Mudgen of the LSA detects the launch from a government facility, setting off a chain of international tensions when it is revealed that the BSA lack the capability of returning Buzz safely back to Earth. Meanwhile, a pair of itinerant science missionaries to the BSA--with an ambiguous connection to the overarching events--try to make their way surreptitiously back to the LSA and help everyone achieve a happy ending. And there is a donkey.

1st Assignment: Story Statement

The deep state is real, and both our protagonists know it.

Lily, a run-away foster kid and small-time drug dealer living in New York City, doesn’t exactly have proof beyond memories of a comically traumatic childhood, but her conviction is holding her over until she can find out more. She may not have to wait much longer, when a mysterious customer slips Lily a note, warning her she’s in danger. Her first real clue in six years, and she’s so ready for this. Right? 

Wolfgang, a hitman working for said deep state, doesn’t need any more evidence. A drink would be nice. That and a very long, very permanent nap. Unfortunately, after running into a doppelgänger of his dead little sister outside a job, Wolfgang realizes it might be time to question the powers that be. He’s suicidal anyway, so what’s the harm?

As danger closes in, our two antiheroes must do everything they can to save themselves. Whether they taunt death or welcome it, life will feel a little more special if either of them can make it out of this ordeal alive.

2nd Assignment: Antagonist

(Note the Bureau, this world’s version of the deep-state, while not consistently an antagonist force, does present a significant threat to our characters throughout the story.)

Montgomery, a legacy seat on the Bureau’s highest governing body, the Board, has faced a lifetime of ridicule from his peers. Having done nothing to earn his title, apart from being born to one of the Bureau’s most prolific members, he’s considered little more than a stain on his family’s legacy. Growing old and possibly losing his mind, the man would like one last shot to prove himself worthy of his seat.

Montgomery’s decade’s long rival, Rothstein, is the perfect target. Rothstein, a man with a commoner’s background, who claimed his seat on the board through unorthodox means, is a painful reminder of Montgomery’s own incompetence. When Montgomery finds someone Rothstein has been missing for nearly half a decade, our antagonist might just have the perfect set of circumstances to dethrone his nemesis. Maybe, he finally has his chance to relabel Rothstein as the enemy to the Bureau Montgomery always knew he was. If only the old legacy seat could distinguish reality from the demons who he swears keep coming back from the dead.

3rd Assignment: Breakout Title

Antiheroes

Keep Yourself Alive

Guns and Bureaucrats

4th Assignment: Genre and Comparables

Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz

Fans of the Orphan X series will likely enjoy the many tropes and themes included in my project. Evan Smoak resembles both my main characters in a few notable ways. Both he and my first protagonist, Lily, are orphans who have been involved in secret government programs from a young age. Evan, much like my secondary protagonist, Wolfgang, is a trained assassin trying to make up for his career by attempting to do good in a depraved world.

Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan

While notably different genres, audiences who enjoyed the humor and levity of the Percy Jackson series will feel right at home reading my project. Percy Jackson’s quirky inner dialogue is why many, even adults who have long-since grown out of the YA reading category, find the series so memorable to this day. Percy, along with my two characters, Lily and Wolfgang, are both quick to downplay life-threatening situations with humor. In similar ways that Percy Jackson poked fun at it’s own genre, my project also uses comedy to explore, question, and subvert many of the tropes that can make the thriller genre a little over-the-top for some audiences. This story, like Percy Jackson, handles darker themes that are ultimately emphasized in their juxtaposition to the less serious tone of the story.

By adding a comedy element to the story, I hope to draw in not just frequent readers of spy mysteries, but also those who might not normally consider themselves a fan of the genre.

5th Assignment: Core Wounds/Log Line

After a teenage delinquent and small-time drug-dealer receives a mysterious warning from a customer, she becomes determined to find out who she really is and why certain members of a mysterious shadow-government want her dead.

6th Assignment: Other Matters of Conflict

Inner Conflict: Lily thinks very highly of herself and expects to accomplish great things in her life-time. Despite her confidence, she is repeatedly forced to contend with how the world actually perceives her. Having only recently saved herself from homelessness, and not exactly well-mannered, Lily is still scene by society, first and foremost, as a juvenile delinquent. Worse still, she’s not even a very intimidating one, standing at about five feet tall. Regardless of what the world and her enemies might think of her, she will have to prove to herself and others she is all the great things she claims to be.

Scenario: Early on in the novel, Lily has an encounter with a man on the train who she believes to be following her. She’s scared, but realizes there’s little she can do, reluctantly aware that she’s not only too small to fight off this potential attacker, but she’s also surrounded by people who will likely not take her seriously if she asks for help, assuming she’s a crazed druggie due to her presentation. Events such as this one repeatedly reinforce the false belief that no one would be willing to help Lily and she should, therefore, continue to be completely self reliant.

Social Conflict: Deeply self-reliant and with a past that offered little to no opportunities for true trust or bonding, Lily is left with a lingering insecurity and desire for connection. No matter how successful she makes herself seem, selling drugs or even using the current mysterious threats on her life as a sign of her ‘importance’ in the world, deep down what she really wants is someone to rely on. Someone who won’t ever abandon her. Often quick to demand blind loyalty when what she really needs is genuine friendship, Lily has unfortunately already squandered many opportunities.

Hypothetical Scenario: Lily occasionally fixates on people, often those that have some quality or talent she lacks. The story frequently references one of Lily’s ex-friends and drug-dealing associates, Mindy, who is feminine, empathetic, and laid-back in a way Lily intentionally is not. The downfall of their friendship occurs after Lily pressures Mindy repeatedly to risk her job by skimming products as a way to get back at their greedy boss. Uncomfortable with what Lily’s asking of her, Mindy starts drawing lines in the sand. Lily, unreasonably, considered this an act of betrayal and takes to demonizing Mindy instead. This is a pattern of failed relationships that Lily will have to repeat and question throughout the story.

7th Assignment: Setting

My novel takes place in modern-era New York City. While honoring the inherent quirky charm that comes from such a diverse place, my novel also routinely focuses on the often cut-throat nature of living in such a competitive, unforgiving environment. It’s a dog-eat-dog city, and whether my characters embrace it, or wish for a more empathetic world, both of them will have to contend with a urban landscape that seems to want them dead at every turn.

In addition to many references of neighborhoods, streets, subway stations, and even bodegas that many New Yorker’s cherish and despise in the same breath, my version of New York City also adds a fictional (occasionally inspired by credible legends of old, abandoned structures) secret underbelly, with entrances to hidden lairs buried deep in subway tunnels and beneath manhole covers, many of which our characters must utilize to survive. If these hidden places don’t get them killed first, that is.

How To Catch a Serial Killer

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary Mystery

 

1. Story Statement:

Discover the killer behind the murders of Gabby Palermo and McKenzie Pruitt before they strike again while finding reason and purpose in his own life

 

2. Antagonistic Force:

Dr. David Weller is a licensed therapist by day and serial killer by hobby. His reemergence after a twenty year hiatus is what inadvertently drives Hayden into his existential crisis. By his sociopathic nature, Dr. Weller has no regard for others feelings and fuels his deviant desires through the strangling of women, particularly young women with their whole lives ahead of them. Without Dr. Weller’s murder of Gabby, and especially McKenzie, Hayden would not have had to face the complicated thoughts regarding people’s purpose, fulfillment, and whether things truly happen for a reason.

 

3. Breakout Title:

How to Catch a Serial Killer – Hayden is assigned a summer paper for a fall semester class, a “How To” paper regarding one’s summer job/internship responsibilities.

When Everything Felt Okay – A play on a line in the book, focusing on the coming-of-age aspect of the novel.

The Summer I Caught a Killer – A coming-of-age themed title with reference to the central mystery driving the novel and Hayden’s personal growth.

 

4. Comparison Titles:

Paper Towns by John Green – A classic coming-of-age story as 18-year-old Quentin attempts to find love interest Margo who inexplicably disappears after an unforgettable night together. One of the main themes of Green’s novel is friendship and how Quentin understands that human connection and authentic friendship is still possible despite everyone’s pitfalls. Friendship is a central theme in How to Catch a Serial Killer as well, however, mine focuses more on the necessary crumbling of Hayden’s ego-driven need for independence.  

The Summer of Everything by Julian Winters – A novel focusing on a recent high school graduate's transition to adulthood and how he confronts new adult issues like what he wants to do with his life and issues in his love life. My novel also hits a lot of these notes regarding Hayden’s purpose and identity, specifically after he realizes his dream career isn’t so dreamy after all and problems in his love life force him face difficult crossroads.

 

5. Logline:

In the midst of an existential crisis driven by a crappy summer internship, a young college student seeks to catch the murderer of two young women in order to stop the killer before their next victim and renew his crumbling sense of purpose and reason

 

6. Conditions for Inner Conflict:

Hayden’s turmoil stems from his loss of passion for his dream career whilst being confronted with his own mortality. This conjures hard questions about whether he has a real purpose in life, if death is truly random, and whether he will be able to do something great with his life before he dies.

Primary Conflict:

Trigger: Being assigned to assist in covering the story of a murdered college girl, seeing her body underneath the white sheet and later hearing of all the great plans she had for her life.

Reaction: Spiraling into an existential crisis as he considers the fact that this girl, just like him, had grand plans to do awesome things in life and yet was taken seemingly too soon. This makes him confront questions regarding if there is such a thing as destiny, or fate, or if he could die at the drop of a hat and his life would amount to nothing.

Secondary Conflict:

Trigger: His bubbling feelings for Vanessa, while still being committed to his long distance situationship with Anna,  exploding during a night at the lake with friends where he and Vanessa connect on a deeper level and share an intimate moment.

Reaction: Panicking over who is right for him, whether Vanessa is “supposed” to be in his life (and vice versa with Anna), and if it’s all happening for a reason or if he’s just a shitty person who can’t restrain his feelings for  a girl he can’t have.

 

7. Setting

Primary Setting: Columbus, OH. 

A lowkey, Midwest setting that allows for Hayden’s reluctance to return home to be understandable, while being able to mix-in both urban scenes and more scenic and outdoorsy vibes. 

Secondary setting: Channel Nine Station

An office setting where we see Hayden underwhelmed at what his “dream career” actually looks like. It’s a place to create interesting, relatable scenes out of seemingly mundane tasks and responsibilities. It’s also a forum for personal growth for Hayden as he learns what actual work looks like and how to conduct himself around superiors and colleagues.

A memoir by Amanda

This tale of self discovery follows the trail of romantic breadcrumbs that lead one to know oneself.

 

The Act of Story Statement

Our heroine must find love and choose a partner to create a family with so that she can feel and inhabit her own presence in the world as a woman, a mother, and a person. This partner must respect her so that she can respect herself.

 

Antagonistic Force in the Story

There are multiple antagonists in this story.  The various boyfriends and lovers are antagonists in different ways.  The mean ones or hostile ones are obvious, but even the lovely ones who vanish or don’t commit allow love to be an antagonist in its own right. Our protagonist’s mother has moments of antagonism,  and our protagonist is at times an antagonist herself when she, not acknowledging her own needs or truly understanding who she is,, makes poor choices and self-sabotages, getting in her own way of finding happiness.

 

Breakout Title

Shadow Box

The Lone Earring

I am a Jewelry Box

 

Comparables

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Atherton

Notes on Heartbreak by Annie Lord

 

Core Wound and the Primary Conflict

As our author comes out of her childhood, she wonders why her father did not love her and doubts whether anyone will ever truly love, accept, and choose her. After all, she was just born to her father and didn’t have any choice in the matter, so she wonders if there is something intrinsically wrong with her being that could cause other men not to want her? She has been dating since she was 15 years old. As she closes in on age 35 and her biological clock is ticking loudly, her panic increases. She wants to be as important to a family as her own mother has been to hers, but she has no idea how to make that happen before it’s too late to have a baby.

 

Other levels of conflict

The closer our protagonist comes to the success of her core self and artistic identity with her acting and comedy, the more inappropriate the men she encounters become.  The men she is taken with seem both utterly incapable of and uninterested in parenthood, and she begins to lose hope that she will ever become a mother or have a family of her own. She is an audience to friends who are getting engaged and pregnant, is barraged by engagement announcements of seemingly perfectly suited couples in the NY Times, and has a mother and sister who constantly pester her about her dating choices and demand to know when she is willing to “just buy some sperm and get inseminated already!”
 

Settings

The protagonist’s life has moved through many environments through her 25 years of dating before she was married.  Each environment was distinctly different, and affected the dating relationships.

Rochester, NY

The Hometown. Our lead character grew up in a predominantly Jewish suburb of Rochester, in an over protected family, in a quiet neighborhood where nothing ever happened.  If the lady across the street, Mrs. Hoffman, came out of her house to rake her leaves, it was an event, and her father might pull out his binoculars and report the sighting.

Oberlin, OH

A sleepy, corn field-surrounded small college town, where you knew everyone on campus at least by sight.  It had a small-town feel and a cosiness. It was a dry town and the most you could get was 80 proof liquor.  Oberlin was also a politically radical school, and the first one to accept women, Jews, and Blacks in the US. It was a stop on the underground railroad.  It had a bisexual dorm/coop that had nude breakfasts and coed showers, a lesbian dorm, and an afro house. Punk was in full force in 1983 and there were punkers slamdancing in the “Sco” which was vaguely terrifying. Oberlin had some good sports teams, but its football team was weak. We used to yell “Our SAT scores are higher than yours!” from the stands

New York City

The intensity and anonymity of NYC was a challenge to our main character. When she first arrived, it was dangerous. White women were being stabbed with pins tainted with an unknown substance in what appeared to be racially motivated attacks.  It was scary to take the subway. Chains were being snatched from people’s necks. Her mother forbade her to wear her gold earrings on the way to work.  Taking a bus 9 blocks in Times Square after dark felt like risking your life. She and her mother heard a woman screaming after being shot near Prospect Park when they were in bed.

 

Park Slope was cozy but the restaurants were full of families, lesbians and there were no single men. It had an old-world feel, but as a single woman it felt like a desert island.

Manhattan was electric and she roved around with her posse to bars and dance clubs, like MacAleer’s on Amsterdam, where she knew the bouncer. People talked to you on the street. There was big money in the 80’s. The concrete jungle was intense with shoulder padded bankers spilling out into the streets at lunchtime. It was tougher to do basic things in NYC, like laundry.  Even simple chores became a dog-eat-dog competitive act.

NYC during 9/11 felt like a very small town. None of us were allowed to leave and everyone walked around in hushed voices.  The sound of bagpipes were heard frequently in fireman’s funerals.

After Guiliani’s Disneyfication of Times Square, things felt safer. Our heroine walked home from acting class at Carnegie Hall after midnight. She heard the clomping of horse shoes out her window as carriages returned to the stables from Central Park South. She got her nails done at 9 pm and snuck McDonald’s cheeseburgers into the movies alone..  She could be free and safe at night which felt revolutionary as a woman. She lived in a two bedroom apartment with her 50 something roommate Barry, which was great except for the Barry part. She glanced at sidewalk diners,, their entitled heads close in intimate conversation and took her take-out to eat on her sofa in front of the tv. Central Park was her backyard, though she had a small planter of grass on her windowsill that she trimmed with scissors to get the “fresh cut grass” smell.
 

Tucson, Arizona

A western rambling town with the most sunny days in the US. Davis Monthan Air Force Base is in Tucson and trains 11,000 pilots.  They fly training missions over Tucson on most clear days. This is a Sonoran desert climate with more vegetation than any other desert in the world.  It has giant saguaro cacti, and many other varieties which bloom in the Spring.  There are wildflowers, rabbits, coyotes, rattlesnakes, javelinas and scorpions.  The colors are different there. There is much less green than the East coast.  There are few deciduous trees and lots of palm trees.It is a more muted, desert landscape.  It looks like the bottom of the sea without water.  The colors are beige and tan and the tiniest little blooms stand out.  There are painted sunsets and big blue skies with clouds that sweep and ripple.  The air smells like the creosote bush when it rains.  In the summer there are violent monsoons with freezing rain and the cacti sometimes are struck by lightning and power is lost. There are lots of apartment complexes with pools and blooming bougainvillea and charmless streets with strip malls and Circle K’s.

San Francisco, CA

A town full of hills with old fashioned vibes and Victorian and Edwardian architecture. This is a romantic city with houses painted vibrant colors, streetcars trundling up and down hills and sweeping views.  Foghorns can be heard throughout the whole city on foggy days. The fog, nicknamed Carl, is a personnage. Each realtor knows how it crisscrosses the city creating microclimates.  It can be blazing sun in Noe Valley and grey and damp 10 minutes away in the Sunset.  Our protagonist arrives 5 mos pregnant in July, fresh off the plane from 96 degree steam-scorched NYC, stunned  to find herself in 55 degrees, fog, winds and sporadic rain. Nature and culture seem balanced here.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. 

A young man who has spent his entire life disappointing himself and others must overcome doubt to become the hero he wants to be.

SECOND ASSIGNMENT: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story.

King Eugene is the evil ruler of the Northern kingdom and the father of Rose, the half changeling princess.  Not satisfied ruling the North, he plans to take over the Southern kingdom by coercing or destroying his daughter, the rightful heir to the throne.  He offers a reward for her return, resulting in her kidnapping and setting off a flurry of rescue attempts across the kingdom.

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title

The Last Resort

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Develop two smart comparables for your novel.

Terry Pratchett Discworld series- Traditional fantasy characters who experience modern issues, with humorous results.

Howl's Moving Castle– fantasy story with humor and a modern conversation flow.  The interactions between characters follow tangents that one would expect from conventional situations, rather than the traditional fantasy fairy tale situations. 

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line

Next, likewise sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict."

 FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail.

     Every child has heard stories of the sleeping world, but most eventually they realize the tales are completely made up.  There’s no way a parallel world can exist where the people just plod through life without magic or heroes to counter the evil intent of reprobate kings.  And what about werewolves?  And dragons?  Surely there must be some magic to ward off their attacks.  No, these stories are told by frustrated parents to instill fear.  “Be careful on your way to school, there are children in the sleeping world who think they can just go skipping over the bridge without checking for trolls.”

     But as many stories are built on a foundation of truth, the sleeping world is no exception.  Not only does this world exist, it can be accessed.  The path between is a closely guarded secret, and only a few individuals have been trusted to visit.  The reason for this secrecy is obvious if you’ve ever seen the forlorn existence of a race that does not believe in anything.  Magic does not flourish in the presence of disbelief, and it is a rare person who can overcome their training to accept the truth that a stick in one hand might well be a dangerous wand in another.

     Doors are meant to be opened.  They are otherwise useless, and not even a door wants to be useless. In a brief moment of inattention, the guardians of the portal slipped up, and in that moment, a sleeper was pushed through to our side.  Not just any sleeper, but a lawyer who quickly took stock of his new situation and began to make changes, creating a ripple effect that must be stopped by any means necessary.

Write to Pitch Seven Short Assignments just answers.docx

1. THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT

 Rina must defy the regime and fight for her freedom. 

 2. THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT

The antagonistic force in Haven is the data-centered world the community is built on. By sacrificing everything in the name of efficiency and self-actualization, Haven has outlawed mistakes, side-quests, time sucks, and self-exploration. Initially, Rina is drawn into the shadowed underground, away from the ubiquitous cameras, where hackers and “deviants” gather illicitly to express parts of themselves they are forbidden from expressing in public. This eventually brings her so deep that she discovers that the group who is secretly in power of Haven has been lying to everyone about what lies outside the walls.  

The group that secretly controls Haven is the Creats, the people with innate creative talent. They have been largely overlooked in the story, which is what they prefer. Through social engineering and hegemonic control, they have pitted the other two social groups (Kinets-athletes, and Lytics-analytical) against each other and managed to maintain control over Haven through social influence and propaganda. When Rina learns the extent of their manipulation, she makes sure everyone in Haven learns the truth before she makes a final desperate dash for freedom. 

 3. CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE (updated with new titles)

 Haven

Shadow Walkers

Lost in Shadows

The Shadow Voice

 4. DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPS

 As a stand-alone novel with series potential, Haven is best described as Romeo and Juliet meets The Circle by Dave Eggers, blending aspects of light sci-fi, dystopian, adventure, and coming-of-age stories. Comp titles include Delirium by Lauren Oliver and Matched by Ally Condie for the portrayal of restrictive societies, forbidden love, and revolution.

 5. CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT (Logline)

 In a data-run world where talent dictates identity, a young woman who has never fit in will defy the regime to fight for her freedom.

 6. OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS

Secondary conflict: Rina experiences a handful of secondary conflicts that all serve to move her into crisis, forcing her to face—and heal—her core wound. The most important secondary driver is that she meets and falls in love with a boy from a different social pillar. The various pillars in Haven are not supposed to socialize, but Jesse teaches Rina how to defy the rules and sneak through their surveilled world unseen. This relationship is the main driver in helping Rina challenge the teachings she grew up with. Additionally, Rina’s beloved younger sister suffers a career-ending injury early in the book. In Haven, everyone must pursue their innate talent. When Abby’s head injury ends her athletic future, Rina is forced to acknowledge how unfair and tenuous their world’s dictates are. The third secondary conflict is Rina’s ongoing and growing tension with her best friend, Tana. This tension leads to Rina’s growing feelings of isolation, which drive her to Jesse, giving gas to that relationship and influence. 

Inner conflict: From the outside, Rina’s life looks perfect. She’s a star athlete beginning her senior year in high school. But secretly, Rina feels like she is suffocating. She doesn’t relate to her peers and loathes the idea of her future, where her options are limited and every day will be a repeat of the one before. She suffers in silence and isolation until she meets Jesse, a boy who teaches her to use creative writing as a release for the tension that’s been building her whole life. Rina is drawn to the underground world in Haven where everyone is pursuing other parts of themselves they are forced to ignore in the light of day, but when Jesse is caught and exiled during one of their secretive outings, Rina is forced to squeeze herself back into the box of her standard identity. Then Jesse comes back and reveals all the things Haven has been lying to everyone about. Rina’s silence will finally crack, and she’ll find her voice to fight for her truth and bring Haven down in the process. 

7. THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING

Haven is a world “five seconds in the future” from ours—it has fully embraced social surveillance and predictive analytics to tell everyone the right decision in every situation. Secrets don’t exist and lying is obsolete. Cameras are everywhere, and wearable devices give real-time biometric and geographic information. Parents are alerted if their kids are participating less in school or aren’t eating as much as normal. Children are studied from a young age and told exactly what their innate talent is, and that talent is then nurtured, practiced, and pursued to the exclusion of everything else. Self-actualization rates soar. Everyone has a peer group and purpose. 

 Rina knows she is living her scientifically defined “best life,” but what she doesn’t know is why she feels so dissatisfied. Then she meets Jesse, a boy from another pillar who is the first person to see more to her than her talent. He shows her how he’s been able to team up with a hacker friend, Eddie, and sneak around Haven at night while Eddie creates a rolling series of “blips” in the surveillance network. Rina and Jesse “blip surf” to underground poetry slams, where Rina discovers there are many in their community who feel the need to risk exile for the chance to explore more of themselves. Set in the city at night, the blip surfing scenes ooze with tension and excitement, and the underground poetry slam captivates with speakers’ words projected in red onto the walls of the room. 

 High with the excitement of getting away with things, Rina brings Jesse to an exclusive, athletes-only masquerade dance. This scene writhes with music, dancing bodies, and the tension of wondering if they will get away with Jesse being a masked interloper in the athletes’ world. 

On one last fateful blip surf to tag Haven's surveillance headquarters with graffiti (Jesse’s rebellion of choice), he’s arrested and exiled to the Enclave. Throughout the story, the Enclave has been characterized as a lawless, dangerous land. Readers have been primed to anticipate chaos, weapons, and death—the antithesis of Haven. Readers follow Jesse into the Enclave and wait with bated breath as he creeps through the midnight wood (the nature already serving as counterpoint to Haven’s urban setting), preparing himself to fight for survival. He does meet two people with very large guns, but the tone immediately shifts, unmooring Jesse as he realizes that the Enclave is nothing like what Haven has told everyone it is. 

 The last important setting piece is the river that Rina rows in every day. As captain of her high school rowing team, we see the river as the place where Rina becomes the purest form of her natural talent—the pinnacle of focus and effort. But the river morphs, along with Rina’s character development, into a place of contemplation, plotting and scheming, self-determination, and ultimately, in the final heart-pounding scene, escape. 

The Vega

A Dystopian YA Novel by Fiona Ormond

1.      Eve must kill the Commander of Atrox, putting the city into the hands of the Vega and hopefully reaching redemption for her actions.

2.      Commander Cyrus is the leader of Atrox, and cruelty personified. He craves power and, in his eyes, the only way to keep that is through inhumanity. Cyrus wants to end the Vega – rebels who are a threat to his rule – but he fears lower city will rise against him if he does. However, he is able to kill a Vega sympathizer: Eve’s father and his second-in-command, Chester Fairbourne. Killing Chester released him of his one weakness. He loved Chester but it would have ruined him and his thirst for power.

3.      The Vega or Forever the Strategist’s Daughter

4.      Conform by Ariel Sullivan and Divergent by Veronica Roth.

5.      As a young woman seeks redemption for her sins, she must fight to kill the man who holds their city by the throat and who killed her father.

6.      Eve has committed horrible atrocities in the past, but her greatest sin comes in the beginning of the novel: she kills a man. Throughout the book, she will be guilt-ridden, fighting her way back to some sort of redemption.

Inner Conflict Scenario: Eve and Roman walk into the dining hall of the Warehouse, the Vega homebase. Roman’s mother serves them some food. She is curt with Eve and Roman apologizes for his mother’s actions. Eve runs, feeling horrible that Roman is apologizing for the mother of the man she killed. 

Secondary Conflict Scenario: Eve apologizes to Cassius’s – the man she killed – makeshift grave. Roman overhears her confession and becomes furious. Eve tries to apologize but Roman cuts her off. He asks her if it was all some big joke between them, to twist the knife in deeper. Eve denies it but Roman doesn’t believe her.

7.      Atrox is a city divided by class. Upper city houses the rich who follow the laws of cruelty to ensure their power remains. Lower city holds the poor who secretly practice love and kindness despite the ban against them. Within Atrox, people form conception contracts, where one person agrees to parent the child formed from the coupling. Bright colors (only black, white, grey and brown) are banned in Atrox; they promote happiness which is believed to be a threat to peace. Their technology is a mixture of futuristic and aged. For example, they travel around in self-driving carriages. The Vega, found in lower city, bend the rules as much as they can. They hide color in their underground bar, hold relationships and raise their children together, though in separate houses.

1.Story Statement:

A rising rockstar fights shadowy forces led by her own father unknown to her, while uncovering her mother’s mysterious death and using music as a weapon for change.

2. The Antagonist: 

The antagonistic force is the music industry, the system, “the man” and the powers that control what the mainstream consumes. The ones who have silenced voices through the years. They appear as black-suited men, who mysteriously make themselves known. Their presence is a warning. They want to keep a controlled narrative, one that keeps the system running and benefits those on top. They are unforgiving. When Rosie ignores their threats, they act. The first time she saw them, they were talking to her dad when she was ten years old. The next day he disappeared. She never saw him again.

Later, when Rosie confronts the person in charge of the black suits, she discovers it’s her dad. Throughout most of the story, she doesn’t know this. He explains that he made a deal with the industry, joined forces with them, so Rosie would be safe. He didn’t realize the message Rosie would be singing. Her music, challenging corrupt systems, has shaken the powers on top. It’s the same reason they killed her mother, though Rosie doesn’t know it. Her dad, a music industry executive, sent the suited men to scare her, thinking that’s what would keep her alive and prevent her from meeting the same fate as her mother.

3. Title:

Rock On Rosie Reid 

4. Genre: 

Contemporary Young Adult

4. Comp Titles:

Combines the music-world intimacy of Daisy Jones & The Six with the identity struggles and youthful voice of On the Come Up. My story doubles down with a missing-father mystery and a shadowy ‘Suits’ cabal trying to silence a voice meant to change the world; combining the urgency of a thriller with the soul of a rock-star coming-of-age.

Alternative comp titles: 

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

• Themes of Loss, family dynamics, and resilience.

  • The story portrays characters dealing with grief and searching for healing, echoing Rosie's emotional journey.

Clap When You Land" by Elizabeth Acevedo

• Themes of loss, family secrets, and emotional healing

  • Explores the impact of a father's death on two sisters, similar to Rosie’s search for answers about her father.

5. Logline: 

Orphaned rockstar Rosie Reid tours the globe, pouring herself into music that could change the world—until black-suited enforcers, led by her estranged father, force Rosie to confront deadly secrets and survive the system that killed her mother.

Alternatively

Orphaned and alone, rockstar Rosie Reid pours herself into writing music, touring the globe and hoping it can change the world while filling the void left by her missing parents. But black-suited men start threatening her life and she discovers the mastermind is her estranged father. Rosie must confront deadly secrets and survive the system that killed her mother.

6. Other Matters of Conflict:

Inner Conflict

Rosie Reid struggles with complex grief because she doesn’t know how her mom died or why her dad disappeared. Nothing was ever spoken about, so she develops PTSD and a fear of attachment, afraid to love or let others get close. We see this in how she keeps a distance from her only surviving relative, her grandmother.

She has a disorganized attachment style, having had to survive mostly on her own. When she interacts romantically, she’s afraid; yet she becomes intensely attached to Luna, even though it’s premature. Rosie swings between wanting to hold someone close and needing the safety she feels in relying only on herself.

Living as her stage persona, Rosie Reid, instead of her true self, Elizabeth, who was too nerdy and unconfident to perform, she often feels like a fraud. Her personality is split between the person she is on stage and who she really is.

She is stubborn and refuses to stop her music, even when it threatens her life. When betrayed by Luna to the press, Rosie spirals into depression, feeling utterly alone, with all the pain of her past flooding back. She also carries shame and guilt for risking lives at the Toronto show, and a deep fear of the future, worried about environmental crises, corruption, and injustice.

Inner Conflict Scenario: Before a major show, Rosie sees the black-suited men outside the venue. Panic and flashbacks to her father’s disappearance overtake her. She struggles with whether to run, perform, or confide in someone, oscillating between fear, anger, and guilt, revealing her PTSD, and the heavy burden of responsibility she carries for those around her.

Secondary Conflict

Rosie falls in love with a photographer named Luna and allows herself to be vulnerable, forming a close attachment despite her usual guardedness. This is the first time Rosie realizes she has feelings for a woman. Luna travels to NYC to be with her, but begins acting strangely. Eventually, Rosie discovers that Luna has sold private photos to the press, betraying her trust.

Rosie also struggles with her grandmother. She has kept her at a distance, afraid that love brings pain, which has caused her to almost forget about her grandmother, a loss that hurts her more than anyone else.

Social Conflict Scenario: Rosie invites Luna to a private studio session to celebrate a milestone in her tour, only to later see her personal photos in a newspaper. She feels an overwhelming sense of betrayal and heartbreak. Around the same time, she avoids a call from her grandmother, feeling guilt and shame, but unable to overcome her fear of closeness.

7. Setting:

World Tour/Music Festivals & Venues: The setting moves between touring at music festivals and concert venues, sleeping on the bus, and staying in hotels around Europe and North America. The tour bus is full of the band—three men and Rosie—so it’s stuffy, smelly, and not somewhere she likes to spend time. When she gets a private hotel room to herself, she feels like a queen and unpacks all her things, even if it’s just for one night; having a place that feels like home satisfies Rosie.

The story opens in Spain at the Primavera Sound music festival, which is on the Mediterranean Sea. Then the band travels to Scotland, where they play at an old church turned concert venue. During the day, before the show, Rosie explores the West End of Glasgow and makes her way to the university, which has Hogwarts-esque cloisters that inspire her imagination and soothe her inner child. Next, they fly to Toronto, where they play at an old opera house. The Music Hall glows under the streetlights, its brick façade worn but proud, marquee lights blinking like a heartbeat. Inside, the air hums with anticipation. Polished wood floors, velvet curtains, and the faint scent of draft beer. Posters of past performers line the walls, their edges curled, their eyes watching. The stage waits, scarred with scratches and dust, ready to come alive.

Rosie’s Loft Apartment in NYC:
Sunlight pours through tall, industrial windows, catching on the exposed brick walls and worn hardwood floors. The loft is filled with thrifted and vintage pieces that carry their own stories, a threadbare sofa, a scratched coffee table, a leaning bookshelf overflowing with records and notebooks. Plants climb toward the light in recycled pots, though they’re in need of care, because the apartment has a sense of being empty most of the time.  Guitars rest against walls like old friends, chipped and dusty. It’s messy but intentional, creative but absent. It’s a space that waits for Rosie to come home between tours. Outside, the East Village hums with energy: graffiti-ed walls, corner cafés, and the distant pulse of music from a bar down the street. 

 

 

 

This replaces my last post as I needed to make a few changes. 

 

Nothing like starting this assignment and stopping several times to re-write! Better late than never!

1st assignment:

Story Statement

Note: I have it narrowed down to two: One that is more direct and the other more literary:

• Glorious Gardner sets out to uncover the secrets stamped across her family tree and her small western town, and in doing so must find the courage to outgrow the ‘ordinary’ life around her and claim the glory she was named for.

• Burdened by grief, secrets, and a mother who can barely speak of the past, Glorious Gardner uses her pen and notebook to uncover the truths her prairie town hides. She must decide whether she will live small and “ordinary,” or finally step into the promise of her own name.

 

2nd assignment:

The Antagonist

This book does not have one central antagonist/villain.  it has several interlocking forces pushing against Gloria and causing friction.

a) The Town as Antagonist: Chippewa Creek

Chippewa Creek is both beloved and hostile. It acts like a major character and also an antagonist 

On one hand, it’s slow, predictable, “plain-as-prairie” and comforting: Creekside Cafe, Front Street, the grain elevators, the Harvest Hay Day, Agnes’s cozy house by the creek. Gloria feels at home there, on the prairie and with the town surroundings.

On the other hand, the town is plagued with:

• Blabbermouths and backstabbers (Marlene Gladwell, Mrs. Handswell, Mrs. Foster, Mrs. Castil, and the “Ladies’ Auxiliary of Malfunctioned Mouths”)
   

• Cruel gossip that follows her family, especially her mother and her dead brother Frankie
   

• Silence and Cowardice mixed in with pain and dark history
   

The town’s collective behavior reinforces the lie that her family is “damaged,” that she’s foolish for wanting more, and that some truths are too messy to say out loud. Chippewa Creek keeps trying to shove her into the “ordinary” box.

b) Human Antagonists (the town’s busybodies)

• Mikey Olsen acts as the schoolyard tormentor who sneers about Frankie’s death and lies about her grandmother being a murderer. He represents the cruel, childish side of the town’s judgment.
   

• Mrs. Handswell  is the teacher who publicly belittles Gloria’s family tree (“never planted in that rich of soil”), weaponizes authority, and makes Gloria feel small and unworthy.
   

• Marlene “MOO-lene” Gladwell. She is the church and community gossip who belittles Gloria’s mother and snipes from the sidelines.
   

None of them are cartoonish villains or monsters; they’re ordinary people acting out of their own pettiness and fear and creating the worst wounds. 

c) The Mother’s Wounds and Illness

Emmalayne (Mama) is not a villain, but the consequences of her trauma and mental illness function as so.

• Orphanage abuse
   

• A father who killed someone
   

• A mother who died by suicide on the tracks
   

• Electroshock treatments and “nervous tension” after Gloria’s birth
   

• Medication, depression, emotional distance
   

Gloria desperately wants her mother’s love and approval, but Mama is often cold, agitated, or absent, locked in her own pain. That emotional unavailability is a constant opposing force. Gloria keeps trying to “earn” her mother’s love by being good, useful, “glorious,” and by fixing the family story.

d) The Time Frame (era)  and Social Stigma

The 1950s setting also acts as an antagonist:

• Mental health is whispered about in shame.
   

• Orphanage abuse goes unspoken.
   

• Being part Nez Perce, part Irish, part Norwegian in a white prairie town is frowned upon.
   

• Women are expected to be neat, quiet, dutiful, and not take up public space with their grief or ambitions.
   

Gloria is trying to become a journalist, ask questions, and speak openly in a world that keeps telling her “don’t dig” and “don’t make a fuss.”

Assignment #3:

Breakout Title

Primary Title 

JUST GLORIOUS

My reasons for wanting this title: my heart and theme are tied to JUST GLORIOUS.

• “Just” is a double edge:
  
   

  • The town and even Gloria herself think she’s “just” an ordinary girl.
     

  • By the end, “just” shifts toward justice and “simply, fully Glorious.”
     

• “Glorious” is her given name and the theme: she doesn’t feel worthy of it at first. The story is about growing into that name.
   

Alternate titles:

1. Something Kind of Glorious
    

2. The Ordinary Girl from Chippewa Creek
    

3. Family Matters in Chippewa Creek

     4. Once Upon a Prairie

 

Assignment 34:

Genre and Comparables

 

Genre

• Young YA Historical Coming-of-Age/Crossover/Upper Middle Grade
   

• 1950s rural American setting with strong family drama, grief, faith questions, and small-town politics.
   

• Has crossover potential for adult readers who like book club historicals with heart and nostalgia.
   

Tone & Approach

• Third-person with a warm, slightly old-fashioned narration. (like a storyteller or narrator for a play) 

• Mix of humor, heart, and emotional pain.
   

• Includes Gloria’s journal entries, which give us her writer’s voice. 

Comps

1. THE WEDNESDAY WARS – Gary D. Schmidt * Newberry Honor

   • The Wednesday Wars is a 2007 young adult historical fiction novel written by Gary D. Schmidt, the author of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. The novel is set in suburban Long Island during the 1967–68 school year. The Vietnam War is an important backdrop for the novel.  *Similar age and voice

2. WOLF HOLLOW – Lauren Wolk
   
    

   • The main plot of the novel Wolf Hollow is about Annabelle, a young girl in 1940s Pennsylvania, who must navigate a complex situation involving a cruel new girl named Betty and a reclusive war veteran named Toby. Betty's bullying escalates, and she falsely accuses Toby of a crime after she disappears. Annabelle finds herself in the middle, trying to protect Toby from the suspicion of the townspeople and ultimately seeking the truth about Betty's disappearance
      

3. THE WAR THAT SAVED MY LIFE – Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
   
    

   • The War That Saved My Life is a historical fiction novel about a ten-year-old girl named Ada who has a clubfoot and is abused by her mother in London during World War II. She escapes to the countryside with her little brother, Jamie, to be evacuated from the Blitz, where they are placed with a woman named Susan Smith. The book follows Ada as she learns to overcome her past, finds a new sense of family with Susan, and begins to heal from her physical and emotional wounds
      

• Stylistically Literary/Character-driven but external plot development that is engaging: fistfights, a fantastical snowman, school/teacher trouble, a national contest, appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

 

Assignment #5:

Core Wound and Primary Conflict

Core Wound

Gloria’s core wound has 3 development stages:

1. The death of her brother Frankie. It's a grief no one will talk about directly, clouded by guilt and rumor, leaving her feeling like love can vanish without warning.
    

2. Her mother’s emotional absence and trauma.  Gloria was literally left without her mother for the first months of life, and then grew up with a parent who is hollowed out, medicated, and guarded.
    

3. The town’s judgment of her family gossip about her grandparents, her mother’s past, and Frankie’s death never leaves her. The people who should hold her up (teachers, neighbors) often undermine her.
    

Deep down, Gloria fears that she is not truly “Glorious” at all; she is ordinary at best, defective at worst, and doomed to repeat the cycle of hurt.

Primary Conflict

Gloria’s primary conflict is this:

Gloria struggles to live up to her name, Glorious.  It becomes more difficult as she uncovers painful family and town secrets, forcing her to choose between protecting the people she loves or telling the truth that could finally reveal her own path to purpose.

How: 

• She discovers the trunk with her mother’s painful history, the tragedy of her grandparents, and the real story of Mama’s hospitalization.
   

• She wants to make sense of it all and turn it into something meaningful, not just shame.
   

• At the same time, she is building a public voice as a journalist:
  
   

  • Snowman article /local fame
     

  • National essay contest/Ed Sullivan Show
     

• Those two tracks collide: the more visible she becomes, the more risky it feels to reveal the messy truth behind the “Gardner” name.
   

If she fails this conflict, she’ll either:

• Retreat into silence like older generations, or
   

• Blow up relationships (especially with her mother) in the pursuit of truth.
   

Assignment #6:

Other Matters of Conflict: Two more Levels

A. Internal Conflict

• Loyalty vs. Honesty:
  She loves Mama and her town, but she also sees their hypocrisy and cruelty. She doesn’t want to betray them in her essay, but she also can’t live with lies or silence anymore.
   

• Faith vs. Disillusionment:
  She believes in God, in love, and in “keeping no record of wrongs,” but she’s literally keeping notebooks full of people’s offenses and her own hurt. She wrestles with what forgiveness actually means.
   

• Grief vs. Forward Motion:
  Frankie is fading in her dreams. She is terrified of forgetting him, but also scared that if she keeps holding on too tightly, she could end up like Mamma. Learning about her family history is cathartic but also opens doors that may let old skeletons out. 

• Ordinary vs. Glorious:
  She’s torn between wanting to stay safely unnoticed and wanting to live up to the big name on her birth certificate. Fame on Ed Sullivan/Future outside of Chippewa Creek: both exciting and overwhelming.

B. External / Relational Conflicts

• With Mama:
  Mama keeps secrets, shuts down, and sometimes lashes out. Gloria wants answers about the past. She wants to help Mama heal, but doesn’t know how without reopening wounds.
   

• With Peggy (her sister):
  Peggy is older, prettier, and more worldly. Sometimes an ally, sometimes a rival. * (school bully/secrets in trunk) They bicker over boys, over Mama, over who gets to be the “grown-up” in situations.
   

• With Agnes:
  Gloria temporarily feels betrayed when she realizes Agnes knew more about her family and didn’t tell her. She accuses Agnes of having “secret trees” and “secret lives,” forcing a conversation about boundaries, privacy, and what friendship really means.
   

• With Town Kids / Authority:
  
   

  • Fistfight with Mikey Olsen on the snowy playground.
     

  • Being singled out and humiliated by Mrs. Handswell.
     

  • Navigating Jack Day’s interest and Sarah’s feelings without turning her life into one more gossip bonfire.
     

• Situational / Plot Conflicts:
  
   

  • The family tree assignment that forces shrouded history into the light.
     

  • The national essay contest and trip to New York.
     

  • The live interview on Ed Sullivan, where she has to think on her feet, protect the people she loves and win the hearts of people back home in Chippewa Creek but representing them in the best way possible.
     

I tried to keep the conflicts layered to help the story move along…in the home, school, town and national television stage.

 

Assignment 7:

The Incredible Importance of Setting: 

The setting I chose is not filler or background. I purposely created the mood, theme, and Era because it shapes her choices and experiences.

Chippewa Creek (Primary Setting, Antagonist, and Home)

• A “small, stagnant town, surrounded by practical, plain-as-prairie people.”
   

• The prairie itself - rolling, unending, with parched coulees and indigo horizons - mirrors Gloria’s inner life: wide open, lonely, beautiful, and full of buried things (like secrets in the coulees).
   

• Front Street: (a bygone time)
  
   

  • Creekside Cafe (gossip central, hamburgers, and enemy du jour Marlene).
     

  • General store with its window splashes, cluttered merchandise and worn wooden floors where Gloria eavesdrops on women talking about the new principal.
     

  • Grain elevators, the prairie skyscrapers, train depots, and tracks
     

• Agnes’s House by the Creek:
  
   

  • Cozy, clean, full of memories, and a big picture window where she looks out at the goings-on at the church.
     

  • The tree where her husband is "secretly" buried in the yard.
     

  • A place of wisdom, hand-me-down stories, and goodies, but also hidden sorrow.
     

• Gloria’s Basement Room:
  
   

  • The frosted window, single sunbeam, and shelf of old books.

  • Utilitarian space made to give a young girl a retreat from the on going soap opera upstairs.  * a special place created by Papa.
     

  • The place where she writes in her notebooks and dreams big dreams in a low-ceilinged, humble space.
     

• The Snowman, “Mr. Frosty Fletcher”:
  
   

  • A physical symbol of how something simple can unite the town and bring out its best, and how fame can show up in the least expected ways.
     

The town gives Gloria both her core problem (gossip, secrets, stifling expectations) and her raw material (voices, stories, characters, conflict) for becoming a writer. It’s simultaneously the thing holding her down and the thing giving her insight and" hard-earned wisdom".

New York City / Ed Sullivan Theater

New York is the opposite pole of the prairie:

• Noise instead of silence.
   

• Skyscrapers instead of buttes.
   

• Anonymous crowds instead of everyone knowing your business.
   

The scenes in New York, the dead chickens going down into the sidewalk, the doorman, and the Ed Sullivan green room creates a sharp contrast to her small-town identity.  She realizes:

• The world is much bigger than Chippewa Creek.
  Her story, rooted in that little town, still matters on a big stage.

The Ed Sullivan Theater is like the ultimate Front Street:
Everyone’s watching, everyone’s talking, but this time she controls the microphone.

I will be attending the March 2026 conference. Here is the assignment, filled out, for my book, THE LORD OF LIES.

Assignment 1: Story Statement

Oliver Parker must exorcise the demonlord Azarov, who is corrupting his mind and dreams, and escape from Perdition, a realm of hell that exists parallel to his home state of New Jersey, before Azarov, the Lord of Lies, is unleashed on earth.

Assignment 2: In under 200 words, sketch the antagonist

Azarov, the Lord of Lies, is a demonlord who wants to return to Earth but is prevented by a force known as the Unseen Walls, which demons and humans cannot pass through easily. In the story, he is able to corrupt the soul of a victim and is in the process of emerging on Earth when the protagonist, Oliver, interrupts the ritual, splitting him in two, casting him back to hell. Oliver is also cast into hell with Azarov; the spiritual half of the demon has occupied his mind, chasing him in his dreams, while the physical half of the demon is pursuing Oliver across the different realms of hell.

Assignment 3: Create up to 3 breakout titles

THE LORD OF LIES (the title I am currently using)
MALFUNCTION JUNCTION
THE MESMER AND THE NECROMANCER

Assignment 4: Smart comparable works to my book

- The Tarot Sequence by KD Edwards — both are urban fantasies featuring magic and unique senses of place, gay protagonists, and lots of action, humor, and heart
- An Amateur Witch’s Guide to Murder by K. Valentin — queer urban fantasy with demons and angels (maybe?)
- White Trash Warlock by David Slayton — gay urban fantasy

Assignment 5: Hook line with core wound

The Mesmer Oliver Parker knows New Jersey can sometimes be hell; he just didn't expect it to be so literal when a demon possesses him and drags him to Perdition.

Assignment 6: Secondary and inner conflicts:

- Secondary conflict: Oliver is developing a growing attraction to a Necromancer, Calvin Merrin. Can their budding relationship survive the trip to hell?
- Inner conflict: There is a demon literally inside his mind, working Oliver during his dreams, fighting to take over his body. This ultimately results in Oliver not even trusting himself to go to sleep, leading to issues with sleep deprivation and the demon slowly seeping into his subconsciousness (I realize this isn’t QUITE what we mean by inner conflict; right now, all I have is that Oliver is a lonely person who has a hard time making connections, and doesn’t have enough faith in himself because he’s a low-rent magic user)

Assignment 7: Sketch out the setting in detail

The story begins in contemporary New Jersey, but alongside New Jersey are the realms of Perdition and Harmony, better known to most as heaven and hell. These realms are parallel to our own, and take on the characteristics of the vices and virtues. For example, Atlantic City is also home to Avaritia, or the realm of Greed. Seaside Heights is also home to Gula (Gluttony). Sometimes they live side by side — Humanitas (Kindness) and Invidia (Envy) live side by side in suburbia, its form shaping depending whose souls occupy the realm, turning a heaven into hell, or a hell into heaven.

Between Earth and the Other Side are the Unseen Walls, keeping humans on one side and demons on the other side…mostly. There is also a sort of purgatory, known as Junction (or Malfunction Junction, the name the locals give it), where travel between the realms can be possible.

Finally, given that Oliver is possessed by a demon, the demon occupies Oliver’s dreams as he rests during his flight through hell, so there are dreamscapes at work in this story, too.

Assignment One: Story Statement

End the mob rule so that being stripped of everything was worth it.

 

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.

First a community organizer, EO3 took his skills and became a top ranking spiritual guide of an exclusive fraternity after his son, a young coast guardsman, was murdered as part of the fraternity’s ritual, only for it to be reported as an act of terrorism to justify military action.

His creed is chaos and destruction, and so he finds himself at home in an occultist religion that rewards his actions with power. This leads him into a downward spiral of vampirism that has no end, just greater depths. He sacrifices people for power, but his vision always adjusts, leading him to the conclusion that nothing will be dark enough. Realizing he can’t consume enough, he begs the demon to consume him. 

The way his fraternity feeds the sacrificial demands is by maintaining control over the many facets of Americans’ lives. They’ve had a chokehold over the country and siphoned its resources for a long time, but now, the protagonist and the movement he started stands in their way. 

He recognizes the waning support for fraternity rule and puts together a plan to shift the mass hypnosis onto the up and coming leaders of the movement. 

THIRD ASSIGNMENT:

Great Plains Eminence

The Mammoth

 FOURTH ASSIGNMENT:

The Night Agent (2019) by Matthew Quirk. Also a Netflix series (2025). Like my novel, this book is set in Washington, D.C. and includes a protagonist unwittingly thrust into foiling a government conspiracy.

The God of the Woods (2024), like my book, contains an atmospheric mystery involving the elite, as well as a character driven narrative.

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

Struggling to regain his sense of personhood after unjust imprisonment, the secretary of homeland security resurrects his populist movement to finally end the mob rule of three elite fraternities that rotate control of the Oval Office and made an example out of him.

SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. 

Inner Conflict

Avery’s ex-fiancee tells him he can be a better person. This strikes a chord in him. He recognizes how he lost his sense of personhood after his conviction. After his release, he was met with pleas for help from supporters of the movement he started. He is a figure being counted on by the disenfranchised Americans and a threat that needs to be neutralized by the opposition. 

Now forty, he is unmarried, childless, and owns nothing. He can’t be a better person, or fight for others,  if he’s not one at all.

Secondary Conflict

Avery and President Bradford Vure are brothers, but they became estranged after the fraternity recruited Bradford when he was eighteen. 

The fraternity used Avery as a prop in a staged terrorist incident to garner support for military operations. After Avery exposed them for doing so, they corrupted his trial to ensure his conviction. 

Over the years, Vure repeatedly chose the fraternity over his brother. He pardoned Avery as part of a plea for forgiveness, but Avery is resistant to accept it. 

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. 

This speculative Washington, D.C. is occupied by brothers of three major fraternities that are extremely hostile to our protagonist, Avery. This is a city where restaurant owners are tribalist, mimicry is encouraged, not uncanny, and the secretary of homeland security is a have-not for not being fraternity-unaffiliated.

I try to make setting character in the White House, playing up the dramatic, distinct designs of the offices and being intentional with what scenes occur in each color parlor.

Also, in this universe, North Sentinel Island is discovered to not be occupied by the world’s only uncontacted tribe, but by a fraternity. They use it for their illegal scientific research and tropical getaways. This was also the location of the staged terrorist incident that started Avery’s ascent into becoming the figure of a political movement.

And then there’s the title, ‘Great Plains Eminence’. Caddo, Oklahoma is an important location to Avery, as well as a point of contention in his relationship with his brother. The fraternity demanded his brother, the president, leave behind his history and family when they moved him to the East Coast. The president is still averse to returning, and therefore, to fully apologizing to Avery for his past actions.

Avery’s visit to Caddo also showcases the forgotten middle Americans who inspired this story. 

WRITE TO PITCH—SEVEN ASSIGNMENTS

THE BOOK IS AESOPIA BY MICHAEL J. COOPER

mcooper@michaeljcooper.com

 

1.       STORY STATEMENT: Babrius struggles to convince the Church leaders they must modernize their dogma or risk becoming marginalized in the computer-oriented world. Theron fights to win the girl he loves from her current partner.

 

2.       ANTAGONIST: Roos is an older priest from South Africa. In his youth he was a well-respected firebrand, fighting for racial equality and increasing the dominance of the Church. In his age, he’s become dogmatic, humorless, difficult and has lost his authority. At the conclave of Church elders he personifies the conservative element that refuses to modernize the Church. He gathers around him acolytes who agree with his position and becomes vehement in his opposition to Babrius. Feeling that he’s regained that force and strength that once made him a power to be reckoned with he pushes an agenda that disdains compromise.  

 

Agapanthus is a priest from New York City. He is one of those who is drawn to Roos and shares his convictions. He came to the conclave with his beautiful girlfriend, Livy, but now ignores her. Theron, Babrius’ assistant, falls in love with Livy. As the conservatives start losing the battle for supremacy, Agapanthus turns to violence to save his girl. As a dedicated priest who seeks advancement, he equates the loss of his girl to the rejection of his philosophical principles.

 

3.       TITLE: The current title is Aesopia. Alternatives might be Acropolis Revolution. Or Chronicles of a Church Revived.

 

4.       GENRE AND COMPARABLES: Historical fiction is a common genre. The standard plot sets imagined characters into a more or less real historical events. (Current books of this ilk are Churchills Secret Messenger by Alan Hlad or Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict.) A sub-genre of historical fiction is when imagined characters are set into an imagined, alternative history or virtual history. Michael Chabons’ The Yiddish Policeman’s Union posits that Isreal collapsed in 1948 and the Jews found sanctuary in Alaska. The Alteration by Kingsley Amis is based on a world that is stuck in medieval times.  Aesopia imagines a world where the predominant Western religion is not based on the Bible but on Aesop’s Fables. History is the underlying attraction. Inventiveness in revising that history is what makes the stories unique.

 

5.       CORE WOUND AND PRIMARY CONFLICT: An older priest, modestly successful within his own diocese, is now faced with pursuing his enlightened agenda on a world stage where forces of conservative and dogmatic adherence to an ancient script oppose him with organized and vehement energy. He struggles to rise above his limitations to define the Church in the modern world.

 

6.       MATTERS OF CONFLICT: A Sinedria is called by the Kirios, the leader of the Church of Aesop. A world conclave of church elders. The issue is addressing the role of the church in a computer driven society and the possible expansion of doctrine to include disparate, formally marginalized segments of the population. Babrius is invited. He is in favor of modernization but finds the sympathetic members disorganized. He must step beyond his parochial background to lead the charge. He determines who is in favor of growth and progress, who has influence and calls a meeting.  Recognizing he void of anyone who will lead the charge, he must step in and rise above his self-doubts.

Meanwhile his assistant, Theron, has fallen in love with Livinia, a fashion model

who is the girlfriend of a staunch Literalist advocate. Livy is torn between loyalty to the man with whom she’s lived for four years and her growing feelings for Theron. Theron is a small-town boy, inexperienced in romance. He’s in over his head and must deal with the displeasure of his boss. Babrius discovers this incipient romance and bristles at the complications it causes in the middle of such an important event as the Sinedria.

 

7.       SETTING: Aesopia begins in the town of Peekskill, New York, the home of Babrius’ diocese but quickly transfers to Athens where the center of the Church of Aesop is located. The Acropolis is the home of Aesopia, the offices of the Kyrios. The action takes place in the Parthenon, in outlying buildings, in Athens proper and its environs. Real hotels, restaurants, streets, structures are incorporated into the plot development. The details of location are a crucial element in the story. The juxtaposition of the small town of Peekskill and the cosmopolitan Athens is part of the underlying tension that drives Babrius and confuses Theron.

For the December Conference this week!

 

1.     Story Statement

 

Achieve her dream of becoming a successful musician, despite a social media campaign threatening to destroy it, and her.

 

2.     Antagonist

 

Social media itself becomes a character here, with comments and trolls threaded throughout the story, influencing Elodie’s emotions and reactions. Through social media, the antagonist, Raida, is given a platform and support. Once a friend of Elodie’s sister, Raida uses social media to attack and discredit Elodie throughout the novel, finding the mob flock to her with a desire to ‘cancel’ someone. 

 

Raida is bitter, privileged, and feels slighted by Elodie because of her closeness with Elodie’s brushed-aside sister. She believes herself to be a vigilante of sorts, and understands enough of the digital world to know that her words can snowball. Social media itself is quick to judge and quicker to forget, and Raida uses this continuously to remind users of Elodie’s wrongdoings. Her ultimate goal is to keep the influence she garners online, while also avenging Elodie’s sister (but really, to avenge herself).

 

3.     Breakout Title

 

The Thing I Can’t Talk About (current working title)

Elodie Tennison Is Cancelled

 

4.     Comp Titles

 

This is a women’s fiction contemporary novel. For those who love an authentic London facilitating connection like in The People on Platform 5 by Clare Pooley, the high stakes human drama of Taylor Jenkins Reid, and the painfully deep-cutting and relatable lyricism of Noah Kahan’s album Stick Season. This story is for fans of complicated family dynamics, a modern era of technology, and of course, music.

 

5.     Hook Line

 

A young girl chases her dream of becoming a successful musician without letting social media, which discovers then promotes her greatest shame and secret, destroy it and possibly her.

 

6.     Other Matters of Conflict

 

The story is dual POV, from the perspective of the mother (Catherine) and the daughter (Elodie). Each character has their own inner conflicts they struggle with, while the primary conflict remains on Elodie’s rise to fame and battle with intense social media campaigns.

 

INNER CONFLICTS:

Catherine: A middle-aged mother trapped in a soul-crushing job who craves the freedom to chase the dreams she never did when she was young. She watches her children, in particular Elodie, succeed, and feels more and more dejected at her own life. In a rash moment, she quits her job, sending the family into financial distress and further troubles when she discovers she has aged herself out. She becomes guilt-ridden and even more wistful, finding comfort in helping her daughter pursue her dreams by becoming her official manager. 

 

Catherine is not a desperate character, but feels a type of desperation that resides deep in regret. Her parents died just as she was on the cusp of adulthood, and left her with hundreds of questions she'll never have answered. She believes she has failed her family, thrown away the stable life they’d grown together, but also feels as though she has always failed herself, even before she quit.

 

Elodie: A 16 year old girl who is incredibly gifted at singing and song-writing. She also suffers from the constant need to pull out her own hairs, causing her to have no eyelashes, patches of missing hair, and scars along her legs and face. She isn’t aware this is OCD, nor that it’s a form of self-harm. Over the years, she has learned to cover up the evidence of her picking, and hide her compulsion well. But once she starts posting to boost her music career, social media notices her habits and diagnoses her with trichotillomania. Turning into the poster-child for thousands of people with the disorder, Elodie feels a mounting pressure and need to ‘fix herself’, all while trying to maintain a budding music career. 

 

Elodie crescendos in anxiety throughout the novel, becoming short and arrogant in an attempt to preserve herself. She doesn’t want to fail the hundreds of people looking to her for guidance, or her mother - who becomes entangled with Elodie’s career as her manager -, and knows that she has been given a position of privilege most only dream about. But she feels an overwhelming weight promising to crush her, and begins to wonder if she even liked music and performing in the first place, or if she was simply drawn to the success.

 

SECONDARY CONFLICT:

Catherine quitting her job becomes the catalyst for rising tension in the Tennison family, for various reasons. They now have financial struggles that the kids can’t help but notice. Also, without work, Catherine turns her focus solely to her children, primarily Elodie, creating almost a monopoly within the household. Their lives become absorbed into Elodie’s career, and none of them notice when Elodie’s sister, Ashley, begins struggling. Nor do they notice when Elodie herself can’t cope anymore – the success she gains eclipses it all.

 

7.     Setting

 

The story takes place primary in London, UK, with short moments in the Cotswolds (country-side). Not only is London essential to the story with the protagonist being a rising star in grassroots music – wherein London is one of the most popular cities in the world for this -, but it also reflects the narrative. I wanted a concrete jungle, something that represents the speed of a rising star, as well as the rigidity of repressed British culture that permeates the whole novel. As Elodie becomes more successful, she finds herself deeper in stadiums and concerts venues, in concrete greenrooms and hallways that reflect the world closing in on her. London is fast and gritty and loud and exciting and wet and everything wonderful and everything overwhelming. 

 

The moments of levity are in the Cotswolds, where the Tennison family spend time with their cousins. The first time we visit, there’s lightness in the air and an ease with the characters. By the second time, we’re nearing the climax, and the characters now reflect the harshness of the city. Tension and buried anger seep into even the quaint country-side. The city can be effectively suffocating, while sprawling fields represent a kind of freedom they can only escape to. 

For the December Conference! 

1.      Story Statement

a.  This novel is told in alternating timelines between a sabbatical in Italy and a stressful year in New York.

b.  Secretly hoping to reclaim the title of main character in his own life, Harrison takes an impulsive sabbatical to a panoramic, stepped village in Lake Como under the guise of grieving his best friend he lost in New York.

2.      Antagonist/Antagonistic Force

a.  In the earlier New York chapters, the surface level antagonist is Emily, whose selfish, narcistic tendencies – almost all relating to her upcoming wedding – not only make Harrison feel like a shadow in their friend group, but distract from the most pressing issue, that their mutual friend, Mara, is silently fighting a terminal illness. Following Mara’s death, Emily confirms Harrison’s worst fears, that his friends’ lives will continue on without him despite his achievements in a supporting role.

b.  Underlying the above conflict which prompts Harrison’s decision to flee to Lake Como, the real antagonistic force reveals itself to be Harrison’s mistaken belief that good things aren’t meant to come his way and he’s therefore meant to be merely a bystander in his own life (based on a series of prior wounds). It’s this belief that could prevent Harrison from realizing that his Italian odyssey, and the people in it, was the story he wanted to be a part of all along. The idea that Harrison is nothing but an observer in his own life is what leads Harrison to subconsciously exclude himself in his own storytelling (i.e., the earlier New York chapters).

3.      Breakout Title

a.  Cushion for the Fall (current title)

b. Alternatives include Post Hoc, To Those Worth Remembering

4. Comparable Titles

a. Sean Greer’s Less is Lost

          i.      Follows a queer protagonist on a road trip.

          ii.      Explores past relationships and often envelopes complicated topics with humor.

          iii.      Has distinct narration/POV.

b.     Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!

          i.      Explores queer identity of the protagonist following the death of a loved one.

5.      Log Line

a.  A disillusioned New York attorney flees to Lake Como under the guise of grieving his best friend, only to be swept up by meddling locals, a charming photographer, and the realization that he’s not there to mourn, but to stop living as a spectator and reclaim the spotlight in his own life.

6.      Conflict

a. Inner Conflict

        i.      Harrison has accepted as gospel the mistaken belief that he is meant to be an observer in his own life. This is the result of a series of wounds that teach him good things are not meant to come his way, at least not for good. One example of this is Harrison’s first love who easily dismisses him while Harrison is still closeted. Another example is Mara, the only friend who really understood Harrison, who passes away at a young age from a terminal cancer. In Lake Como, Harrison finally relents to telling Luca (his love interest) about the events in New York leading up to and following Emily’s wedding and Mara’s death. Only when prompted by Luca does Harrison discover Harrison himself is not found in any of his stories. What was first a deep-harbored fear was now boiled over, showing Luca that Harrison is not even a secondary character in his own life.

b. Secondary Conflict

          i.      In Lake Como, following the opposite of a meet-cute while eating shit at his local grocer, Harrison meets SOFIA, his middle-aged landlady, who lives in the apartment below him with her debatably communist mother, known only as MAMMA. Sofia, by brute force, and Mamma, by sage Italian wisdom and radioactive limoncello, seem keen on providing Harrison with guidance he never asked for, which inevitably leads to conflict. Harrison wants to mope in peace while the ladies (Mamma, especially) make it their duty to feed and care for Harrison like a wounded baby bird. Additionally, Harrison is irked by Sofia’s prying, as she is constantly asking about what happened in New York and Harrison’s past that is making him act this way. Harrison finds an unsuspecting ally in Sofia, who’s equally unlucky in love and too blinded by her duty to care for Mamma to live her own life. Harrison helps Sofia evade a greased up real estate tycoon who wants to buy Mamma’s house to add to his collection.  Mamma, sensing Harrison’s impending exit, admits over limoncello she is selling the house after witnessing Harrison’s odyssey. It is a rare and selfless act of motherly love to stop Sofia from using caretaking as a crutch and seize what life exists beyond their idyllic shores.

7.      Setting

a.  Primary Setting (Bellagio, Lake Como)

         i. Harrison rents an upstairs floor apartment in the mazed tourist town of Bellagio on the idyllic shores of Lake Como. The apartment is barren, which Harrison understands was because Sofia moved herself out for the extra income, and moved to the downstairs unit where she lives with Mamma. Sofia and Mamma’s home is what Harrison doesn’t have – nostalgic recipes, family photographs and a connection to loved ones. The upstairs/downstairs dichotomy becomes important as the novel progresses. Eventually, Harrison moves a couch into the apartment (more below). The town of Bellagio itself is what you’d expect from a storied, tourist town in Italy. Harrison prefers the mazed streets, old dock workers, and cobblestones. While he could have chosen other quieter towns, deep down he chose Bellagio hoping he could jumpstart his own Odyssey with a handsome stranger.

b.  Secondary Setting (New York/New Jersey)

       i.   In the earlier New York chapters, setting revolves around Harrison’s friends – not Harrison. Therefore, when friends are buying houses and getting married, the settings reflect that; wedding venues, open houses, stuffy bridal showers, etc. There’s a sense of luxury and sterility. In all of this, Harrison’s own house/apartment is never revealed, which is a personal choice that reflects his own feelings of displacement.

c.      Couches

        i.      Throughout the novel, couches play a role in setting as a motif in both New York and Italy timelines. The couches reveal themselves to be places where Harrison confronts truth and finds his most authentic self, even in the face of real fears (i.e. “Cushion for the Fall”). One example of this is Mara’s couch. Harrison and Mara have one final conversation on her couch while Mara is in hospice and Mara makes Harrison promise that he won’t disappear from his own life. Another example is Mamma/Sofia’s couch, which Harrison drags upstairs to use for himself. Eventually, Harrison and Luca sleep together on that couch and Harrison shares with Luca his past in New York.

For December Conference:

1. Story Statement

George Hamilton lost the only life he ever wanted. A deal with the devil gives him a chance to get it back, but first he must find a way to survive four months on the bloody beaches of Anzio in WWII. Can he overcome his past mistakes and make it out?

2. Antagonist

The primary antagonistic force is the Anzio beachhead itself and the enemy German soldiers. The Germans create an imposing presence that constantly threatens George’s very existence. A constant foil between him and the thing he wants most - to get off the beachhead and back to his old life. 

The Germans intend to protect their comrade’s flank at all costs. If they fail their friends will die. They’ll fight tooth and nail and try to obliterate anything in their way. 

A specific character antagonist exists as well in Joey Tessatore. A smooth talking Italian-American officer from New York City. He is a member of a Mob family in New York, and he offers George a deal: work for the Mafia in Italy and we’ll give you your baseball career back.

Joey’s goals: self-preservation and gaining power. He pursues any and every lead that can acquire money and power for the Mafia. His status depends on it. He’s smooth talking, well connected, and possesses a deep and manipulative darkness when pushed.

Both forces are essential: the Germans destroy George’s old life, while Joey tries to pull him back into it, providing the necessary tension for George's transformation.

3.  Breakout Titles

Heaven in Hell’s Half Acre
Hell’s Half Acre
All’s Fair in Love and Shells

4. Comparables

The Alice Network — Kate Quinn
Debut novel blending wartime danger with an emotional journey that leads to transformation. Like my novel, it uses a wartime romance to break open a guarded protagonist and push them toward the change. Its commercial success demonstrates strong readership for character-driven WWII stories anchored in personal redemption.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky — Mark Sullivan

A WWII novel set in Italy which, like my novel, follows a flawed protagonist who finds his purpose in reluctant heroism. This mirrors George’s own journey and balances the antagonistic forces of romance and war. The popularity shows the market appeal of character-driven war narratives set in WWII Italy. 

5. Logline

A disgraced ballplayer seeking a Mafia-arranged escape from the Anzio beachhead is transformed by the brutal campaign he fights alongside Audie Murphy - the most decorated U.S. soldier in history - and by an unexpected romance with a battlefield nurse, forcing him to choose between running again or standing by the people who now depend on him.

6. Conflict

Primary Conflict:
The primary conflict and turmoil that George Hamilton faces is the constant tug of war between his desire to selfishly protect his own life and the circumstances of a brutal battle confronting him with the choice to save others. At several points in the battle we see him take two steps forward and one to two steps back. At times he saves his own hide, at others he puts his life on the line for others, sometimes instinctively.

A tangible scenario where this occurs is in a chapter when George is asked to be a runner for his unit during an intense engagement. He winds up at the Division HQ and opts to sink into a corner, hoping no one will notice him. Through the radio they hear news of an entire Ranger battalion being wiped out in real time (based on a true story). He feels a pull to go help, but he does not. He opts to help his own chances of returning to baseball and stay in the HQ as long as possible.

Secondary Conflict:
The main secondary conflict is the interpersonal relationship George has with the love interest: Nurse Hazel “Bunny” Willis. George is terribly wounded and sent to a field hospital where Hazel cares for him. As they get to know each other, she breaks down his walls and sees him as the man he could be, not the man he is. 

The more she probes, the more George’s barriers break down and the deeper his desire grows to be more. This creates a tangible and deep turmoil between his want - escape to his old life - and his need - becoming a man with a cause greater than himself.

One scenario where this manifests itself is after the hospital is bombed. He feels the pull to run to safety and save himself in case more bombs come. But he sees Hazel running around the hospital helping others while wounded herself. He springs into action to help her as much as he can until he eventually passes out from his own wound.

7. Setting

This is, in my humble opinion, the greatest strength of Historical Fiction. The setting is the real world at a time and place where the true scope of human transformation, tragedy, and triumph intersect.

In my case, this takes place at the Anzio beachhead in Italy. Winter and Spring 1944. Just south of Rome, and more importantly just north of a massive German army at Monte Cassino. If the Allies break through, Rome is captured and the German Army is destroyed. The stakes are massive.

The beachhead itself is only about 15 miles long and 7-8 miles deep. The Germans occupy high ground around this territory while the Americans are stuck in flat marshes. There is limited cover, confined to sparsely populated clumps of trees, rocks, and drainage ditches. Constant rain and mud make every movement a slog. Every inch of the beachhead is in view of German artillery. It is hell on earth. Shells fall constantly. You can only move at night as any movement in the daytime will invite certain death. Misery is the only constant.

Within this setting - there is a subsetting in which half the novel takes place. The Field Hospital. Most Field Hospitals are in the rear and safe so that soldiers can be cared for in peace. Not on Anzio. The Field Hospital is in constant view of the enemy. It is deliberately bombed several times and subject to occasional shelling from artillery that misses nearby naval ships or ammo depots. Nurses, doctors, and hospital staff are on the frontlines just like the infantry. The nurses nickname it “Hell’s Half Acre”
 

Don’t Fertilitease Me

A memoir by Amanda
 

The Act of Story Statement

Our heroine hits her 40th birthday in NYC in a state of despair. She has always wanted a family but is single with no prospects. She is running out of time. Has she ruined her whole life? In a panic, she examines her history and romantic past to examine how she learned to love and to figure out if she can save her future.

 

Antagonistic Force in the Story

There are multiple antagonists in this story.  The various boyfriends and lovers are antagonists in different ways.  The mean ones or hostile ones are obvious, but even the lovely ones who vanish or don’t commit allow love to be an antagonist in its own right. Our protagonist’s mother has moments of antagonism with her judgments about the protagonist's romantic choices and her fertility pressure. Our protagonist is at times an antagonist herself when she, not acknowledging her own needs or truly understanding who she is, makes poor choices and self-sabotages, getting in her own way of finding happiness.

 

Breakout Title

Don’t Fertilitease Me

The Big Fertilitease

Still Blooming

 

Comparables

 

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Atherton

Notes on Heartbreak by Annie Lord

Laughing is Conceivable: One Woman’s Extremely Funny Peak into the Extremely Unfunny World of Infertility

 

Core Wound and the Primary Conflict

As our author comes out of her childhood, she wonders why her father did not love her and doubts whether anyone will ever truly love, accept, and choose her. After all, she was just born to her father and didn’t have any choice in the matter, so she wonders if there is something intrinsically wrong with her being that could cause other men not to want her? She has been dating since she was 15 years old. As she closes in on age 35 and her biological clock is ticking loudly, her panic increases. Her mother was the goddess of her family. She wants to be just as essential to a child. Will it be too late for her to have a baby?

 

Other levels of conflict

The closer our protagonist comes to the success of her core self and artistic identity with her acting and comedy, the more inappropriate the men she encounters become.  The men she is taken with seem both utterly incapable of and uninterested in parenthood, and she begins to lose hope that she will ever become a mother or have a family of her own. She is an audience to friends who are getting engaged and pregnant, is barraged by engagement announcements of seemingly perfectly suited couples in the NY Times, and has a mother and sister who constantly pester her about her dating choices and demand to know when she is willing to “just buy some sperm and get inseminated already!”

 

Settings

The protagonist’s life has moved through many environments through her 25 years of dating before she was married.  Each environment was distinctly different, and affected the dating relationships.

 

Rochester, NY

The Hometown. Our lead character grew up in a predominantly Jewish suburb of Rochester, in an over protected family, in a quiet neighborhood where nothing ever happened.  If the lady across the street, Mrs. Hoffman, came out of her house to rake her leaves, it was an event, and her father might pull out his binoculars and report the sighting.

 

Oberlin, OH

A sleepy, corn field-surrounded small college town, where you knew everyone on campus at least by sight.  It had a small-town feel and a cosiness. It was a dry town and the most you could get was 80 proof liquor.  Oberlin was also a politically radical school, and the first one to accept women, Jews, and Blacks in the US. It was a stop on the underground railroad.  It had a bisexual dorm/coop that had nude breakfasts and coed showers, a lesbian dorm, and an afro house. Punk was in full force in 1983 and there were punkers slamdancing in the “Sco” which was vaguely terrifying. Oberlin had some good sports teams, but its football team was weak. We used to yell “Our SAT scores are higher than yours!” from the stands

 

New York City

The intensity and anonymity of NYC was a challenge to our main character. When she first arrived, it was dangerous. White women were being stabbed with pins tainted with an unknown substance in what appeared to be racially motivated attacks.  It was scary to take the subway. Chains were being snatched from people’s necks. Her mother forbade her to wear her gold earrings on the way to work.  Taking a bus 9 blocks in Times Square after dark felt like risking your life. She and her mother heard a woman screaming after being shot near Prospect Park when they were in bed.

 

Park Slope was cozy but the restaurants were full of families, lesbians and there were no single men. It had an old-world feel, but as a single woman it felt like a desert island.

 

Manhattan was electric and she roved around with her posse to bars and dance clubs, like MacAleer’s on Amsterdam, where she knew the bouncer. People talked to you on the street. There was big money in the 80’s. The concrete jungle was intense with shoulder padded bankers spilling out into the streets at lunchtime. It was tougher to do basic things in NYC, like laundry.  Even simple chores became a dog-eat-dog competitive act.
 

NYC during 9/11 felt like a very small town. None of us were allowed to leave and everyone walked around in hushed voices.  The sound of bagpipes were heard frequently in fireman’s funerals.

After Guiliani’s Disneyfication of Times Square, things felt safer. Our heroine walked home from acting class at Carnegie Hall after midnight. She heard the clomping of horse shoes out her window as carriages returned to the stables from Central Park South. She got her nails done at 9 pm and snuck McDonald’s cheeseburgers into the movies alone..  She could be free and safe at night which felt revolutionary as a woman. She lived in a two bedroom apartment with her 50 something roommate Barry, which was great except for the Barry part. She glanced at sidewalk diners,, their entitled heads close in intimate conversation and took her take-out to eat on her sofa in front of the tv. Central Park was her backyard, though she had a small planter of grass on her windowsill that she trimmed with scissors to get the “fresh cut grass” smell.

 

Tucson, Arizona

A western rambling town with the most sunny days in the US. Davis Monthan Air Force Base is in Tucson and trains 11,000 pilots.  They fly training missions over Tucson on most clear days. This is a Sonoran desert climate with more vegetation than any other desert in the world.  It has giant saguaro cacti, and many other varieties which bloom in the Spring.  There are wildflowers, rabbits, coyotes, rattlesnakes, javelinas and scorpions.  The colors are different there. There is much less green than the East coast.  There are few deciduous trees and lots of palm trees.It is a more muted, desert landscape.  It looks like the bottom of the sea without water.  The colors are beige and tan and the tiniest little blooms stand out.  There are painted sunsets and big blue skies with clouds that sweep and ripple.  The air smells like the creosote bush when it rains.  In the summer there are violent monsoons with freezing rain and the cacti sometimes are struck by lightning and power is lost. There are lots of apartment complexes with pools and blooming bougainvillea and charmless streets with strip malls and Circle K’s.

 

San Francisco, CA

A town full of hills with old fashioned vibes and Victorian and Edwardian architecture. This is a romantic city with houses painted vibrant colors, streetcars trundling up and down hills and sweeping views.  Foghorns can be heard throughout the whole city on foggy days. The fog, nicknamed Carl, is a personnage. Each realtor knows how it crisscrosses the city creating microclimates.  It can be blazing sun in Noe Valley and grey and damp 10 minutes away in the Sunset.  Our protagonist arrives 5 mos pregnant in July, fresh off the plane from 96 degree steam-scorched NYC, stunned  to find herself in 55 degrees, fog, winds and sporadic rain. Nature and culture are in balance there.

The Children of the Night

By Elijah Babcock

 

Story Statement:

Alex Cory seeks revenge on the vampire who killed his friends and turned him into a thrall.

 

Antagonist:

Bill Hopper is a vampire who works as a gardener for the powerful Edward Lancaster, another vampire. He is bitter about his low position in life, and wastes away his time in drunken binges and bitter self-pity. However, when protagonist Alex Cory breaks into Edward’s mansion on a dare, Bill Hopper bites him and turns the teenage boy into a thrall, a half-human-half-vampire creature that must obey their master’s every command. With this, Bill Hopper is given power over someone he sees as even more pathetic than himself, and abuses that power viciously.

However, while Bill Hopper is the immediate and present threat, the true antagonistic force is the manor itself, and the aristocratic sensibilities of Edward Lancaster and his family. Bill Hopper is dirty and unshaven; he lives in a moldy cabin. The Lancasters are dressed to the nines and live in luxury. Alex sees himself attracted to the glamour, and mistakes aesthetics for morality. In contrast to the obvious evil of his master, he desires the subtler evil of the Lancasters.

 

Breakout Title

The Children of the Night

Taken from the book of poetry named “The Children of the Night” by Edward Arlington Robinson. He was a New England poet with a certain grim yet hopeful ideal that appeals to me, and I drew much inspiration from his poetry. The problem, however, is that it’s such a good title that a few other books have also taken this name, so I don’t know if it’s useable.

Forever in the Dark

This one is also taken from Edward Robinson, in a line from his poem “Children of the Night” (which gave the whole collection its name). I find myself attached to using something from him, and this title is still pretty evocative, while also being far less common.

A Vampire Story

While this title started as the working title for my story before I came up with a real one, I did find myself growing a bit attached to it. It’s very generic, but it does evoke connection to the early 2000s, when these sorts of on-the-nose titles were more common (e.g. “A Love Story” or “Not Another Teen Movie”). This book is set in 2008 and does aim for nostalgia from that time, so it kind of works.

 

Comparables

“Let the Right One in” by John Ajviude Lindqvist

This book deals with the grim reality of vampires, and tells part of its story as a coming-of-age tale from the perspective of a young boy. While Alex, the protagonist of “Children of the Night,” is eighteen and the character of Oskar from “Let the Right One in” is twelve, they do share a similar journey of being forced to grow up fast in a world they are not ready for.

“The Vampire Diaries” by L. J. Smith

This book series is a YA series that uses the supernatural as a backdrop for interpersonal teenage drama. The primary social conflict of “Children of the Night” sees Alex dealing with burgeoning love and friendship, and having to walk the line of real emotions in an unreal world.

This assignment was (is) the most difficult for me. All the contemporary vampire fiction I could find, written in the last five years or so, lies within the romantasy genre. I couldn’t find anything aimed at a male audience. Still, I do see my book as aiming for 2000s nostalgia, in an attempt to do for that decade what Stranger Things did for the 80s. As such, I don’t think it’s entirely inappropriate to use two books written within that time period (Vampire Diaries was written in the 90s, but grew in popularity during the 2000s because of the TV show.)

There is, also, something boldly absurd in comparing my book to such vastly different sources, that lie on completely opposite ends of the grimdark spectrum. It isn’t an untrue comparison, either, and I hope it serves to be attention getting. 

 

Log Line

When Alex Cory is turned into a thrall and forced to work as a gardener in a vampire mansion, he must quickly learn whom he can trust if he is to get his revenge - or even survive at all.

 

Inner Conflict

Alex’s inner conflict comes from contradiction. He is a human but must learn to navigate the world of vampires. He is a normal teenager but seeks to kill for his revenge. He feels the urge to drink blood but doesn’t want to kill innocents. He desires the lavish life of the noble vampires, but himself lives in squalor. Whenever this contradiction gets to him, and feels overwhelming, he lashes out and blames the world for his troubles.

Hypothetical: Alex is forced to kill an innocent in order to drink their blood. He is sent out into his town, and after faffing about and putting it off as long as he can, he goes to kill his neighbor Mr. Tully. Mr. Tully is not a bad man, but he is a grumpy and cantankerous one. In order to hype himself up, in order to be able to kill him, Alex grows incredibly angry at the old man, and convinces himself that he deserves to die. Alex also tells himself that vampires - and their thralls - are noble creatures, and deserve to take what they want. As such, in order to not feel guilty, Alex adopts a mindset of vampire supremacy, as well as seeing people as nothing more than targets. This mindset seeps into his subconscious, and begins to take over.

The book takes place in the Lancaster Manor, populated by an eclectic mix of characters in both members of the family and staff. These figures all have their own agendas and relationships, and the two characters that have the greatest influence on Alex are Jacob Lancaster and Sara. Jacob Lancaster is the youngest son of the Lancaster family, but he has ambitions of becoming the heir, and agrees to help Alex in his quest for revenge if Alex in turn helps him. Sara is an apprentice witch who saves Alex’s life, and Alex begins to have romantic feelings for her. She seemingly has no motive other than being kind, but Jacob Lancaster does not trust her. Alex, thus, is caught between the two of them, and having to decide where his allegiances lie.

 

Setting

The majority of the book takes place in the Lancaster Family Manor. It is a large and imposing structure, plucked out of Victorian England and thrust into small town New England. A stone wall surrounds the whole property, that being the manor itself as well as acres of well manufactured lawn. A tall tower juts out from the center of the building, wherein resides Edward Lancaster, the mysterious family patriarch.

However, while Alex works on the manor property every day, he does not live in the building itself. He lives with his master, the lowly gardener, who lives in a small cabin on the edge of the property. While the cabin may have been well built in the past, decades of squalor have taken their toll. Alex sleeps in the small dusty attic space. As such, every day he wakes up, crawls out of the attic where he can barely stand, into the dirty and stained cabin proper, and looks outside at abundant wealth only a few hundred yards away.

What truly makes the Lancaster Manor stand out, however, is not the architecture but the people. The staff includes Charles, the kindly old houndmaster whose “hounds” are actually wolves; Avery, a mischievous maid with connections to the fae; and Sebastian, the illusive cook whom nobody in the manor has ever actually seen. The Lancaster family, all of whom are vampires, includes Jacob, the affable youngest son with ambitions of becoming his father’s heir; Vivian, Jacob’s twin sister who fully buys into the “vampires are awesome” mythos; and Louis, the taciturn oldest son who takes over running the estate while his father remains locked away in his tower.