Leila Emadin
1. THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT
Galaxy Burns, a reluctant guest, is trapped at a remote Zen Buddhist monastery where she has to uncover the community’s shameful past to solve the murder of the former Abbot—at the wedding of the young woman who was recently revealed as his illegitimate daughter.
2. THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT
Adair’s hair is short, iron grey. She makes no effort to enhance her appearance. “Her smile drew the ends of her narrow lips so far down that on anyone else it would be called a frown.”
She has dedicated her life to good. Her world is prescribed by the strictest interpretations of her beliefs. After a lifetime of right thought and right actions, she is finally, in a position where she can dictate that they all do the same—and punish anyone who fails to obey. No one knows the abuse she suffered as a child. Or more recently. No one can know the shameful secret she has hidden. As Abbess, she will do anything to keep this sudden threat, this ghost who has appeared from the distant past with his life-changing revelation, from destroying her community again. Or from taking away the one thing she holds most dear.
Not even she, before, could have imagined the lengths she would go to protect what is hers.
3. CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE: The Sound of One Hand Killing
4. DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES
I know how important it is to find comparables, and I’m having a hard time. The easy, superficial answer is that my novel looks like a contemporary, slightly literary, ‘locked room’ suspense novel (maybe The Hunting Party, by Lucy Foley?). But there is more here.
The unusual setting—both the physical setting, and the community—plays a vital role. The remote location and natural world impose their rhythms on the novel and dictate key events.
The Zen Buddhist community defines the world of the story and the pace of the narrative. It also prescribes the behavior of most of the key characters.
This community will be a key selling point for the book: more than 1.3 Americans (and more than 535 million people around the world) identify as Buddhists. Millions more have incorporated some of the beliefs, the tenets, the practices and even the vocabulary of Buddhism into their lives. This novel is a glimpse behind the scenes of an American Zen Buddhist community—one that exists in this world, but is also a world of its own.
The central conflict is based on power and potential abuse struggles between the male and female characters; and, crucially, religious leaders and their followers.
All of these elements together make the novel a bit difficult to categorize, but will be selling points. There is a large, connected community who will want to read this book because they have some personal interest in, or experience with, Zen—and people will be talking about it. In addition to that audience, I think most of the early sales will be primarily based on the suspense aspect of the novel, and some, possibly prurient, curiosity, which will build to sustained sales over time.
These are the books I’m reviewing as possible comps. And suggestions would be really welcome.
The Hunting Party, by Lucy Foley
Broken Country, by Clare Leslie Hall
The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware
A Quiet Retreat, by Kiersten Modglin
Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
5. CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT
A reluctant guest at a remote Buddhist wedding must uncover the monastery’s shameful secrets that lead to the death of the former Abbot, who has just been revealed as the father of the bride.
6. OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS
Inner conflicts:
- uncomfortable with herself: not knowing how to handle her own intelligence, social awkwardness;
- not belonging (not to the community, not to anyone; being alone); open (religious) conflict with Adair; unexpected, developing conflict with Raine because she’s been put in a position of knowing private, ‘secret’ information she’s now keeping from her; and getting shanghaid into helping Valen (cop) feeds her ego, but puts her in conflict with everyone else;
- romantic tension and jealousy: unrecognized/unspoken feelings with Valen; confusion with Devon; jealousy (old and new) with Macie; jealous of the couples
Example:
“Here.” Valen stood on the bottom step, two feet below her, holding out a diamond ring. For an instant she had trouble breathing. It was beautiful. Not very big, but lovely. Then her brain snapped back into place.
“Where? How?”
“Evan. He found it that night, when he went back. On the floor, by the plunge. He saw it shine in the light from his flashlight.”
“But he didn’t see the body?” Valen shook his head, obviously annoyed.
Galaxy looked at the ring in his hand. There were dried green smears of the decaying satin it had lain in for so long, but the band still shone. High quality gold, she thought to herself. And the empire-cut center diamond sparkled in the sun. Valen pulled the ring up to his face, squinting, then offered it to her again. She bit down a highly inappropriate giggle at the thought of junior-high jock Valen Wolfe being too old to read the tiny inscription. She took his gloved wrist and turned it, so that she could see the whole line.
"What is the color of love?" She looked up. “Who it was for? I mean, originally.”
"What does it mean?"
She shook her head. "I don’t know. Maybe a koan?"
"A what?"
"A koan. It's a kind of teaching riddle they use. Like a parable. You know, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" She realized with a start that she was still holding his wrist, and let it go.
"Uh—nothing?"
"See—Daphne was right. You are a Buddhist. You just don't know it yet."
"That's the answer?"
"I don't know." She shrugged. "Maybe."
He shook his head, frustrated. "What are you talking about?"
"I don’t make this stuff up, Valen! And I am so not the right person to explain it. I think it's less about the sound that the clapping doesn't make," she paused, getting lost in her own confused attempt to explain, "and more about figuring out the question?"
He stared at her in disbelief. "So, what is the color of love?"
She shrugged again. "I don't know." She looked at the ring, where he held it between them. "The diamond is clear..."
Macie came up, took one look, and nodded. "Pretty, " she said. "It's an antique." She slid her hand into Valen's, a startling intimate gesture, brought it close, and read the inscription. "But that's newer." Still holding Valen’s right hand, she read the note he was holding in his left. "Farber Lang. That makes it easy. They've got records going back more than a hundred years." She looked at Galaxy, and let go of Valen’s hand.
Finally, Galaxy thought. She and Valen just stared at her.
"If that diamond's as flawless as it looks, it’s worth a fair amount of money. So he was going to propose. At least that's something. Damn him, anyway. Poor Rainie...what?"
Valen recovered first. "How do you know all this?" Macie looked at him like he'd asked her if she could read. She enunciated her words.
Slowly.
"It's an antique diamond ring. From Faber Lang—they’re the oldest jewelers in the city. I assume that means that he was going to propose to Raine's mother. Back then, I mean. Which part didn't you understand?"
Sketch a hypothetical scenario for the "secondary conflict" involving the social environment.
The last notes of the gong resounded in the cold air. Galaxy made her way across the courtyard, It looked like most of the community was already crowded just inside the dining room. The first person she saw was Wren. It would be. She turned away, stepping behind a convenient, broad robed back. It didn’t work. Wren appeared at her side, silently offering an open wooden box. Galaxy shook her head, offended. She didn't need to see the photocopied prayer Wren was distributing to each of the visitors. She hadn't seen the 'Verse of the Five Contemplations' since the summer, but she remembered the words.
Someone struck the tiny bell they kept on the dining room altar, in its niche on the wall, and they began in ragged unison:
"We reflect on the effort that brought us this food,
and consider how it comes to us.
We reflect on our virtue and our practice,
and whether we are worthy of this offering.
We regard it as essential to keep the mind free from excesses,
such as greed.
We regard this food as good medicine to sustain our life.
For the sake of enlightenment, we receive this food.
First, this is for the Three Treasures: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
Second, for the four Benefactors: for our Teachers, our Parents, our Nation, and our World.
Third, for the beings in the six realms; may all be equally nourished.
The first portion is to end all evil.
The second portion is to cultivate all good.
The third portion is to free all beings.
May we all realize the Buddha Way.”
The monks bowed, and then they all jostled, in a good-natured and overly-civilized manner, to get in line.
7. Sketch out your setting in detail.
The setting of my novel is Masiana, a Zen Buddhist monastery deep in the mountain wilderness east of Big Sur, California, where community members and a small group of invited ‘outside’ guests have gathered for a wedding.
The physical aspects—and challenges—of the location are first introduced through the arduous journey to Masiana, as well as the guests’ arrival and first impressions. More detail is revealed as the story unfolds. I’ve attached the initial (disparate) descriptive passages from the first 75 or so pages:
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, is the kind of place where a hamburger costs $26.95. It was hard to imagine a more extreme contrast to the monastery where she was headed. Less than thirty miles away as the crow, or the endangered California condor, flies. Galaxy glanced at the gas gauge and realized with a groan that she'd have to fill up on the way. Here at sea level, it was almost an hour to the Way Station, where she’d leave her car and board the Stage. And from there it was another two hours and fifteen bone-jarring miles of twisting, cliff-hugging, rutted dirt road up and over the almost impassable coastal range, and then down, into the heart of the wilderness, to Masiana. The oldest Buddhist Monastery in the western world.
…
And I don't have more luggage than anyone else, she thought, twenty minutes later, having self-righteously counted the pieces in Macie's designer set. With Brad's strong arms and good-natured help, Otter had attempted to shoehorn most of it into the SUV. They piled the rest on top of the ancient Suburban, in a hard-shelled container attached to the top that looked like a giant green beetle. The four of them settled themselves in, silently ceding the front bench, next to the driver, to the other two passengers—an older man with a smoothly-shaved head who looked vaguely familiar, and a young man, who managed to look both nervous and slightly disapproving, at the same time. They’d been waiting silently a few steps away.
After a final check, Otter started the SUV, using both hands to crank the heavy steering wheel around as they made the sharp turn out of the parking lot. They rattled over the cattle guard onto the dirt road beyond. A small, hand-lettered wooden sign Galaxy had never seen before stood tilting in the mud off to the side:
Thank you for driving slowly:
life goes by fast enough!
Then they were bouncing their way carefully back and forth up the first of the many rutted, muddy switchbacks that led the top of the Pass. From there the road would fall another ten miles down the other side, twisting back on itself, over and over, as it clung desperately to the steep, crumbling cliffs before ending, finally, in the narrow valley that was their destination. Masiana: another two hours and a whole world away.
…
Masiana. It is not so much a valley as a ravine, a deep, steep gash all but invisible from any distance in the roughly pleated, densely wooded Ventana mountain wilderness. Macie and Griff had been here as children—but not often, and not for years. Their idea of roughing it was staying in a hotel with fewer than five stars.
"I'd never heard of Masiana before I met Raine," Brad said as the Stage rounded another turn and they all slid in their seats, grabbing whatever they could to hang on to. "I'm really looking forward to it. There's a creek, right?" He turned slightly, trying to look toward Galaxy on the bench behind him.
She could have told him: the cold waters of Masiana creek run east, fighting their way over boulders and through narrow rocky turns, opening up into deep, hidden pools and falling suddenly over steep drop-offs, over and over again until they run into the larger Arroyo Seco River somewhere to the southeast. She'd never hiked that far. She'd never been to the place where the redoubled waters joined, turned, and rushed, as if to make up for lost time, to meet the Pacific Ocean to the west.
Instead, she just nodded.
It was hard to carry on a conversation in the bouncing, swaying, Stage, but Macie did her level best. Recounting how Brad had first met Raine in Steiner's Gourmet Market, down the hill from the loft he and Griff shared in Pacific Heights. "He started by asking her advice and ended up hiring her to cook a meal for him and Griff."
Brad chimed in. "She was still a student at the Culinary Institute then. Now she's the rising star at Veg--"
"But her boss, that egomaniac Robert Garzi, takes most of the credit,” Macie interrupted. “He's even talking about a book, taking credit for recipes that Rainie says belong to Masiana." Galaxy, who knew too well who Rob Garzi was, steered the torrent of words back to Raine, and Macie continued. Oh, yeah—they’d all become friends… and it was Macie who'd eventually realized that her mother's uncle was Cricket's brother. “So, we’re practically family, really.”
Between the bouncing Stage, scrabbling and sliding around each switchback, Macie's endless, convoluted babble, and the warm, stale air blasting from the heating vent beside her, Galaxy, not usually prone to motion sickness, was starting to feel decidedly queasy. Or it may have been all that bacon. Otter was carefully slaloming around the worst of the rocks and mud from recent slides, trying to avoid the deepest potholes without veering too close to the steep drop-off at the cliff's edge.
Galaxy looked out. On either side of the road the smooth trunks of the madrone trees shone like burnished copper in the winter sun. Drops of water sparkled like leftover bits of magic from the bare branches. The Stage ascended slowly, past creeks of water that ran down the rock face to their left and over the narrow road to form muddy orange puddles in the potholes.
They were almost at the top of the Pass. Otter slowed even more as the wheels searched for traction, and Brad twisted in his seat to look around. To the east, rippled green hillsides dropped down to the valley floor, where pale, pastel-colored blocks of new housing developments crowded against the fertile green fields of the Salinas Valley. Ahead, the corrugated folds of the coastal range marched in staggered rows to the south as far as they could see. And to the west, in a narrow notch between the wooded slopes, it all ended in a deep blue triangle of Pacific Ocean on the horizon.
Galaxy remembered that the Esalen Indians, who'd lived on this jagged coast for over ten thousand—ten thousand—years, called life here “dancing on the edge of the world.”
…
The Stage continued its descent, turtling around the hairpin turns. The Esalen knew every fold in these mountains, Galaxy thought, her mind still reeling over the empty expanse beside them. They walked the trails along each of those ridges; they came and went in cycles with the seasons. For them the overwhelming physical formations of the valley were less compelling than what lay hidden deep beneath them: the life-saving spirit of the earth, pouring forth in boiling, sulphurous waters that cleansed the body and soul of any whose heart was strong enough to withstand them. Ritual bathing in those steaming hot springs left them weakened from their encounter with the Gods; cleansed and healed. Sure of the power of the earth and the goodness of her gifts.
"What does Masiana mean?" Brad asked, as if he could hear her thinking. Galaxy thought Otter, or one of the monks sharing the front seat would reply, but they were silent. Brad and Macie turned to look at her.
"The Esalen named everything they saw," she said, almost in a trance, remembering what she'd read years ago. She could remember almost everything she’d ever read, and she'd come across it again these past few days. "The sea, the sky, every plant, every animal. They called the valley masiana'x pulpul matsa...aosapa asanax,” she could see the words on the page, but stumbled over the unfamiliar syllables, “where the burning spirit of the earth gives birth to water.'" She shrugged, suddenly aware of their scrutiny. "It's been Masiana ever since."
She could have gone on, but she’d been accused too often in her life of being a know-it-all. She could have told them that Masiana's newest residents—the Zen Monastery where they were headed—had only been here fifty years or so. And that they called anyone who had braved a full year at Masiana, who had somehow survived both an entire burning summer, and a, bitter, freezing, winter, a true “Masi.”
Many of them celebrated the achievement with a home-made tattoo: a stylized image of fire and water painfully pricked into once city-soft skin. The tattoo reminded them of the experience years later, when they had grown soft again, and forgetful.
It was an external sign of the change the place wrought in their soul.
…
An hour later they slid slowly around the last turn and into the open area in front of the entrance to Masiana. The cars parked in the small lot and on either side had been washed almost clean by yesterday’s rain, except for a muddy few at the end who’d obviously arrived since. The stylized wooden Temple Entrance, with its steep thatched roof, looked very Japanese. Next to it, the simple metal gate across the road stood open. Galaxy had never seen it closed.
Otter threaded the Stage over the creaking bridge and through the narrow opening. They rolled down, past the worn shop buildings, past the garden sheds, the greenhouse, and the bare vegetable garden with its raised, empty beds. Galaxy twisted her neck to look, but the cluster of tiny cabins carved into the steep cliff wall rising to their right were almost directly above them, and impossible to see from here. The Stage slowed into the turn past the Zendo and sighed to a crunchy stop on the gravel Landing.
They had arrived.
Wow, she breathed. If Masiana during the busy Guest Season was like summer camp for the New Age, in winter it looked like Outward Bound for the hard-core. The usually emerald stretch of lawn in front of the Stone Office was muddy and brown. The ancient wisterias that embraced over the carved wooden arbor in front of the student dining porch were bare, skeletal twigs clutching desperately to the last few faded leaves. No welcoming flowers bloomed along the stone wall. Instead, damp piles of dirty straw protected the tender roots and bulbs hidden underneath. The plain wooden sign where the old Gossip Oak used to stand, next to the railroad bell that announced guest mealtimes, was clearly visible; the summer screen of tall Shasta daisies reduced now to inch-high brown stumps. Bedraggled clumps of shorn lavender lined either side of the steep stone steps that climbed from the kitchen below them to the left.
It had been years since an errant Stage had bumped and broken one of the heavy timber posts supporting the roof over the path. The repair, conducted with Sig’s deliberate mindfulness, was barely visible now, just a darker slash in the faded grey wood. Large metal garden carts in varying shades of old green stood upended over the stone culvert that ran down next to the road, their wheels in the air, their long handles leaning on the stacked stone wall beneath the Zendo. Ready to carry luggage—or laundry, or compost, or supplies—down the path in either direction to the tiny cabins that sprouted in mismatched clusters along the creek below, or up to the shop area they’d passed by the Gate, or down to the work yard at the far end of the ravine.
By the time Galaxy and Macie climbed out of the far back seat where they’d been trapped by Macie’s matching bags, most of the other luggage had been unloaded. With their usual care, someone—maybe Otter, but it could have been one of the other passengers—had carefully separated and set off to the side what was obviously Galaxy’s briefcase, the wrapped wedding gift, and the big bag of cookies she’d brought for Raine.
As she gingerly stepped out of the SUV and down onto her good knee, the smell hit her at the same time as the cold. It was almost enough to drive her back into the Stage: the thick, acrid stench of sulphur rising through the cold, clear air. Griff, city-mouse to the core, was holding a manicured hand over his tiny, offended nose. His gorgeous boyfriend just grinned and rolled his eyes. If Brad had grown up in the heartland—something Macie had revealed on the ride—he’d probably smelled worse, Galaxy thought. Macie gasped and choked, waving a graceful hand, tennis bracelet flashing in the winter sun, and giggling. Galaxy always forgot about the smell, and was always stunned and surprised by it all over again.
It took her a moment to realize that the deafening roar that accompanied it was the creek. Barely audible at the height of the summer, it now thundered, swollen with the recent rains. The roar echoed back and forth between the sheer cliffs exposed on either side, the trees that screened them in the summer now standing like dark skeletons, leafless and bare.
The smell was making her eyes water, and Macie was squinting behind her designer shades. Two freshly-shorn students came up the shallow, irregular stone steps from the office below, and bowed. Clearly students—acolytes—the stiff bristles of their hair were cut only to within a quarter-inch of their skulls, rather than the complete smooth hairlessness that signified priesthood. One, smiling, consulted a clipboard, matching their names to rooms while the other stood sullenly by, expressionless and silent. It was hard to tell if he was angry, or just perfecting the sullen, blank look that so many of them wore. She wondered, not for the first time, if they were all really that unhappy.
Last summer, Robert Haus, the author and chef whose name and face were well known beyond these mountains, and who had been one of the earliest Zen students here all those years ago, had stopped her in the kitchen one day. It was one of the lowest points in her life, and she was chopping vegetables in a desperate attempt to process the pain.
“What’s your deal, Galaxy?” he’d asked, this almost-mythical figure of Masiana history. She’d recently discovered his cookbooks, though she rarely used them, and was surprised that he knew her name. He looked at her. “You’re way too cheerful to be a Buddhist,” he said.
She’d been too stunned to reply.
It was only a couple of days later that she’d had her final run-in with Adair, who was Ino at the time. Galaxy was leaving the Zendo after morning Zazen. Meditation was one thing—emptying her mind sounded like such a good, if elusive, idea—but she’d stopped staying for the creepy service afterwards. A roomful of droning worshippers, chanting in four languages that none of them spoke, or understood. The words were transcribed phonetically in slim, black-bound chant books. It was a matter of pride, for some of them, when they didn’t need to use the books anymore. But even native speakers, had there been any around, would have had trouble recognizing the words. And Pali! Did any of them even know where (or when, or if,) Pali had ever been spoken? After a few initial, uncomfortable attempts, Galaxy had started slipping out after meditation. She’d head down to the kitchen and help a grateful Chiyo with the ever-present, always-growing pile of dishes, instead.
Until that morning. Adair had blocked her escape and told her that she had to stay for the service. Like the good girl she’d been raised to be, Galaxy did as she was told. And, like a wounded child, she’d sobbed, uncontrollably, through the whole miserable ritual. She still didn’t know why. The second it was over she’d run back to her room, thrown her things into her bag, and gotten the hell out. If there hadn’t been room on the Stage that day she would have WALKED over the damn mountain. She’d left in such a hurry, she’d left a brand-new pair of Croc Clouds, and her new favorite shirt, kind of a bright, lime green linen, behind. Not to mention the money she’d paid for the rest of her stay. She almost didn’t care. She’d had enough. Not sure she’d ever come back. Or wanted to.
And now here she was.
She’d also sworn that she’d never, ever, step foot in a Zendo—or anywhere else—for a Buddhist service again. She looked up at the long, squat building looming above them. More than likely, that’s where the ceremony would take place.
Ce la vie, she thought. And somewhere God--or Buddha--laughed.
