ASSIGNMENT #1: STORY STATEMENT
In order to find her missing daughter, Claire must figure out the mysterious circumstance involved in a local teen’s suicide.
ASSIGNMENT #2: ANTAGONIST SKETCH: (Potential Names: Lilith/Beverly/Mara)
Occupation: Surgical nurse
Age: spans multiple decades – mostly takes place when she’s 22; then 38; then 54.
Personality Flaw: anti-social personality disorder with a hint of borderline personality and a dash of psychopath.
Bad Act #1:
At 22 years old, she falls in “love”/obsession over a colleague. She must have him, and imagines that he is in love with her, but hasn’t come around yet. She tricks him into thinking he’s impregnated her when he blacks out (roofied) in a social outing. He wakes up in her bed totally unaware of what happened the night before.
Long story short: pressures into marrying her .
Bad Act #2:
Steals a newborn baby to present to her “boyfriend” as proof.
Bad Act #3:
Cold mother, distant; only nice to child when father is around. sends her to boarding school and returns after the death of her husband.
Bad Act #4:
Kicks daughter out when she is pregnant
Bad Act #5
Steals the twin boy, and claims it as her own. Not revealed until the last 1/4 of the story.
Bad Act #6: Kidnaps Julia (girl twin), and plans to lure Claire, and kill both; all in the name of "love" for her man and son (Claire's lost twin boy).
ASSIGNMENT #3: BREAKOUT TITLES
- Legacy of Lies
- Mothers Lie
- Mending Lies
ASSIGNMENT #4: NOVEL COMPARABLES:
A. MARY KUBICA- GOOD GIRL
1. Setting takes place in an American suburb;
2. Family with Secret themes
3. Assumptions of loved ones
4. Veneers of normalcy and banality are removed when truth reveals the broken-ness, and imperfections in our life.
The Good Girl was her breakout novel. Her use of multiple point of view is done well without punctuating the flow of the novel. Like her character, my character, Claire, is making decisions based on limited knowledge and her perceived sense of control. The goal she is trying to achieve is not the actual goal she needs to achieve.
Reader demographic: Women between the ages 18-50's
B. LISA JEWEL- FAMILY UPSTAIRS – a bit detached from characters
1. Setting takes place in suburbs
2. Family Secret themes
3. Use of first person to give intimacy (Multiple POV)
4. Shifting antagonist
C. DIANE CHAMBERLAIN: SILENT SISTER
1. Family relationship
2. Suburban suspense
ASSIGNMENT #5: HOOK LINE with conflict and core wound
Solving the mysterious circumstances of a local teen suicide is the key in finding a mother’s missing daughter and revealing a gut wrenching truth about her own painful past.
ASSIGNMENT #6: CONFLICT
Inner Conflict: Claire has abandonment issues. Her mother was emotionally neglectful throughout her childhood, and was only counter balanced with the loving father who doted on her. When he dies at 10 years old, she is sent away to school. When she becomes pregnant at 17, she is kicked out of her home, and forced to fend for herself. She feels like she has never been good enough and it comes through in her relationship with her daughter. (Co-dependency?...low self esteem; low confidence; she is lost without her).
She is forced to confront her self worth when her daughter’s life is in jeopardy. She must overcome her paralytic doubts of her ability to find her when her confidence is thwarted along the way with a stalker and dangerous obstacles in her way. Finding her daughter with the help of the girl’s school acquaintance. What does he know about the suicide?
Secondary Conflict: Wyatt was in love with Ryan, and wants to find what happened to him. Doesn’t believe it was a suicide, and thinks Julia’s kidnapping has something to do with it. Raised by a single mom that’s also emotionally checked out, and left to fend for himself she feels a kinship with this kid. Joins forces to find Julia’s kidnapper and Ryan’s killer.
Conflict: Man will stop at nothing to find his missing daughter; and the teen suicide is the link to where his answers lie.
Conflict: Single mother (Mara) will do everything it takes to get the love of her life and secure her family.
ASSIGNMENT #7: SETTING
The novel spans the time of 3 decades (1981-2014)
The prologue and back story develops in a suburb of Virginia during the 80’s and 90’s. Not much in technology in aiding to solve crimes of kidnapping.
Backdrop: Suburb in California (Dana Point/Irvine/Laguna Niguel?) 2014
Suburb in Virginia 1981
Scene: Hospital in Virginia in 1981: hospital security not so great. So most likely easy to steal a baby. No DNA technology; difficulty in recovering missing children.
Bar scene in the 80’s: Were roofies a thing?...
Suburb in Virginia during the 80’s and 90’s. : Middle Class neighborhood; but latch key kid situation vs. private school.
