David Wildman

These are my answers to the Algonquin Questions. Not sure If I'm posting this in the right place, but it doesn't seem to be appearing anywhere, so here it is!

Algonquin Questions

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: STORY STATEMENT 

My protagonist Blake Symington is a reluctant hero, a blind high school teacher living in a town that, although he doesn’t know it, was created for him, but he is now being destroyed by it. He must survive a dangerous living substance that, in a bizarre experiment, was implanted in him years ago, and now is hell bent on leaving, which apparently means his death. His best friend tells him he’s in great danger, but before he can reveal what is going on, mysteriously disappears. His initial goal is to figure out why all this is happening, learn who he really is and to stay alive in the process. He has no memory of his childhood before the age of eleven. Now because of the near-death experiences, slivers of it are returning in dreams and flashes. He sees his birth mother and how she might be tied in with the mystery in a very dark way. He believes every clue is bringing him closer to understanding himself. But the more he learns, the more he realizes the stakes are infinitely greater than merely him, that indeed the shocking long-hidden genesis and purpose of human existence is part of the answer, and that he is headed toward a decision of personal sacrifice that could decide the fate of the world. 

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.

My story has two antagonists. One is a mysterious force living secretly within the main protagonist Blake,a blind school teacher. It’s apparently hostile, yet inscrutable in intent with murky origins bordering on the supernatural. The other is rich and powerful Grigory, who sets out to stop this situation before it happens but ultimately causes it, corrupted by his own power and the choices he’s made. The story occurs in two different time periods that run consecutively and inform each other. Grigory Tarasov is a Russian professor of mind science in 1991 who defected to the U.S. after inventing a device that detected consciousness. He located a huge concentration of it in an aquifer beneath the tiny woodland town of Tolson, Washington, and proceeded to build an institute to study this phenomenon. Meanwhile, in 2032 Tolson, blind teacher Blake Symington suddenly finds himself compelled to leap off a bridge into a treacherous waterfall. The entity within calls for him to join it in death. Blake flees for his life, trying to learn what’s happening and who he actually is. Eventually the story from the past meets up with the present and he confronts his true antagonist face to face, with devastating results. 

THIRD ASSIGNMENT

The title of my novel is THE RISE AND FALL OF WATER

Others I’ve rejected over the years: I Was Water, The Eye of Water, FALL OF WATER

FOURTH ASSIGNMENT

Comps:

THE RISE AND FALL OF WATER combines The Truman Show small town paranoia with the metaphysical themes of In Ascension by Martin MacInnes and echoes of the hive mind concept from Pluribus, although with a unique twist.

FIFTH ASSIGNMENT

Dramatic conflict

THE RISE AND FALL OF WATER - by David Wildman

A professor of mind science invents a machine that detects consciousness, leading to protagonist Blake becoming embroiled in an experiment that will turn his world upside down in a fight for his life.

SIXTH ASSIGNMENT

Inner conflict

Blake has no memory of the first eleven years of his life, and has a deathly fear of water. His foster parents took him to numerous psychiatrists, but were never able to figure out the missing pieces. As the story develops, Blake has suicidal urges, with a mysterious force inside trying to make him drown himself. Each time this happens it opens up a crack to terrifying memories of his missing past, including things he’s done that he is unwilling to face. 

FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Setting

Setting plays a vital role in the novel. It opens with the Russian scientist and his wife in 1991, using his consciousness detector, finding a huge reading in an aquifer beneath Tolson, Washington, an isolated logging town. The presence of this, and the location itself, will drive all the events in the novel. It then shifts to Blake the protagonist in the year 2032, long after the professor has taken over the town in an extremely dangerous experiment for which Blake is the victim. The chapters continue concurrently, shifting between time periods as the reader gradually learns the startling truth of the mystery that has controlled Blake’s life, and how it will ultimately threaten all of humanity.