Algonkian Pre-event Assignments
“Time is a Ribbon” is a dual-timeline historical mystery that explores the concepts of genetic memory and transgenerational trauma.
It was inspired by the 15th C. Flemish painting by Jan van Eyck, “The Wedding Portrait.”
The Seven Assignments:
One: Act of Story Statement: the protagonist… must discover the unidentified trauma from her past causing her crippling sexual aversion disorder.
Note: This book is a dual timeline story. The present-day character has unexplained sexual aversion disorder and an obsession with medieval art. The other character lived in 15th C. Flanders, and her tragic story unfolds in tandem with the present-day character’s, converging at the end. The overarching theme: the vulnerability of motherhood.
Two: Antagonist: Eric Dresden is a museum curator by day and an art thief by night. As head curator at the Groeninge museum in Bruges, Belgium, he handles all incoming rare artifacts, without supervision. He is the gatekeeper. Although he once recognized the value of these artifacts, he is now middle-aged and alone, finding solace only in augmenting his power and material possessions.
Dresden runs an undercover art theft ring, coveting obscure manuscripts and destroying them for his own profit. His latest gig: Dismantling rare manuscripts, cutting them into multiple leaves (pages) and selling individually to private collectors around the world, yielding a veritable fortune.
Dresden presents a colossal threat to Ren. He not only has the sole power to her access to the manuscript leaves, but he also pursues her romantically, eventually making sexual advances (which repulses Ren).
When Dresden learns of Ren’s unique abilities to identify and trace the provenance of individual manuscript leaves (her powers are borderline supernatural), he realizes she is a huge threat to his business. He decides he must either convince her to join forces with him, or she must be neutralized—by whatever means possible.
Three: Breakout Title:
- Time is a Ribbon
- Illumination: The Language of the Leaves
- The Drolleries Speak
Four: Genre: Historical Mystery
Comps & Why:
1. “The Echo of Old Books” (Barbara Davis, Lake Union, 2023): Davis writes in multiple perspectives and timelines, with a main character who is obsessed with old books (manuscripts), fervently seeking the secrets and mysteries they hold.
2. “The Lost Bookshop” (Evie Woods, One More Chapter, 2023): Woods captures the readers’ imaginations with visceral details about antique books—“’If you tilt your head… you can hear the older books whispering their secrets.’”
What Jonah Knows meets The Lost Bookshop.
The Echo of Old Books meets What Jonah Knows
The Glassmaker meets The Midnight Library
From the film world:
1. The Mill and the Cross (2011): Set in 16th C. Flanders— “… literally revives the past and cements itself as one of the best movies about art history ever made” (Michael Francis Gibson). This movie, although slow moving and without a “plot,” was inspired by and dives deep into the symbolism behind a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Much of the artwork in the late middle ages is rich with symbolism and metaphor. “Time is A Ribbon” does much of the same, inspired by a painting by the 15th C. Dutch painter, Jan Van Eyck—only utilizing a rich and multilayered plot.
2. Dr. Strange (yes, oddly enough…) (2016): topic of death and eternal life,… “spiritual awakening, metaphysical abilities to transcend time, space, and dimensions” (https://whatnerd.com/movies-with-hidden-meanings-deeper-metaphors/.
Five: Logline: In her quest to solve the mystery of her phobias, an obsessed graduate student uncovers an art theft ring, placing her life—and her sanity—in grave danger.
Core Wound—Serenity Devin is anything but serene. Orphaned as a small child, Ren was placed with her aunt, Lilith, who is a nun, and raised in a convent. Although she has been seeing a psychologist since she was five, no one has ever been able to identify the cause of her extreme phobia of physical contact.
Six: Inner Conflict: Ren suffers from sexual aversion disorder, repulsed by any intimate physical contact.
Sample:
The crackly paper covering the exam table stuck to Ren’s sweaty buttocks. When the doorknob clicked, she jumped. Dr. Anasta’s expression matched her crisply pressed coat.
“How have you been, Ren? Donna told me the big news!”
As she spoke, the good doctor nonchalantly pulled on a pair of gloves—the thin, stretchy kind that reveal shadows of the skin underneath. Ren stared as Dr. Anasta’s creased knuckles and the outlines of her neatly trimmed fingernails appeared like ghosts beneath the casing.
Ren almost forgot to reply.
“I’ve been fine, Doc. Yeah, I’m headed out of town at the end of the week. Pretty excited.”
The ordeal lasted only minutes, though to Ren it seemed hours. As she stood at the front desk writing the check, her hand trembled so she found it difficult to make her signature look familiar, even to herself. The receptionist’s plastic smile was suffocating.
On the way out, as she always did after this annual ordeal, Ren ducked into the hallway restroom and vomited convulsively.
*(At present, this is the opening scene of the novel.)
External (secondary) Conflict: The relationship between Ren and Eric Dresden (antagonist) represents the major external conflict.
Sample:
I shifted from one foot to the other and glanced over my shoulder to the abandoned lobby. What was the point of all this?
“It’s true I’m here to assist Professor Van Reichen, and the students, in any way I can. But the primary reason for this trip is to study the manuscript.” I cleared my throat and checked my watch. “Now, what is it you wanted, Mr. Dresden? It’s been a very long day. I’d like to get settled into my quarters.”
“Well,” he began, “The Groeninge has need for someone with your experience in this specialty. I was wondering if you ever considered working for a museum such as ours.”
This is unbelievable, I thought. The man hasn’t known me more than two hours and he’s offering me a job?
“I think it’s a little premature for you to be judging my capabilities, don’t you think?” I blurted out what was meant to remain an interior thought, as Dresden’s smile had returned and was setting my meal to churning in my stomach. But as nervous as I was, my curiosity had peaked. I folded my arms across my chest as I continued, “What else has Professor Van Reichen told you about me?”
“Oh, nothing except that he was intrigued by your interest in the illuminations from the slides I sent him.”
“Come to think of it, Mr. Dresden, none of the leaves in your display we saw tonight have much in the way of that page decoration. Is there a reason for this? Where are the illuminated pages?”
I saw Dresden’s expression flicker again, only this time I detected a flash of anger.
“I should think you’d know the reason. You certainly realize how delicate the pigments on ancient manuscripts are. How sensitive to light they can be. Of course, the highly decorated leaves will be reserved for examination by only the most skilled of your group.” He paused, his glare a silent dare. “And that will be determined at some point later in the weeks to come.”
I took a deep breath and checked my watch again. “Yes, well I’ll certainly be looking forward to that ‘later point.’ But right now, Mr. Dresden, if you’ll excuse me, I’d really like to retire.”
He continued staring at me, his eyes seeming to flit now from my face down my body and then back up again. A wave of panic soaked my skin.
Seven: Setting:
a. University libraries, where Ren learns to decipher old Latin manuscript texts and identify their provenance based on the artwork on the pages: manuscript illuminations. I know, I know, boring, quiet places, right? But not so for one able to “time travel” by delving into historical documents.
Sample: The Special Collections Room of the University Library was seldom busy. South Florida’s specialty was biotechnology, medicine, and computer science. For most, this room did not even exist. But for those who knew it was there, it was not unlike an Egyptian tomb, filled with undecipherable knowledge inscribed in a dead language.
To Ren, it was as alive and necessary as the rhythmic pulsation of a beating heart.
Tonight, the silence was particularly oppressive. The only sounds came from an occasional page turning, or the tapping of Ren’s fingers on her keyboard. The air was heavy with the scents of musty leather bookbinding. She handled the ancient parchment leaves carefully between cotton-gloved fingers, studying the twisted lines of black ink through the protective sleeve. When a tall figure appeared across the table from her, she lurched back into the present.
b. Museums: again, quiet places. But there is an aura of mystery in a museum that teases even the most pragmatic of us about untold mysteries. Secret passages. Untold stories of the dead.
Sample: The Groeninge was housed in another quaint brick complex of connected buildings that looked like old army barracks, although the exterior was softened with hanging baskets of fuchsia near the entrance.
…
I felt unusually comfortable. For one thing, I was in a museum. For me, this was synonymous to home. There were few places in my world I relaxed as much as I did when surrounded by artifacts, pieces of a past long dead. The present, at least to this point in my life, had held little for me.
c. Bruges, Belgium: This city is where the majority of the plot takes place. There is nothing in America as old as in Europe. The mystique infuses everything with an air of mystery. Note: Since the story is told in dual timelines, the Bruges setting will be described in both this century and that of 500 years ago.
Sample (from present day timeline): Crossing the bridge that spanned the scenic Dijvers river canal, I paused to lean over the ancient green, metal railing as a boat tour was just leaving the dock. The gondola was filled to capacity and hung low in the water as it made its way up the canal, following the watery path to where it curved lazily out of sight beneath an oddly shaped skyline. It was like a scene from a travel brochure, those that had characterized Bruges so accurately: the city’s ambiance could make you feel as though you’d stepped back in time.
The steep spires of the narrow buildings lining the canal sliced the horizon sporadically, forming a jagged, many-peaked wall that rose up from softly undulating green water. Long rays of sunlight cast deep shadows onto the houses lining the opposite side, even as it reflected the rays off the windows of their upper floors.
Although I knew the views from that gondola must surely be spectacular, I also knew there was no way I could tolerate being jammed into that cigar-shaped floating package of people. It made me a little sad. Sometimes my claustrophobic tics really did, ironically, imprison me. The phobias themselves confined me to live within sharply defined parameters.
The clopping of horseshoes on cobblestone echoed somewhere up the street. Perhaps a carriage tour, I thought. I moved closer to the ticket booth, a freestanding cubicle at one end of the bridge where a small group of elderly women and a young family waited. The children were clutching small rectangles of pink paper in their hands and peering up the street toward the oncoming carriage, vibrating with excitement.
Algonkian Pre.FS Brown.docx
