Blockbuster Plots' Scene Tracker Kit dramatically cuts the time it takes to finish your story. The Scene Tracker Kit includes: 200 page Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple book for all your writing needs, 107 minute plot workshop DVD, and the Scene Tracker template CD and tutorial. A good scene either advances the action of the story, develops the character, contributes to the theme, provides tension and conflict and/or reflects a change in attitude or circumstances. A great scene does all of these at once.  The Scene Tracker Kit includes everything you need to create scenes that are full of conflict, tension and suspense, grounds the reader in place and time, and advances the character emotional development plot line, dramatic action plot line and the thematic significance plot line.

Blockbuster Plots Scene Tracker Kit

Martha Alderson

Reference

Illusion Press

Have you ever met someone only to find you were both in the same place at the same time years before you ever met? Set in the San Francisco Bay Area during the turbulent 1960s, Parallel Lives follows the destinies of two people—a mute girl and a reckless boy—who have nothing in common but their mutual fascination in their seemingly random meetings. Now, as adults, before they can set out on their own, first they each must find and confront the unforgettable and mysterious other. What if each of us is promised one wild and precious someone for a lifetime? What if to seize this true love first both parties must undergo an arduous and dangerous journey separately? Would you? Billy Wayman Wolf lives with his maternal, Potawatomi grandmother in the San Joaquin Valley. Punished for mouthing off and his petty thievery, nonetheless, Billy becomes an expert at talents that later prove disastrous. When he is twelve, he is sent to downtown Oakland where his mother lives in a flat over the Drop-In Club. Maj Hawthorne—four years younger than Billy—is the beautiful and silent daughter of country club privilege. She lives with her parents and Swedish-born grandmother in the East Bay foothills at Great Oaks, their generational family estate. Pressed by her grandmother to speak or be destined to live by her looks alone, she struggles to use her voice after an unspeakable betrayal and then later while suffering a brutal horror. Maj and Billy’s lives converge for the first time along a forgotten highway when Maj is seven and Billy is eleven years old. Though they come from opposite worlds, when their eyes meet, they know one another in a profound and certain way. They meet again three months later, and each knows in their own way that the meetings are not accidental or luck but fortunate and intended. Deftly interweaving the lives of Maj and Billy at pivotal historic events – a roadside accident, a Santana concert for farm workers, Caesar Chavez with Robert Kennedy in Delano, the Native American take-over of Alcatraz – Parallel Lives illuminates the ways, against all odds, two people are destined for each other. During these brief encounters, they touch, they kiss and they break each other’s heart as the currents of their lives bring them together and pull them apart, again and again. Until, finally, nothing is ever the same. Parallel Lives demonstrates that our chances for love and happiness are never truly over or used up. Success hangs on readiness and timing. This coming-of-age love story about parallel lives, the power of communication, and the redemptive fire of love set against a time of cataclysmic change was written for fans of mystery, San Francisco in the 1960s, fashion, magical realism, destiny, fate, romance, politics, transformation, suspense, and intrigue. The idea for Parallel Lives came to me soon after I met my husband nearly 40 years ago. As we got to know each other and fall in love — for me, at first sight — I was captivated to discover how many places we'd both been at the same time and long before our first meeting. Intrigued by the notion of how, if we’d met at one of those earlier moments, we likely never would have fallen in love and ended up together — the timing wasn’t right and neither of us were ready — I set to work researching. Having worked on this novel — historical fiction — for more than twelve years, I am thrilled to share Parallel Lives with you. Passionate about weaving imagination and the past to bring history to life, I’m especially excited about history that is rarely told. In this historical novel, I invite you to experience how Maj and Billy’s lives implode during the wild migration of people from all over the United States and beyond who poured into San Francisco, stuck flowers in their hair, and saw only their dreams of the place.

Parallel Lives ((A Novel))

Romance

Alderson, Martha

Historical

Set during a time marked by social upheaval and dissent, foreshadowing our current civil protests for justice, PARALLEL LIVES A 60's Love Story is a tale of class, the power of communication, and the redemptive fire of love. Experience the 1960s San Francisco Bay Area first-hand through the eyes of a mute girl born into wealth and a loudmouthed Native American boy whose paths cross at pivotal historic moments in the 60's as the country was splitting apart -- a roadside accident, a Santana benefit concert for farmworkers with Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez breaking his hunger strike with Robert Kennedy in Delano, an autoworkers' nationwide strike, and the Native American takeover of Alcatraz. During these brief encounters, Maja and Billy touch, they kiss, and they break each other's hearts without ever knowing the other's name as the currents of their lives pull them apart, again and again. The story of Maja Hawthorne and Billy Wayman Wolfe, haunted by each other and the lessons they must learn to be united, is a 20th century bicultural coming of age romance novel about the redemptive fire of love during an unprecedented time marked by the assassinations of three political lions, an unpopular war, and growing civil unrest with strikes, protests, and marches demanding an end to the Vietnam War, and equality and justice for Native Americans, Blacks, women, farmworkers, and autoworkers. PARALLEL LIVES A 60's Love Story demonstrates what happens when we push past conventional expectations toward cataclysmic change. While PARALLEL LIVES A 60's Love Story is a work of fiction, several well-known historical figures appear: *Carlos Santana *Dolores Huerta *Jimi Hendrix *Robert Francis Kennedy *Cesar Chavez Where real-life historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional from the author's imagination and not to be construed as real, nor intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work, although the author has tried to keep as historically accurate as possible. In all other aspects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. Set in the San Francisco Bay Area during the turbulent 1960s, PARALLEL LIVES A 60's Love Story follows the tangled destinies of two people who have nothing in common but their mutual fascination in their seemingly random meetings. As adults, before they can set out on their own, first they each must find and confront the mysterious other. Told from alternating points-of-view, Maja Hawthorne and Billy Wayman Wolfe come from opposite worlds but when their eyes meet they know one another in a profound and certain way. Each of them, separately and in parallel, fight against social expectations, their private longings, and ultimately who they are for who they will become. Circumstances pull them together and challenge them to demonstrate their readiness for the other, their one true wild and precious someone. Their flaws spin them apart. This historical novel illuminates the ways, against all odds, two people are destined for each other, and demonstrates that our chances for love and happiness are never truly over or used up. Success hangs on readiness and timing.

PARALLEL LIVES A 60's Love Story

Literature & Fiction

United States

By effectively demonstrating the relationship between plot and scene and explaining the art of story design, Blockbuster Plots offers writers proven techniques for creating more focused and balanced plotlines.

Blockbuster Plots: Pure & Simple

Arts & Photography

Performing Arts

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