I'm swapping plots in the eleventh hour here so the character art and sample pages are going to take a day or two, but I figure I may as well get the summary and profiles up so I don't have to later.

I have had such a good time doing this project. I've lived with the prequel to this in my head for years, but this has always been the story I really wanted to tell. I could never figure out how to skip ahead to it, but the idea of how exactly someone handles going back to normal life after a big adventure without retreating back into that fantasy world is so fascinating to me.

I think the market for this is technically YA, although I'm really writing it for older middle grade. Nothing particularly gory happens to the characters outside of Madeline's death and it's absolutely the sort of story I gravitated towards at that age, but there are such heavy emotional issues underlaying everything that it feels like YA is a safer bet.

I love this story with my entire heart and as such am very interested in making it the best it can be. If anyone has suggestions or constructive criticism, feel free to tear into it; I'm open to any idea that could make it a better read.

Inkworm - image 1 - student project

SUMMARY

The summer Madeline Reyes was twelve she stumbled into a storybook world and disappeared, leaving her family and friends bereft. Now nearly a year later she has made her way back to the real world and must deal with her parents' new quiet nervousness, her best friend's sudden popularity, and her memories of a year she can't talk about without sounding crazy, all in the run-up to her final year of middle school.

CHARACTERS

Madeline 'Maddie' Reyes

A thirteen year old girl who accidentally disappeared into Cavinaugh for ten months and is now trying to piece her old life back together. She frequently flashes back to her time in the other world, but refuses to talk with anyone about what she saw there despite being aware that, as Charlotte and her brothers were the ones to rescue her, they are not only able to confirm that what she saw was real, but were in Cavinaugh for the final few days when things went truly bad.

Having been recently stabbed to death by a close friend before being brought back to life, Maddie has developed trust issues and spends a great deal of her time trying to simultaneously distance herself from and cling to her remaining friends. She is aware that her parents believe she was kidnapped, but is unsure if it's even possible to tell them what actually happened in a way they'd understand.

Maddie has recently started being sent to a child therapist in the hopes that she would have an easier time talking to someone who is impartial, but as it is still early days, she has only just stopped pretending to be fine to get out earlier. However, she gets along fairly well with her therapist and by the end of the novel shows a willingness to at least answer their questions about her week honestly.

Charlotte Wood

Charlotte has been best friends with Maddie since they were small children. During the months of her disappearance, Charlotte dedicated herself fully to finding Madeline, at the expense of her relationship with anyone unwilling to help her search. She and her younger brother Luce are the surprise children of a busy older couple, so are given free reign to roam the neighbourhood provided they don't cause big enough problems for their parents to notice. Though they disappeared for a few days during their time in Cavinaugh, their absence went mostly unnoticed until a few hours before they returned.

Charlotte pretty clearly has a crush on Maddie, but is not conscious of it and has neither the time nor emotional space at this point to really examine it too closely. Their relationship is the sort of weirdly intense friendship that happens sometimes.

Charlotte is the star of their school's volleyball and track teams, which has made her a number of new friends. Charlotte is very invested in keeping the people she likes happy if at all possible, so this becomes a juggling act when there are multiple people vying for her attention.

Until just before Maddie's return, Charlotte was 'dating' Julian, who had been a very close friend for years. Throughout the story she is trying to come to terms with the fact that someone she loved and trusted was capable of doing something so unrecognisable without her ever noticing, but also that despite the apparent murderous tendencies, she still misses her friend. She is torn on whether or not this makes her a traitor, and is terrified her brother or friends will find out.

Sebastian Reyes

One of Maddie's younger brothers, he and his twin Sylvester were in the room when Madeline died. Sebastian was the one who locked Julian into Cavinaugh and he's still not sure how he feels about it. He idolized Julian for years, and even though he feels it was justified, knowing that a split second decision on Sebastian's part is the reason that he's now gone has caused him to take on a great deal of guilt.

Sebastian is the person in his family who is most willing to accept his own emotions, and he frequently tries to coax his siblings to at least admit when there's a problem although he is rarely successful. Nevertheless, he is the most levelheaded member of their friend group, which makes his decision to allow his anger at Julian's betrayal to overcome their years of friendship all the more surprising.

He and his brother have spent the ten months Madeline was missing watching their parents fall apart, and now that their sister is back Sebastian is having a difficult time easing back into the status quo despite how badly he wants to.

Sylvester Reyes

The most outgoing of the Reyes siblings, Sylvester has spent the past year in full comedian mode trying to keep what's left of his family from falling to bits, and is having a hard time letting that go now that his sister is back even though he is exhausted.

Essentially the social glue of their little clique, he is best friends with Charlotte's younger brother Luce and is often the one to drag Charlotte out of her head with silly gossip when he thinks she's taking things too seriously. Before her disappearance he and Madeline were close, but they are having a difficult time stepping back into that now after everything they went through.

He is the person who brought Madeline back to life, a responsibility that he's still trying not to think about months later.

Julian Byrne

Until recently, Julian was the leader of the friend group. An easygoing thirteen year old who was adopted as a baby, it came as a shock when it was discovered that he was the lost heir of a storybook world and the real target of the tear in reality that Madeline fell through. Although he has a likable personality, he holds a great deal of anger about being deposited into another world and only collected when he was needed. He is only in the story physically during flashbacks as sacrificing Maddie locked him into his role as ruler of Cavinaugh, further cemented by Sebastian destroying the door home before he could reach it, but his memory haunts the other characters throughout.

SAMPLE PAGES

Inkworm - image 2 - student project

Rebekah

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