In case anyone’s counting, this is thread number 78,539 on my novel in progress. As always, I’m brainstorming. I apologize if I’m bugging by harping on the subject–but hey, you can just skip the thread if you want.
Here’s a little background. My story is set in 1987; the main characters are Andy, age 14, and his best friend, Hannah, age 13. I’m working on my third or fourth draft. It’s an urban fantasy. By that, I mean that, although the story is set in the “real” world (at least the first half, anyway) there is a significant magical element.
In the chapter I’m currently rewriting, the two protagonists are at the birthday party of Andy’s older sister, Rosemary, age 19. Andy and Rosemary are the children of a single mother; their father, Andrew Senior, was a Marine gunnery sergeant and Vietnam vet who dies in a plane crash in 1983, immediately before the story begins. In the four years since, Andy and Rosemary have each gotten mysterious presents from an anonymous giver every birthday and Christmas. The presents are always something appropriate for the child, and of mysterious provenance. Though neither the children nor the reader know it as this point of the story, the gifts are coming from a magical creature who feels a debt of honor to Andy’s family, and who has come to love both Andy and Rosemary as if they were its own children. The creature does not wish to reveal its existence to Andy & Co., however.
This year, Rosemary has gotten a copy of God’s Trombones, a collection of poems by her favorite author; the book is leather-bound with gilt paper, color plates illustrating each poem, and so forth. When Rosemary shows the younger children the gift, Hannah notices that there is no copyright page; she comments that it must have cost a fortune. Rosemary replies that it’s probably no more expensive than the present Andy got for his last birthday.
The question is, what is that present? It’s not all important to the plot (while the choice of Trombones for Rosemary is; I’ll just be mentioning it in a throwaway line. But I do want it to be something that shows the gift-giver is knows Andy very well and cares deeply for him.
A few facts about Andy:
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He idolizes his father and wants to follow in his footsteps; he thinks of appropriate
and honorable behavior as behaving like a leatherneck. A major reason that he’s so close to Hannah is because she needs protection in ways that his sister and mother do not, and being her big brother makes him feel as if he’s following in his father’s footsteps. He is forever telling her stories about his father’s heroism during the war, particularly during the battle of Khe Sanh. -
Andy has an undiagnosed learning disability, probably dyslexia; thus reading is a huge chore for him, and he does not enjoy it–except perhaps comic books. Nonetheless he has a great deal of common sense and reasoning ability–he’s good at plotting strategies in games, for instance–though he doesn’t give himself any credit for that.
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Rosemary believes in her brother’s native intelligence and puts a great deal of effort into helping him with his schoolwork; she’s the one who pushes him to work hard.
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Their mother, Beatrice, does not believe Andy is at all intelligent; he is, in her view, simply slow. Thus she doesn’t see the point of pushing him. Andy resents her unspoken assumption that he is stupid, though at this point in the story that resentment is unvoiced even in his own mind.
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Andy is a skilled and talented athlete. His favorite sport is baseball, because that was his father’s sport of choice, but he plays basketball and football too. He’s always the first one chosen when picking teams.
Put yourself in the shoes of the anonymous gift-giver. What gift would you have given Andy on his 14th birthday?
Thanks in advance,
