Synopsis

Frank Cohen wrote the first of three novellas in 2015. He is writing the second one in Summer 2016. By the time the third and final novella is finished in 2017 Frank will have sold thousands of the STARLING watches, have direct contact to 30,000 readers of the serialized novellas, and have a complete universe with compelling characters, inventions, and story lines for a film franchise.
The STARLING story is a time travel Steampunk romance. The main characters - Jeff and Allisandra - meet by accident, they are 60 years apart in age. Allisandra slips the “Memories” pocket watch into Jeff’s pocket. Later he finds that staring into the Victorian styled watches’ amazing glowing Chillovean lights that he can travel back into the previous owner’s memories. While he is a ghost in those memories, he can see and participate as a real person - except, as a ghost, he cannot actually touch or move anything.

The Memories watch takes Jeff back to when Allisandra was his age - in the 1950s. There he uses the power of the watch to overcome his fears of intimacy and the couple fall in love.

Hinky Tonk, is a very old man and inventor of the STARLING watches. He wants them back, and if he is successful Jeff and Allisandra will have no way to be with each other across time, they will never fall in love.

The couple find 5 other watches, each one having its own special powers. For example, the Rewind watch lets Jeff and Allisandra rewind from some of their ill-considered decisions. Wouldn’t you want a do-over some day in your life? Other watches in the story are more dark. For example, the Inception watch brings to life your heart’s deepest darkest desires. Each chapter teaches techniques from yoga and mindfulness to improve their lives and enhance the world.

Author Frank Cohen invented the real world STARLING pocket watches, including the real Chillovean lights, and has sold nearly 1,000 watches. Frank designed STARLING with Disney Imagineer Terri Hardin. The two have created a known brand around STARLING to Disney fans, cosplay fans, jewelry enthusiasts, and collectors looking for unique art jewelry.

Outline

The novella is structured in 6 chapters:

Chapter 1 Synopsis

Jeff meets Alli, in Jeff’s present time. Alli gives Jeff the blue Memories watch and dies. Jeff opens the blue watch, meets younger Alli. Alli realizes she is attracted to Jeff. Jeff meets Hinky, and sees Hinky hurt the hotel Bell Boy to get the Inception watch back, Jeff realizes he is an incorporeal ghost and can’t stop the attack. They both realize Hinky is after the blue watch.

Chapter 2 Synopsis

Allisandra is poor in her twenties, does anything to make ends meet. Alli reveals to Jeff that she can talk to her father when her blue watch is open. They travel back to meet her father. Allisandra's father tells Jeff and Allisandra where they can find the What If watch. They get the What If watch while being followed by Hinky. Allisandra stares into the What If watch and wonders what her life will be like when she falls in love with Jeff, who is a ghost to her. They foil Hinky's ambush

Chapter 3

They go back for the Snapshot watch, at the hotel time capsule box, and find the Rewind watch there too. They use the Snapshot watch to solve her money problems. Jeff realizes his grandmother is alive. He asks Allisandra for help to call her. Alli feels closer to Jeff seeing him value family and Jeff cries in front of her. They see Hinky walking and follow him.

Chapter 4

They enter Hinky’s apartment while he is away at dinner. Hinky walks in and confronts them. Hinky tells them his backstory and unveils the Illuminarium - a device he believes can be used to control the world using the power of the watches. Under threat Jeff and Allisandra give him the watches - except for the Inception watch. They leave.

Chapter 5

They walk out of town, while Hinky finishes building the Illuminarium. They form a plan to use the Inception watch to confront Hinky again. They return to Hinkys apartment. Allisandra opens the Inception watch towards the door, inside Hinky sees Alli and Jeff. This is an Allisandra ghost from the inception watch, and Jeff from the Inception watch. Hinky tortures and kills the Allisandra ghost. Jeff reveals he is a ghost. Jeff withdraws to keep the real Allisandra safe. Hinky starts the Illuminarium, it is unbalanced and explodes. They take the watches and flee.

Chapter 6

Hinky dies. Jeff and Alli celebrate their good luck. Then Alli disappears, Jeff appears back in the hotel lobby in his present time. With the help of the hotel Bell Boy, Jeff is reunited with Alli. He kisses Alli, the kiss connects for both of them.

Character biographies and story arcs
Jeff:

Jeff Nicholas Thompson is a medical school student who took a break from school after his mother's recent death. He earns just enough money to live by giving tours of Italy, Bosnia, and the Crimea area to college students studying abroad. Allisandra comes into his life as an 85 year old woman and gives him the Memories Watch. The Watch brings him back in time to find Allisandra living as a 25 year old and the adventure of his life.

Jeff's arc: Jeff's life plans were dominated by his mother – and supported by his father – until her death. Then his father's nature emerged – passive, humanist, feeling, not as driven – and he lost his passion for the hard and long work to train as a medical doctor. Allisandra replaces his mother with a can-do attitude, she convinces him to walk towards the sound of gunfire, a phone call to his 20-something mother shows that she would have been happy with whatever he chose, he realizes that he put himself under the stress of medical school to respond to her confidence in him. After seeing the end of Hinky's threat to the world he abandons his current world, goes back to be with Alli, and finishes his studies in Europe to be with her and her family.

Allisandra:

Allisandra Menshikov Benli comes of age in Prague and Turkey as her world rebuilds immediately after World War II. Her survival skills hide an elegant and sophisticated skill at designing clothes, a deep historical knowledge of the region, and a vitality that leads people in her life to be more than themselves. She expected a quiet life until she meets a time traveling Jeff.

Allisandra's arc: Alli came of age at the end of World War II. Her father is a decorated war hero. Her grandfather gave the watches to her father during the war and Hinky has tried to attack him to get them back ever since. Hinkys attacks, the war, and trying to raise a family during the post war years wore the father down. He escaped the pressure of life by using the Memories watch. Allisandra saw the father growing dependent on the escape. She justified taking the watch and running away from home to help the father overcome his addiction.

Hinky turned his attention to Allisandra. With Hinky constantly trying to attack her she is living life on the run. She slides into a relativistic “I'll make it up to everyone” mental state as she lives day-to-day on hand-outs and stealing packages from the mail.

Then Jeff appears. She aligns with Jeff to rid herself of the risk from Hinky. They battle Hinky in the hotel and win with Hinky falling into the hotel lobby fountain. The thing is... She wants to kill Hinky. Jeff talks her out of that. Jeff tells her his medical training informs him Hinky will eventually kill himself by making a lethal mistake. Allisandra and her Cousin Lada have tried to kill Hinky before, but the immortality watch brings him back.

Allisandra coaches Jeff to assassinate Hinky: She shows him the powers of the watches, then brings him to Hinky's apartment to see if Jeff has what it takes.

Turns out Jeff was right, he distracts Hinky to make a mistake with the Illuminarium (the collection of all 6 watches.) The Illuminarium explodes, rips the special Immortality watch from Hinky, and Hinky dies.

With Hinky gone, Allisandra gets to go back to her family, and she meets Jeff there. They get to live their lives in love.

Hinky:

Hinky Tonk is an old inventor. He was born 5,000 years ago in Syria. His Father was there when the Syrians found mixing lime stone, sand, and gravel made a wonderfully solid earth later called concrete. Hinky loved and admired his father and his father just wasn’t able to return those feelings. Hinky was largely motivated as a child to win his father’s approval - so he spent most of his youth digging. 

Hinky found the first glow stone when digging for a new kind of lime stone. He touched the stone and a blue glow appeared. He could see in his mind five other glow stones were buried in a circle about 20 feet around and 20 feet down. He realized their powers quickly and built an six sided house over his find. Over the next hundred years the village of Tonka, Chernihivs'ka oblast (region), Ukraine, grew around Hinky’s house.

Hinky never ages, the stones take care of that. And the stones keep him from being accused of being a witch or alien. There is a voice he hears from glow stones that is his advisor and at times his commander. Hinky doesn’t think this kind of control is strange as he is a narcissist.

When you only pay attention to yourself time flies by. When the Victorian era finally bloomed Hinky felt completely at home. New inventions delighted him every day. And, they reminded him of how little he had done in his life. His vanity drove him to consider leaving the house. In a world filling up with a billion souls how could he do anything of importance? He created splinters of the glow stones.  He put one shard into a timepiece - six in all - so he could travel with the power of the stones. He set off on his travels.

Hinky keeps himself from other people – he doesn't feel he fits in with anyone. So he is deprived of feelings love and family. He is immortal so marriage would end in the pain of burying his wife and children. Instead of seeing love in the world he sees the carnage of aggression and war. He views himself as an intellect above the rest of the people of the world. Yet, no one will listen or follow him. He is drawn into the carnage of the Crimean War in 1853 and later meets the intellectual set (Impressionists and writers) in Paris of the 1870's. He realizes that while they are the intellectual leaders of the world, they have no idea of how violent and savage the world outside of them has become. This leads Hinky to invent the Illuminarium. If the intellectual leaders of the world won't bring a just and peaceful world, then he will using the power of the stones.

The voice from the stones was unhappy about all of this and came to Hinky in his dreams. Eventually Hinky had enough of the voice’s badgering and he cast the watches into a river, except for the watch with the immortality stone in it. The voice became enraged and it scared Hinky. All he could hear in his mind as he slept is “Bring them back.”

Audience

STARLING is a complete experience for millennials, gen X, and Baby Boomers feeling left out of the whole Burning Man phenomenon. They seek consumer products that make them stand out for their choices of art, tech, and housing. They have small budgets, trade Amazon Prime accounts for free delivery, and live on social media.

STARLING is for people who are Steampunk and costume play enthusiasts looking for the perfect Victorian accessory, jewelry enthusiasts looking for a unique piece, a Disney fan who loves collectibles and story telling, or just a collector of completely unique story telling with pocket watches.

Promotion

Advertising:

Google Adwords and SEO around Steampunk art jewelry hand-made pocket watches.

Facebook ads optimized for Disney, Steampunk, Jewelry, Pocketwatch

Frank Cohen's weekly blog and daily social media postings.

Email list (currently 3,000 readers plus 1,000 watch owners) will grow to 30,000. Use this to announce the Publishizer project.

Celebrity Endorsements:

Frank Cohen and Terri Hardin are great on-camera personalities.

Social media:

Facebook STARLING page 11K likes

Instagram STARLING 550 followers

Twitter @starling 3200 followers

Pinterest votsh/starling 830 followers

YouTube channel
http://bit.ly/1rubDkY[1]

[1]: http://bit.ly/1rubDkY

Competition

STARLING is complimentary to science fiction and fantasy stories like: Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Stranger In A Strange Land, and Lord of the Rings. It competes with novels like: The Difference Engine, The Warlord of the Air, and The Traitor Baru Cormorant.