Shelby NathansonFinal Book Proposal

Book Publishing Overview, PB 683-03December 1, 2014

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“Haunting and visceral, Friendly Fire is a contemporary triumph.” –Tim

O’Brien, author of The Things They

SHELBY

FRIE NDLY FIRE

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lutching his M16A4, he dismisses all thought of friendly fire and calmly gaits up the sanguinary stairs

“A tour de force…gripping from beginning to end.”

–Tobias Wolff, author of The Barracks

“Friendly Fire captures humanity at its best…and its worst.” –James

Dashner, author of the Maze Runner

SHELBY NATHANSONearned a BA in literature from the University of Central Florida and is currently a student in

FICTION

USA

www.shelbynathanson.wordpress.com

FRIENDLY FIRE

SHELBY NATHANSON

Query Letter

Erin HenryDutton Children’s Books (Penguin Random House) 375 Hudson StreetNew York, NY 10014-3657

Ms. Henry:

Catered to an audience experiencing hope and anxiety about their future, the young adult genre has been one of the most successful markets in recent years. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series ushered in a new era of readership, as the Potter phenomenon led to the proliferation of novels targeted at an adolescent audience. A critic for Booklist, Michael Cart states, “Kids are buying books in quantities we’ve never seen before…And publishers are courting young adults in ways we haven’t seen since the 1940s…We are right smack-dab in the new golden age of young adult literature.” The tween through teen demographic is undeniably fruitful, and my book Friendly Fire will capitalize on this golden age.

The YA genre can be categorized by sub-genres, as the market has been shaped by a trend of topics within the last decade. Rowling took JR Tolkien’s and CS Lewis’s reins by creating a magical world fraught with fantastical dangers. Similar series such as Eragon and His Dark Materials were published around the same time. This particular topic was followed by the paranormal romance, with Twilight’s vampire-human-werewolf love triangle defining the market for several years. Now dystopian competition series are full-throttle—with The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner. In the past year, however, this fad is being replaced with more realistic romances like The Fault in Our Stars and If I Stay (both best-selling titles from Dutton). Each of these books has a huge following, all with generally successful film adaptations. So what’s next?

Now is the perfect moment for my book’s publication. Friendly Fire both bridges the gap between and rides these two YA directions, occurring in a dystopian society insofar that the setting is a dangerous world torn by war, and containing plausible plot events. Friendly Fire will perhaps create a new sub-genre of YA literature, one that blends the dystopian and the factual. Although the topic of friends turned enemies isn’t unique or novel, my book will take this concept and apply it to the contemporary context of US-Middle Eastern relations. A market for this topic exists, seen in similar titles such as JB Cheaney’s My Friend the Enemy (2007) and Daniel Smith’s My Friend the Enemy (2014).

Friendly Fire is situated to succeed with this dedicated readership. Addressing the interests of 12- to 18-year-old males in the YA demographic, my 250-page book promises the potential for an interactive game on Dutton’s website as well as a possible movie from Temple Hill Entertainment. Adolescent boys generally enjoy playing violent combat video games, so Friendly Fire’s themes of war and violence will appeal to this audience. Blurbs already provided by Tim O’Brien, Tobias Wolff, and James Dashner provide prestige and publicity to attract male readers.

Attached is my proposal for Friendly Fire, including the jacket, outline, audience, writing sample, competition, and marketing plan. Thanks for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Shelby Nathanson

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Table of Contents

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword xi

Chapter 1 3

Chapter 2 13

Chapter 3 27

vi

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Chapter 6 80

Chapter 7 105

Chapter 8 123

Chapter 9 150

Chapter 10 165

Chapter 11 185

Chapter 12 213

On the Front: Author Q and A 245

War Games 250 vii

Hook

Clutching his M16A4, he dismisses all thoughts of friendly fire and calmly gaits up the sanguinary stairs into the Parliament House to accomplish the mission.

I chose this particular sentence as the hook for the back cover because it employs the book’s title and captures the tone and topic of the story. There aren’t any names here, but the quote is vague enough to attract the reader’s attention. The reader wouldn’t know where this sentence fits in relation to the rest of the book, but it actually concludes the entire work without spoiling any unexpected plot events.

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Foreword

November 23, 2014

This We’ll Defend...

As both a novelist and a veteran, I write fictional accounts inspired by my experiences in Vietnam. The same can’t be said of Shelby Nathanson, yet her prose reads as though she were in the barracks herself. Powerful and tenured, her writing channels the experience of a decorated lieutenant.

Nathanson’s incendiary first novel turns the Army’s motto on its head in a contemporary application of the “Fox and the Hound” story. Not only does Friendly Fire glimmer with humorous and heartbreaking moments, but it is also drenched in contemporary significance. Through the characters of ultra-patriotic Johnny and Muslim Nasir, we see the potential for childhood camaraderie, yet their disparate ideologies carry into adulthood and ultimately result in the novel’s bloody end.

Friendly Fire is loaded with the ammo of time-old ethnocentrism, and Nathanson’s visceral prose and haunting characters remind us of our unjust bigotry. Controversial yet illuminating, Nathanson’s work criticizes soldiers’ dehumanization and the hunter/hunted dynamic of institutionalized violence. The dichotomous perspectives of us versus them, good versus evil, are poignant. Especially after 9/11 and during the war on terrorism, the undercurrent of racism—particularly Islamophobia—became almost tangible. Nathanson makes the political personal as she reveals the evils of jingoism, the complex shades of gray in an undeniably black-and-white world.

-Tim O’Brien

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Writing Sample

Chapter 1

The childish aroma of Cheerios and glue is pervasive in old Mr. Mann’s classroom. Pictures of seemingly happy animals, candid photos of carnivorous creatures unobserved in their naturally predatory existence, hang on every wall; colorful words painted throughout the naive room are only a chromatic façade for the bipolar hues of black and white ignorance. The tiny desks are covered in glitter and foam cut-outs as no child yet recognizes unfulfilled gender roles and ideologies, young elementary beings still androgynous and undeveloped.

Day after day the national anthem is recited in this small town, 25 seven-year-olds all in patriotic unison with their teacher; robotic and innocent children not comprehending the regurgitated banter unfailingly place their right palms over their small, beating hearts in homage to the star-spangled banner just above the chalkboard and awkward Mr. Mann’s balding head. Day after day these young, white automatons disdainfully look down upon their dark-skinned classmate, speculative as to why the unwanted twenty-sixth member of their pure class always refuses to participate in those daily rituals of American loyalty, unwitting devotion to God and country.

There he is, Nasir Na’im, at the back of the classroom with the misbehaving children, sitting in his little chair with his silent voice and timid brown body clad in American-brand clothing, trying to ignore the poster animals looking down at him as though he were prey. He is surrounded by the smiling childish faces from the class photo on Mr. Mann’s desk, taunting grins that hide malicious thoughts, great white sharks circling an insignificant brown sea lion. Na’im: Arabic for tranquil; Nasir: Arabic for helper or protector. White: Arabic for heathen and oppressor.

Five seats in front of Nasir sits Johnny Johnson, popular among his peers, a childish embodiment of good-ol’ Americanisms. Covered head-to-toe in mismatched sports paraphernalia, freckled with sparkling blue eyes and blonde hair, Johnny laughs at everyone’s jokes, even those that include that weird Middle-Eastern kid with the odd name as the punch line. He often enjoys having a good time with his like-minded buddies by indulging in mischievous fun, many times at the expense of the Pakistani boy; Johnny and his friends never get caught misbehaving, so Nasir would be reprimanded for the others’ misbehavior, his foreignness an instant indication of diabolical intentions. The Arab was a quiet, exotic sort of person to be avoided, of course, because who knew exactly what he was hiding or thinking. Arab: English for evil and untrustworthy.

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All too often kind, peaceful Nasir is subjected to the disguised ridicule of his prejudiced classmates, the ethnocentric stigma affiliated with his particular ethnic and religious background always prohibiting him from befriending the other children. Amiable Nasir wonders why the others never cease to victimize him with harsh words (muzzie; rag head, even though he doesn’t even wear a turban; terrorist; whatever additional derogatory allusions they could make to his skin color) or cruel conduct (tripping him in the hallway, hiding his belongings, sniggering behind his back, breaking his happy multicolored crayons, ripping up his artwork, and other such pernicious acts a child shouldn’t commit). Johnny doesn’t always lead the band of diminutive demons in their quest to destroy the dark-complexioned alien, but he delights in their jeering jokes and unkind undertakings, rendering him just as bad as his barbaric buddies.

One ordinary sunny day, well-intentioned Mr. Mann assigns a group project in which designated partners are forced to compile a list of facts about one another. A resounding “ooh!” fills the room; the class is excited as to the actual assignment: a chance to interview best friends about the already-known stuff, a chance for Nasir to forget his status as a social pariah and be required to mingle among the Brahmans. Nasir is assigned with none other than Johnny and, despite Johnny’s reluctance and apprehension to speak with the outcast, it’s an incident to change the lives of both parties.

***

Chapter 12

Major Johnson crouches next to a remaining wall of the Pakistan Monument, M16A4 assault rifle loaded and ready for action. It’s a hot, cloudless day in Islamabad, happy blue skies a distorted reflection of the strife occurring in the war-torn city. Although bullet-bitten and mainly abandoned, the multitude of buildings in sight, a sign of civilization, contrasts with the arid barrenness of his past military experiences within the eastern hemisphere. With him sits Private Smith (fondly renamed Jackalope due to his unfortunate hare lip, Dumbo-esque ears, and idiotic Texan accent), cross-legged and at ease next to his commander, white flesh also encased in pixilated beige camouflage. A high school drop-out, Smith joined the armed forces in attempts to redeem himself to his strict conservative family; no longer an alcoholic hick, he traded his denim overalls and hunting rifle for a military uniform and shotgun. Although still ignorant and intellectually inferior to everyone else, he is a disciplined product of the service, a trained killer. “Ha! Islamabad, more like Islam is bad,” Private Smith scoffs in a southwestern drawl.

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“Shut the hell up, Jackalope. If you realized how stupid you sound, you’d wanna cut your own tongue out. Besides, I’m not gonna die just because you can’t keep your fucking mouth closed,” Major Johnson reprimands, hard blue eyes icy in the summer heat. Smith shivers, shrinking in apology. A tattered green and white flag can be seen in the distance, a beacon of assurance in the desert sea of uncertainty.

“There,” the Major points to Pakistan’s tauntingly beckoning banner. “We have to reach Parliament before their forces do. You better not fucking screw this up; the rest of the squadron is counting on us.” At least the dumb rookie knows to shoot without question. All he can think about is defeating and defending: conquering his country’s enemies and preserving his fellow Americans’ freedoms.

Doctor Na’im is near the Parliament House, hiding alone in the shadows of dilapidated buildings, dark skin and solid khaki uniform conspicuous in the penetrating sunlight only when in motion. Armed only with a belt of emergency syringes, his mission is to retrieve medical supplies for the Pakistan Army Medical Corps to tend to the wounded. Silently he slides down seemingly abandoned streets, the roaring of deadly instruments reverberating in his ears. All he can think about is his wife and son and how difficult it was to leave them in order to help others.

Parliament stands wounded and crumbling, surrounding roads lacerated and inaccessible to vehicles. All is silent and still save for the omnipresent soundtrack of death and the three men vying to reach their destination, the two Americans unknown to the one Pakistani and vice versa. Swerving in and out of view, the warring trio inches unseen along the building’s scarred walls, until a miscalculated duck-in-cover causes Smith to lose his footing and perceive an antagonistically uniformed man striding toward the structure’s entrance.

“Yo, major,” Private Smith whispers, pointing his gun in the assumed direction of the other soldier’s location. “There’s a muzzie over yonder.” Major Johnson glances towards the designated area and he and his partner thus part ways in attempts to surround the enemy.

Doctor Na’im nimbly advances toward the door. He suddenly hears a faint crunching of gravel dissimilar to the surrounding blasts from explosions and throbbing of machine guns. Instinctively he freezes in his tracks, cocks his head in the direction of the noise, and sees a soldier dressed in American Army gear just three meters away. The man has bright blue eyes obscured by transparent sand goggles; his face is covered with a dusty brown beard that contrasts with his perfect white teeth that reflect the sun’s rays. Nasir isn’t certain if he’s just imagining things or if it’s just because he doesn’t see

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any light-skinned people nowadays, but this man in military garb contains a familiarity in his features. Distracted from his mission by morbid or childish curiosity, he shields his eyes from the blinding orb in the heavens with his left hand and squints to read the foreign man’s blurry nametag: Johnson? I once knew a Johnson, he thought. “Johnny,” he unintentionally utters to himself in English, forgetting to maintain silence.

Johnny hears his name called in some strange accent. No one has called him that since he joined the military; he has always been Johnson with a title. That little jackass Jackalope doesn’t even know his first name. Upon detecting that intimate sound, he turns and spots the Arab with his hand raised in an incorrect salute not ten feet away. Dismissing the auditory incident as a result of sleep deprivation, Major Johnson raises his gun in duty and pride. Squinting into the mounted scope, he tightens his grip and snakes his index finger around the trigger and pulls, hearing and feeling that satisfying discharge of man power. His enemy falls like a wounded bird out of the sky, form crumpled on the steps of the broken entrance. He saunters over to the fallen target that now lay in a swelling pool of blood.

“J-Johnny?!” the Pakistani doctor-soldier sputters, dark eyes fluttering. Seeing the wounded man’s lips move to the sound of his name startles Major Johnson, causing him to stop his advancement into Parliament and instead look upon his gasping victim. He has short black hair to match his short black beard and a dark complexion quickly paling from blood loss. A scarlet stain emanates from the bullet puncture just below the heart, dying Nasir’s khaki shirt. Quickly losing consciousness, Nasir says, “J-Johnny, it’s N-Nas.”

The familiar appearance of his murdered comrade makes his heart drop and pearly smile retract into a frown. Barely able to speak due to the stone that has formed in his throat, he chokes, “Nas?” bending down to get a closer view and touch his friend’s bleeding torso. Their eyes meet: blue and black, the color of a bruise. Blood instead of words begins to stream out of Doctor Na’im’s mouth, and Major Johnson’s hardened emotions melt into hot tears, dissolving all his constructs of manhood and patriotism. Johnny Johnson attempts to stop the flow of blood by placing pressure on the wound, but to no avail. His kind casualty’s beating chambers cease to throb under Johnny’s rough hands and Nasir Na’im exhales his last breath, body going limp. Not caring about his maintained masculinity or his duty to serve, Johnny hugs the gory corpse of his best friend, allowing himself to outwardly sob. “This we’ll defend…” Johnny recites the Army’s mantra while peering into the cadaver’s glassy, lifeless eyes and proceeding to close them.

“I heard a close-range shot,” Private Smith confusedly says upon viewing his commander embracing the fallen enemy. Being absorbed in his

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solemn reverie, Major Johnson didn’t hear Jackalope approach. “You’ve been working for the enemy this whole time?!” Only giving his major time to look at him with his glistening, blood-shot blue eyes, Private Smith with his stupid-looking face raises his menacingly lustrous rifle and shoots Johnny Johnson between those azure irises. This we’ll defend, Smith heroically thinks to himself. In that brief moment between life and death, Johnny sees two white birds gently floating in the cyan above, resurrecting the nostalgic moments of his halcyon youth. Memories of Nasir eating his mom’s sweet apple pie and him drinking Nasir’s mother’s coffee with the aroma of smoky cardamom permeates his existence, replacing the pungent odor and salty taste of sweat as he abruptly loses grips with reality and himself.

Private Smith stonily watches his leader’s head snap backward and knees belt under the unsupported weight of his dead carcass. My folks are gonna be so proud of me, savin’ the country n’ all. For good measure, because they deserved it, Smith finishes the round of ammo on the two inanimate bodies. Clutching his M16A4, he dismisses all thoughts of friendly fire and calmly gaits up the sanguinary stairs into the Parliament House to accomplish the mission.

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CHAPTER 1

The childish aroma of

Cheerios and glue is pervasive in old Mr. Mann’s classroom. Pictures of seemingly happy animals, candid photos of carnivorous creatures unobserved in their naturally predatory existence, hang on every wall; colorful words painted throughout the naive room are only a chromatic façade for the bipolar hues of

Special Features

In order to give my book an edge among its competing titles, I plan to include two special features. A book is more appealing to me when the publisher/author inserts additional content, so I plan to incorporate a text-only interview as well as multimedia to cater to the younger techno-savvy audience.

The feature “On the Front: Author Q and A” will provide the author (me) a space to discuss what inspired the book and why it was written. A questionnaire will not only provide extra “fun” information, but will also help build the author’s reputation.

Taking the name of the 1983 film, the feature “War Games” will provide information about an additional online component. The publisher’s website will contain a game that allows readers to choose a character and play the story of Friendly Fire. Boys generally enjoy playing combat video games such as Halo, so it’s only fitting to this market and readership that the storyline and characters be adapted to an online game. Although this concept may oppose my intended criticism of violence as a dehumanizing sport, it would be an interesting way to appeal to and engage the book’s audience.

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CHAPTER 1

The childish aroma of

Cheerios and glue is pervasive in old Mr. Mann’s classroom. Pictures of seemingly happy animals, candid photos of carnivorous creatures unobserved in their naturally predatory existence, hang on every wall; colorful words painted throughout the naive room are only a chromatic façade for the bipolar hues of

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Outline

From a Pakistani family, Nasir Na’im is a new student at an elementary school in America. He’s bullied by his peers because of his race and religion, but a class project pairs him with popular kid Johnny Johnson. An unlikely friendship is forged, and they become inseparable. Despite being from different cultures, their innocent childhood relationship overcomes the barriers of bigotry that adults perpetuate.

We see the dynamic duo growing up and matriculating through elementary and middle school, yet the cultural differences are difficult to ignore: Johnny invites Nasir to his family’s Fourth of July barbeque every year, but Nasir can’t attend because eating pork is sacrilegious and his family takes the Hajj (makes a pilgrimage to Mecca) during the summer. The last time we see the friends before the final chapter is after a few years’ separation in high school. Nasir and Johnny attend a funeral for the teacher who united them for their class project, but then they lose touch to fulfill family obligations after graduation.

Years later, they are on opposite sides of the globe in a world torn by the war on terrorism. Former friends are fighting for enemy nations, and the end pits a dehumanized soldier against a doctor on a bloodied battleground. Johnson kills Na’im before realizing he’s his childhood friend, and minor character Private Smith kills Johnson. The phrase “friendly fire” takes on multiple contexts, as our protagonists are both murdered by comrades.

The book will total to around 250 pages (the average length I found for YA titles), and will consist of a single novel.

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Competitors and Complementary Titles

A search on the Books in Print database yielded many results related to my book’s concept. The idea of friends turned enemies isn’t new or unique, but there is a clear market for these titles. The vague query phrase “friends enemies” produced 712 results, although many are the same titles with several listings. Most are children’s fiction targeted at a tween (8- to 12-year-old) audience, though other genres include adult nonfiction memoirs and academic history texts. The majority of these books were published recently, most titles in the past ten years or since 2000. This indicates that Friendly Fire will fit this market’s trending topic while adding a perspective about American involvement in the Middle East. I also found that an overwhelming amount of these books had similar or the same titles, so I wanted to make my title capture the topic and also stand out.

The most relevant books to Friendly Fire are listed below by genre.

Children’s Fiction:

1. My Friend the Enemy (2007), by J. B. Cheaney: A girl befriends a Japanese orphan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. $16.50

2. My Friend the Enemy (2014), Daniel Smith: A young English boy finds a wounded German airman during WWII and is faced with a daunting dilemma. $17.99

3. Worst Enemies/Best Friends (2004), by Annie Bryant: Middle school girls must reconcile their differences to become friends. $6.99

Adult Nonfiction Memoir:

1. My Enemy, My Friend: A Story of Reconciliation from the Vietnam War (2009), by Brigadier General Dan Cherry: A US soldier guns down a fighter pilot in Vietnam, and the former adversaries become good friends when they meet in 2008. $20.00

Academic:

1. Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U. S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (2009), by Barbara Slavin: US-Iran relations are explored through government and politics. $17.99

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Audience and Market

Friendly Fire’s competing titles are written for a generally tween audience, but since my book contains violent scenes suited for a more mature readership, this title would fit most appropriately in the young adult genre. YA books tackle issues and topics related to an adolescent’s coming-of-age, and Nasir and Johnny grow up from children to young men as the book progresses.

Because Friendly Fire’s protagonists are males, a gender-specific market is the most important consideration in selling this title. Mortal combat appeals to many boys and young men. Given my title’s subject matter, males in the YA demographic (around 12 to 18 years old) will be attracted to the book’s themes of blood, violence, war, and death. With the YA dystopian fad (observed in series such as Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner) slowly dwindling and being replaced by a trend toward the more realistic (with single novels such as The Fault in Our Stars and If I Stay), now is the perfect moment for my book’s publication. Friendly Fire both bridges the gap between and rides these two YA directions; it occurs in a dystopian society insofar that the setting is a dangerous world torn by war, and the plot events are plausible and realistic. Additionally, my book’s point of view distinguishes itself from these titles; first-person narration characterizes most YA books, but Friendly Fire will be told from the third-person in order to reveal a holistic and unbiased account of the plot’s events. Friendly Fire will perhaps create a new sub-genre of YA literature, one that blends the dystopian and the factual, with a different type of narrative structure.

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Marketing Plan

Design:

I chose the title Friendly Fire to distinguish the novel from other books about former friends who become lethal adversaries. Titles found on Books in Print contained the words “friend” and “enemy,” so I wanted to capture the book’s idea and make it unique.

Fake blurbs on the covers are provided by male authors to market both the book’s topic and the audience. Tim O’Brien and Tobias Wolff write about war, so their reputation and genre will add to the prestige of Friendly Fire. James Dashner is the author of a well-known YA series for boys, which will add to my credibility as an author of YA male fiction (even though I’m a female!).

My cover design is fairly minimalistic, with a theme of black and red on a white background. I researched YA covers, and they were all minimal with an object as the focus. I didn’t want to crowd the cover with too much text or images, but I wanted to capture the topic of the book through its visuals. The Mil Dot framing the title is immediately recognizable as a sniper target, and the sparse bullet holes convey the theme of violence and fighting. The capital C on the back cover is the crescent of Islam, which is an integral aspect of the book’s characterization. The color red obviously connotes blood. The all-caps font for my name and the title (as well as chapter headings) is KaiTi, with AgencyFB for all other exterior and interior fonts; these sans serif types resembled the typewriter font on military dog tags, which relates to the book’s concept of war. I used each of these elements to appeal to a masculine audience.

Publicity:

Capitalizing off the aforementioned YA genres will provide the most sales potential for my title. Once exposed to one title of interest, readers are likely to pursue relevant titles. GoodReads.com is a free service for users to catalogue, categorize, and find books they’ve read and desire to read (it’s kind of like Facebook meets your bookshelf—social media for bibliophiles!). This website provides users with relevant book recommendations, and often holds free book giveaways to promote new titles. Because my readers are techno-savvy and familiar with the site, employing GoodReads’ promotional services would be a great way to market Friendly Fire and reach an audience that reads YA novels.

Another selling point with the YA market would lie in Friendly Fire’s potential for a movie deal. Harry Potter’s and Twilight’s movie debuts marked a book-to-movie trend among YA series. Temple Hill Entertainment, an American film company, has adapted many YA books in the past few years: the Twilight saga (2008-12), The Maze Runner (2014), and The Fault in Our Stars (2014). I would approach this company with Friendly Fire due to their record of successful YA adaptations.

Query Letter:

I addressed my query letter to Erin Henry because she is the Digital Marketing Manager at Penguin Young Readers Group. Penguin has an imprint that publishes books for teens (Dutton Children’s Books), including YA novels If I Stay and The Fault in Our Stars. I chose Dutton because of their mission

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statement and focus on YA titles’ success: “A small list with a huge audience, Dutton is a boutique imprint within the largest English-language publisher in the world. Publicity—and bestseller—driven, its focused list of approximately forty books per year is half fiction and half nonfiction. On average, one in every four books published by Dutton hits the New York Times bestseller list each year.” (Taken from http://www.penguin.com/meet/publishers/dutton/)

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Resources

I received inspiration for the topic and characters of Friendly Fire from my younger brother and his second-grade classmate. The two became best friends and remain so to this day. Since childhood, my brother aspired to follow my dad’s footsteps and join the Army. Like father, like son. I found the continuation of this paternal legacy intriguing, so I wanted to imagine the implications of this in light of 9/11. Nasir is based on my brother’s friend, who is also from Pakistan, and I wanted to explore their friendship in a fictional projection of US-Middle Eastern relations. Although I had a story with these characters’ relationships as the basis, I knew nothing about military terms, life during war, or the religion of Islam. As a result, the book’s formulation requires extensive research about these topics. I need to scour libraries for fictional and historical representations of wars (particularly the war on terrorism) and Muslim beliefs to base Friendly Fire in fact and give everything realistic depth.

In order to find similar titles to Friendly Fire, I used Books in Print. This database was therefore necessary in the process of compiling this proposal’s various components.

As a first-time author, I need a publisher to build my reputation to sell the book. Because my market was born and has grown up during the internet era, they consume social media voraciously. Marketing the book and spreading the word about my credibility as an author requires an extensive social media campaign (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram) aimed at a male readership.

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Mission Statement

As a reader and writer, I’m fascinated by fiction’s ability to both entertain and reveal truths about our culture. I gravitate most toward literature that speaks about the injustices of today’s society, particularly because these works are real and visible, that is, set in today’s climate of endless conflicts. So much global turmoil has created a black-and-white schism of intolerance, perpetuating the ethnocentric concept of us versus them. I would like to propose a work of fiction that both illustrates and deconstructs this dichotomous worldview through complicated characters who humanize relationships with so-called natural enemies.

An unlikely friendship between a Pakistani and an all-American is forged, and the two remain friends until they follow separate paths after graduating high school. Years later, Johnny Johnson is an American soldier fighting against terrorism in Pakistan, and Nasir Na’im is a doctor for the Pakistan Army. Uniquely applying Disney’s The Fox and the Hound to contemporary war in the Middle East, I hope to convey the evilness of bigotry and its hindrance to a peaceful society.

Male readers in the YA age range will be attracted to the violence that the book promises, yet they will learn that ideological warfare only culminates in the tragedy of intolerance. Readers need the moving story of the friendship of two sworn adversaries because it will impart the necessity of compassion and tolerance as a matter of survival.

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Biography

Shelby Nathanson earned a BA in literature from the University of Central Florida and is currently a student in Emerson College’s Publishing & Writing MA program. A newfound snowbird, she migrates back to Florida in the winter.

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