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TLBiAC Design Evolution

November 2024

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Those Left Behind in Alder Creek - A Story Concept

November 2024

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Lost and forgotten in the vast Ontario wilderness, Alder Creek is barely a speck of dust on the map—a place most people either escape or wither into. It’s a dying town, and no one knows that better than June Lee. But to her, Alder Creek is more than its bleak future; it’s the heart of her world, the place that holds all she’s ever known. Why would she ever want to leave that behind?

But not everyone feels the same. Especially Hugo Young, her lifelong best friend, who dreams of something bigger, a life that goes beyond Alder Creek’s limits. Now with her three closest friends planning on moving away, June clings desperately to the life they’ve shared, longing for everything to stay exactly as it is. 

With her world changing faster than she can bear, she has to find a way to hold on or risk losing everything —and everyone—she loves.

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Those Left Behind in Alder Creek is a coming-of-age story that deals with struggling with growing up, social class, and loneliness, while also touching on grief and loss, whether it’s for a person loved and lost, or for the life you once had or wish to have. It’s about learning to mature without losing who you are in the process. At its heart, it speaks to the very relatable issue many young people have surrounding becoming an adult and learning to find your footing and forge your own path.

The story would fall into contemporary fiction and read more like YA, though it would be technically classified as ‘adult fiction’. I wanted to write a story about an adult, not a teenager, going through a coming-of-age narrative, because from my own experience and from the experiences of many of my friends, it is common for people to go through a learning curve of finding themselves in their twenties and I wanted to touch on the growing pains and societal expectations one might feel without the safety net of childhood still cradling them.

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