November Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: By Chance

Time Setting: 2021

Genre: Life

Minimum Word Goal: 90,000 

Timespan: Late September–October

Location: Hanna, Alberta

Main Character: Steele Henningsen

Background Information: 

Born the only son and child to his parents, whose names and occupations he never learned, he lived with his parents only until he was five years old. At that time his father murdered his mother and he fled the house to preserve his own life, being taken in by neighbours who handed him over to government custody shortly thereafter.

As a result, Steele was sent to a foster home, where he lived until he was ten, when an interaction between one of his fellow foster children and one of the biological children of his foster parents prompted the authorities to remove all the fostered children from the family.

Steele was sent to a couple who had one other fostered child, and whose biological children were adults. Having developed a defensive nature in response to overzealous extroverts and bullies in school, Steele ended up coming into conflict with his new foster parents because they were very strict and expected him to be an impeccably-behaved child.

Thus, they were displeased when he came into conflict with overzealous extroverts and bullies at his new school and reacted just as he had in his old school, as well as being upset when he rebelled against their other strict demands, including that he not go randomly wandering about outside, which was something he’d always loved doing, finding solace in the quiet and isolated surroundings of nature after spending long days at school surrounded by people, even if those people didn’t pay attention to him.

Eventually the conflict with his foster parents prompted him to be transferred to a new foster home that was headed by a man who’d been a police officer until he was shot by a criminal he was trying to arrest, which damaged his leg enough to leave him with a permanent limp and an inability to run.

His foster family enrolled Steele in riding lessons that helped him learn how to trust, as did a friendship he developed with the patriarch of the family that taught the riding lessons, who had suffered in his childhood not unlike Steele had in his.

In addition to being introduced to horses, Steele was introduced to rodeo when he was observed to have a knack with a lasso, prompting those around him to recommend he go into one of the roping events at a rodeo.

Appealed to by the idea, Steele decided to pursue the tie-down roping event, and quickly distinguished himself in the high-school level before making his way into the professional circuit as soon as he was old enough.

Steele is still relatively new to the rodeo circuit, but he’s considered a promising young talent, and going into the final rodeo of the current season, he has a chance to qualify for the Canadian Finals Rodeo, as well as an outside chance — considering he’s nowhere near the top of the standings — to become the Canadian champion in the tie-down roping event.

As cool as that would be, though, Steele is well aware that he’s not likely to become the champion the first time around, and personally would be content with simply qualifying for the CFR to get that experience under his belt before making a more significant championship charge next season.