Game-Changers
Last week, someone did something so astoundingly vicious to me, that it was a game-changer. The meanness of how this person spoke to me is now is the new standard of what viciousness means to me. So much so that now I almost chuckle at what I USED to think were unkind remarks. In THAT sense, it was a gift. Now, I know that sounds impossibly Pollyanna-ish, but that is truly where I am now, a few days after this incident. Unkind words are a LOT more likely to roll off my back now.
Which got me THINKING about characters. Think of things that would make your stomach turn, things that would wrack you with nightmares for weeks. Now think of an FBI agent or a detective and what they might see in any given day or week. Their standards of what disturbs them are different. Sometimes when I read the news, I pause when I see a quote from, say, a 20-year police veteran who says something like, "It was the worst crime scene I've ever walked into." IMAGINE, given his standards of crime scenes, what that means.
It seems to me that much of literature is about about game-changers. Detective fiction is about THE case that almost puts a detective over the edge. In some fantasies set in contemporary worlds, it's about the game-changing moment when the person discovers an alternate universe, say. I've even played around with that with my two vampire books, because I chose to set them in such a way that for the hero/heroine in each, the book became about when they discovered vampires existed (versus a world/fantasy that opens with everyone in the book aware of their existence, such as the Sookie books). Great love affairs are about THE love. The game-changer.
So I wonder . . . your work-in-progress . . . is it about a game-changer?
P.S. I added the latest board when Parrish sent it to me today. Do you think he is calling me a brat?
21 comments:
Yes. :-)
It's about losing everything only to learn that it wasn't important. That kindness is our greatest gift, and we should give it to everyone. That each one of us is much stronger than we realize.
Richard:
You've got some GREAT themes there!!!!
:-)
Crawling from the wreckage of a chartered jet seconds before a massive fireball consumed my wife and baby daughter and everyone in my band somewhat desensitized me to all the other horrors life has to offer. I was the sole survivor, and I've been living on borrowed time for over twenty years. Every day is a bonus, extra minutes in the arcade. I don't live recklessly, but I don't scare easily either.
--Nicholas Colt
There is a game changing moment for Trinidad and it's when he realizes not only that his fellow archwardens are torturing Castile for information, but exactly how they are torturing him--which is by raping him.
I wrote the scene out. I have no idea if it will make the final cut, but I knew I had to make myself go through it if I was going to make my characters go through it.
Tough, tough scene to write, and I think I could go even further. I'm letting it rest though, for awhile.
Jude:
Yeah. I would say that's a game-changer!
Starbucks:
I have a rape scene in my wip, and I haven't been able to write it yet.
E
I'm not sure if I have a "game changer" in my epic yet. Tough question that I'll ponder as I write.
Hey, best of luck in writing the rape scene. I've always appreciated them when written allusively rather than graphically. What was it Hitchcock said? Something about you don't need to see the gun in order to know it was a gun that you heard.
Winey? LOL. Who came up with that one?
Is it even possible to use that in a sentence?
The sauce was a bit too winey, so I added more cream.
Winey. That's a new one on me, LOL.
I just got off the phone--and I mean this, literally minutes ago--with bestselling author Jon Land, and we got to discussing the concept of the thrillers and the explosions and big action set-pieces, and he's working on a series now about a female Texas Ranger and how they're different, more emotional, more character-driven, and how he loved writing the big action set-pieces, but he thinks in order for a thriller to really work the emotional stakes need to be as high as the physical/plot stakes.
And one reason I asked him about it is because the Derek Stillwater novels are big action set-pieces, but the fifth book I'm working on, although it clearly has some big action set-pieces, and the overall arc will be familiar, I was really looking to do more character things and focus on emotional issues for Derek. Hopefully I can pull it off, but hopefully, in order to grow as writers, that's what we need to do.
Jude:
His word is winey. But it's in Webster's. And brat. Mine was dames.
And you know, he DOES spend time in a winery, so Stephen WOULD know winey.
Mark:
For me, I like thrillers that are, indeed, about people I feel connected to deeply. Mr. Clarinet did that for me. So did Child 44.
E
I'm so sorry about the person who was vicious to you. That really sucks.
My current wip isn't a game changer, but I have enjoyed reading game changers in the past.
Jude,
I'm guessing you don't eat a lot of haute cuisine ... where winey sauces are, in fact, a problem.
I wonder if it's harder to keep the "game changer" thing going across a series (at least the kind of series where every book is a discrete story). In the book I'm currently working on, I'd say that Sam will have a game-changing revelation about himself, but the events of the book aren't necessarily shake-his-world-to-the-core big. Does that count?
Nadine:
I was truly distraught for about 48 hours. But hate-speak scares me. I don't understand people who are hateful. Then I realized . . . that was my problem. I was trying to WRAP MY BRAIN around it, and I couldn't and it was upsetting me. So I moved to a place of forgiveness and peace about it.
E
Lurker:
I don't know. That's actually a good question.
Erica, good for you for showing understanding to the hateful speaker. I recently had a visit from some relatives. One is an absolute bigot, the only thing missing is a white hood. It's so hard for me to think good things about him, but I try to pray that one day he'll change.
And I KNEW "winey" was Stevie's word. LOL. Of course!
My WIP is my coming of age memoir and I definitely changed while working for the world's most morally bankrupt man.
I love learning esoteric new words. Winey. I'll probably never use it in real life, but Colt's going to have a field day with the pun sometime.
Kath:
I ran into a horrible bigot a week ago on Wednesday in a public place. It was loathsome.
Travis:
A game changer for sure.
I find it difficult to forgive words or acts that are evil in their essence.
Would be especially difficult to forgive or even understand such words or acts from a person one loved. I suspect that might be a character's dilemma in my WIP.
Post a Comment