Rise
In my real life, lately, I have encountered people who, quite frankly, make me lose hope a bit in people. I had one vile-behaving woman call my home and curse me out because of something she didn't like at--wait for it--CHURCH--and dropped the f-bomb about 20 times. Then greet my kids at the fourth of July BBQ they went to (I was too sick to go) like the hypocrite she is, as if she had never spoken that way to their mom. Though my kids know her for what she is, they were raised (unlike her, I suppose) to be kind, and so they were not unfriendly. For that, I am proud of them. In my real life, I have two clients very late with payment, who don't seem to care that I had surgery and constructed my work schedule and billing so that I could provide for my family in recovery. In my real life, I have been around professional men at a country club recently who used the n-word (and THAT I did not let pass). And I have seen an evil can't-say-what-I-want-to-call-him manager at the country club where my significant other used to work, prey on young women like a viper. It is enough to make me give up on people. Really.
Except that I have friends around me who restore my faith. But at times . . . man, at times . . . it feels as if when the battle lines are drawn, the good guys lose. And lose badly.
As I was working on Magickeepers III this week, something very clear dawned on me. The characters in it ALWAYS rise to the occasion. It is not that they can't be petulant, or bickering, or snide, or sarcastic. They are not without flaws. They make mistakes. But when push comes to shove, indeed they ALWAYS rise to the occasion and always have each others' backs. It is a world I adore for that very reason, for the way in which I can count on them. When I open a scene and begin to work, I know, I know in the very deepest part of my writer's heart, that these are good people, fierce people who have a capacity for bravery. They are people I can trust.
Maybe in middle-grade fiction, you can be a bit clearer about people's motives. Maybe I have just created people I want to believe in. But believe in them I do. And lately, when it seems like I need to SHOWER after being in the company of some people in the world of grown-ups . . . I NEED that world.
So how about you? In your wip, is there something about the world or the characters that somehow offers you hope? What is the best of what they offer?
22 comments:
With Derek Stillwater, I've said before, that he will do what needs to be done, whether he wants to or not. And that strikes me as being a fairly rare thing in the real world.
Sadly, the one thing that living in Arizona has caused in me that I really regret is... well, yeah. A profound disappointment in people and a huge loss of hope. If I hear "let them die" one more freakin' time, I'm either go to slap them or jump off a bridge.
Just last week, this guy must have offended me on about six levels, (insisting on calling Miguel Michael, simply because a Mexican name is too inconvenient for him; doing the whole let-them-f'in-die-in-the-desert rant; and then a rant about a TV special where two fathers were adopting or surrogating a baby or something). As I'm sitting there REELING in shock, literally open-mouthed at all that vitriol at once, he comes over and acts NICE to me.
That's what terrifies me the most. I mean, if he were just an asshole all around, I could write him off. But he's a relatively normal person, good father aside from the above ethics he's passing on, who tends to be nice. That's the worst part. That's what makes me lose hope.
I'm sorry about the payments. :-( I noticed in my piano teaching business that paying bills on time no longer was an ethic. Boy, could I tell you stories. They are funny now.
I have close relatives with a bigotry streak. Some of them think it's normal to use the "n" word around a room filled with white folk, you know, because all white folk think alike. And then there are the ones who just don't understand why anyone would "choose" to be gay. Seriously? The world's focus becomes more narrow minded by the mili-second.
Yet, one day I went to a meet and greet for Lisa Ling. She spoke of her experiences with drug-cartel warlords in Central America, their tactics, etc. It was hair-raising. I mean, she's adorable, and I couldn't image her in the presence of nefarious types. So I asked her how she copes with life after seeing such things up close. Her reply was that upon her return home she looks for the good in people, and that gives her hope.
So, moving on, one of my characters treats with utter disrespect women who chase him. He knows they only want him for one thing (you know, the one HARD thing). Yet, he becomes an overachieving do-gooder for the woman that he relentlessly ignores who allegedly carries his child. (On the surface he's in denial; down deep he wishes it were true.)
About the f-bomb laden church lady, I think I'd be madder if she then took her ire against me out on my children... at least she didn't do that... so I don't know, I'd consider her a fairly benign asshat. I've met a few who would and have tried to take it out on my kids.
I love the world you've built with Magickeepers, and I think middle grade lends itself to being able to make these epic character traits stand, and lend themselves to the adventure of it all. My YA has some unsavory characters, even my protagonists have some unsavory traits. The world at large will write them off if they don't learn to blend into it, to play by the standards outside of the neighborhood. And there are characters that will break your heart, who let pettiness and greed change them or maybe it was always them to begin with...
But then take Jack... he can break into a house without making a sound, his language is beyond gutteral and on the occasions that he finds himself in a fight, he's not stopping until the other guy stops moving unless providence sends someone to step in. He'd also create a diversion to get himself arrested so his best friend won't and teeter on the line when a better life unfolds before him, because taking it might mean losing the people he loves.
I don't know, I'm not playing with black and white here. Bravery and loyalty and unbelievable courage, wrapped in a gutter mouth with a different set of ethics than the regular world applies... but ethics none the less.
Mark:
I really, REALLY like that about him. I think it's a rare thing. I am often struck when I do some of the volunteer work I do that when people ask me WHY, I shrug and think "Someone has to." And I "think" well . . . wouldn't ANYBODY? (And nothing I am doing is heroic by any means) . . . and I keep discovering the answer is no.
Natasha:
I don't even mind someone saying, "I am having problems paying this right now, can you give me two weeks." I RESENT the games. It insults my intelligence.
Kath:
That's a very interesting dichotomy!
In your magickeeper's books that comes through loud and clear, E. Even more fun is the fact that Nick is just learning his heritage, the importance of it and the ties that bind him to other magickeepers throughout history, so the reader gets to learn it with him.
I said before, I think there's a spark in your middle grade, it's just fun to read.
The reason I choose to write and even to read mostly genre books is because good triumphs and evil loses. And people who don't pay on time should get their comeuppance, too.
My heroine is a cat who changes bodies with a woman. Since she keeps her cat personality, it means she's basically selfish. But she's not evil. As long as no one hurts her, she'll leave them alone.
Edie:
We often remark around here that good triumphing over evil is the fun of fiction (at least the fiction I write). It is emotionally satisfying. I think of all my books, Freudian Slip was my fave because it was so clear in that regard. Angels versus demons.
In my class at the end of the year we were doing skits, and one of the boys made a really insensitive remark about homosexuals as part of his skit. Before I could even open my mouth ALL the other kids in the class jumped ALL over him, leaving him speechless and floundering. So there is hope!
And I have friends who have run into the same thing with payment for tutoring. It's not that the people can't pay. They just don't. And they aren't up front about why; they just play games.
And regarding characters. . . I've been reading Westerns lately. Talk about characters who rise to the occasion. But, yeah, I think that's why I read and why I write, to have a little more control over that feeling of hope and to have the assurance of being surrounded by people who will do the right thing (and people who get their comeuppance if they don't do the right thing). Because sometimes it's hard to find that in real life.
I can't believe that lady approached your kids like nothing had happened!
I get really saddened by humanity. My experience two weeks ago really made me lose faith in people, but the same night, I met an amazing couple. I'm trying to remind myself that where there is evil, there is also good - but as you know, I still struggle in realizing this.
In my current WIP, my MC makes a mistake. But she learns from her mistake and tries to make everything right by the end.
I think that's why my books are always so happy. I need to escape into that happy world as sometimes the real world gets me down.
That's why I read fantasy!
KathArine:
Sadly, as a mom to Mexican-Americans, while I am delighted that a classroom of kids jumps all over an anti-gay comment, I feel pretty confident if it had been a slur about Mexicans, it would have been allowed to pass. Seems we always have to have Other, which makes some people feel better about themselves.
I used to read a lot of Westerns--well, actually, listen to them on tape. And Lonesome Dove remains one of my favorite books ever.
FF:
I hear ya!
In my WIP, the MC always rises to the occasion and is always flawed. Just like real people. Just like me. For me, it is the essence of what the "human" part of human being is all about. Everyone has that opportunity, what is unfortunate is that most never respond to the call to be extraordinary.
Still working on the prejudice inside me.
When the beggar at the off ramp was a woman, I felt no pull to help her and had to explore why. Seems my deep down belief is that woman are resourceful and can take care of themselves whereas men are the weaker sex and need help.
Curious stuff going on inside.
I know what you mean about needing to see the good because the bad is so evident sometimes.
Your post reminds me of a conversation I had a couple weeks ago. I was asked why I stopped going to church. I went less and less often until I finally stopped, starting with the leukemia diagnosis in 2007.
"Have you lost your faith in God," they asked.
"No," I replied, "in people."
Too often it felt like I was the only one paying attention, because the message often didn't survive passage through the narthex. Then to have the same folks give the same, rote offers of prayer filled with saccharine sympathy seeming so false... week after week... it was more than I could bear.
I know better than to think I was the only person getting the message, but ugh it got to be such an exercise in discouragement.
Ewoh:
Amen to that, my friend.
You remain one of my real-life heroes.
Sarah:
It really explains my affinity for MG.
John:
I understand. Man, do I understand on so many levels.
Namaste.
E
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