In my last post, I talked about how to dramatize a character’s escape from the haunting effects of shame or guilt by seeking to regain the respect or obtain the forgiveness of the person most centrally connected to the humiliation or injury.
As I noted in the piece, however, and as many of you noted in your comments concerning your works in progress, it’s often impossible to achieve that respect or forgiveness for several obvious reasons: the person who can grant the reprieve is unwilling or unable to do so. Perhaps the person is dead. Maybe he’s hard of heart. Perhaps the events triggering the shame or guilt are so extreme that forgiving or forgetting is out of the question.
As I reflected on all this after the earlier posting, it occurred to me that many of the situations one encounters, both in life and fiction, are of this type, where there is no one person whose respect or forgiveness can complete the arc of transformation.
So what does a person—or a character—do in such a circumstance? How does one remove the stain of guilt or the cloud of shame when there is no one to turn to for clear-cut absolution?
A similar issue arises when the wound crippling the character’s soul isn’t caused by shame or guilt, but loss. How does one return to a “state of grace” when death, betrayal, rejection, illness, or some other misfortune turns one’s focus away from pursuing the promise of life, and instead points it toward protecting oneself from the pain of life?
The answer, interestingly enough, lies with the love story.
Although there are love stories in which an old romance is rekindled or reclaimed, the vast majority of such tales concern linking one’s affections to someone new.
This experience is so universal in real life we tend to take for granted why and how it occurs.
[Romantic love] is so universal in real life we tend to take for granted why and how it occurs.
Claudio meets Brownwyn (or vice versa), they feel that curious emotional itch known as attraction, they flirt, they test the waters, date, date some more, kiss, canoodle, consult with friends and family, perhaps a therapist or bartender, possibly a lawyer, maybe the dog. If things look promising they take it to “the next level.”
Feelings deepen or dissolve (or burst into flame). If, however, matters trend along a positive path, sooner or later someone makes The Big Move or Pops the Question or Finds a Muffin in the Oven—and the next thing you know, so-called friends are pelting poor Claudio and Brownwyn with small white projectiles disguised as rice.
But we, as writers, know that it’s not so stumbly-bumbly. Real life enjoys the distinct luxury of not needing to make sense. Fiction, of course, can do no such thing. Claudio is attracted to Brownwyn for a reason.
Real life enjoys the distinct luxury of not needing to make sense. Fiction, of course, can do no such thing.
The reason becomes more necessary (and interesting) the more Claudio and Brownwyn fail to conform to the boringly homogenous couple—generally compatible in education, disposable income, number of flagrant warts, etc.—that social science reminds us is the norm.
Not so with our lovers! He’s dopey and sleepy, which is to say happy. She’s sneezy, thus, bashful, and more times than not a tad grumpy. What can they possibly see in each other?
The phrase you complete me has entered the Galactic Museum of Clichés, but the truth at its heart, so to speak, reaches back at least to Aristophanes’s famous fable in Plato’s Symposium.
Aristophanes relates the tale of the earliest humans, who came in three forms: male, female, and androgynous. They all had two heads, four arms, four legs, etc., like two present-day humans stuck together, and were very powerful.
To decrease their power, and yet increase their number (so as to enhance the amount of worship and sacrifice they could offer the gods), Zeus ordered them cut in half. Ever since, each half has sought out the other, hoping to reunite with its former companion and regain the perfect unity they once enjoyed.
The point: for a long, long time, we’ve known that romantic attraction isn’t accidental.
This general notion has been embraced for centuries, embodied in as humble an idea as opposites attract (also to be found in the GMoC) or as heady a one as Freud’s repetition compulsion (where lovers repeatedly seek out mates modeled on an abusive or inattentive parent), or Jung’s concept of anima-animus projection (by which individuals unwittingly seek out those who echo their own suppressed, unconscious personality).
The point: for a long, long time, we’ve known that romantic attraction isn’t accidental. We choose our mates deliberately, if not always consciously. Or wisely.
As fiction writers, we know all this. The sneakier, subtler problem isn’t why it happens in the grand scheme of things, but why precisely, in this time and place, Claudio finds Bronwyn kinda sorta hot. Why these two people? Why now?
In real life, we like to retain a bit of mystery in answering such questions. It appeals to the more romantic or sentimental interpretations of fate we hold dear.
Even as readers and writers we don’t want things spelled out too clearly. Characters whose motives are too plainly depicted normally find themselves diminished in the readers’ esteem.
Characters whose motives are too plainly depicted normally find themselves diminished in the readers’ esteem.
But the need for mystery can’t be used as an excuse for lazy writing. Fiction, as already noted, needs to make sense in a way real life does not. And thus we need to have at least an inkling of why, despite their conspicuous differences, Claudio and Bronwyn feel that inscrutable itch.
I humbly suggest that the answer lies in how their lives have been ruined in the past.
I know that sounds like overheated shtick, but as writers we need always to think in terms of raising the stakes, and I think the need to love and be loved in fiction (if not life) inevitably results from a desire to reclaim something true, real, caring, and hopeful from the ruins of the past.
As I’ve noted in earlier posts, the character harbors a deep-seated need or longing to be a certain kind of person, to live a certain way of life. I call this the yearning. It remains unfulfilled. Why? Some weakness, wound, limitation, or flaw has created a sense that fulfillment of the yearning lies out of reach.
Or, as I put it earlier, the character has stopped believing in the promise of life, and begun focusing on protection from the pain of life.
The character has stopped believing in the promise of life, and begun focusing on protection from the pain of life.
This dimming of the light of hope is what I mean by ruining one’s life. It’s how we settle and compromise, telling ourselves it’s for the best we abandon our dreams and “face reality.”
Compromise isn’t always cowardly or dishonest, of course. Sometimes our dreams are truly wild-eyed or at least misplaced, and only by fine-tuning what we yearn for, so that it lies more honestly within our reach, can we become who we want to be and live the life we want to lead. This is often referred to as the wisdom of acceptance. There is also wisdom in daring of course, and wisdom in knowing which is appropriate, acceptance or daring, in any given circumstance, or to which degree…
But I digress.
The state of lack created by unfulfilled yearning, the desire of the solitary person to find a mate, to fall in love, to share her life, speaks directly if mysteriously or unconsciously to a sense of loss. We know love, or believe we do, but it has somehow slipped away. We want it back to cure the emptiness, the loneliness. We’re looking for the person who can appease this longing.
In crafting our characters, we plumb the depths of their experience precisely to find those moments of joy and sorrow, shame and pride, guilt and forgiveness, loss and connection, that frame their deepest sense of who they want to be and what they want from life. The positive moments keep alive the hope for what the negative moments have diminished or destroyed.
And then something happens: a misfortune occurs, or an opportunity presents itself. (Inciting incident, anyone?)
In ways the character may not see initially, the misfortune or opportunity echoes the earlier moments of shame, forgiveness, joy, loss, etc. The character in some way recognizes that the exterior challenge speaks to a deep inner need: to overcome the weakness, heal the wound, transcend the limitation, rectify the flaw. To be happy. To be whole.
In ways the character may not see initially, the misfortune or opportunity echoes the earlier moments of shame, forgiveness, joy, loss.
In most great stories, this wedding of interior struggle to external challenge will also require or create the opportunity for an interpersonal relationship, or the deepening of one that already exists. It’s this weaving of the three lines of conflict—interior, exterior, and interpersonal—that provides the story with its thematic unity.
It’s the weaving of the three lines of conflict—interior, exterior, and interpersonal—that provides the story with its thematic unity.
And so in devising a story in which the character needs respect or forgiveness from someone who can’t or won’t provide it, or one in which the pain of a great loss, betrayal, or rejection has diminished the character’s hope for a gratifying life, we need to see how the exterior challenge and the interpersonal relationship (in love stories, they’re often the same), speak to the interior struggle—the character’s need for love, or authenticity, or dignity, or redemption.
How does this particular goal or this particular connection with this person help overcome the weakness, heal the wound, transcend the limitation, rectify the flaw?
If you find yourself having trouble answering the question—and let’s not kid ourselves, it’s seldom a snap—look to the love story for inspiration. How do people fall in love? Pretty much the same way they overcome their guilt, their shame, their despair, their loneliness, their lack of self-worth.
Something or someone calls to them, beckoning the better self, the person they want to be, the life they want to live. Even if they’re mistaken about that better self and ideal life, the struggle will offer an opportunity to be more brave, more honest in the answer.
Maybe they’ll fail. It’s your story.
And yes, there are indeed stories where no such struggle occurs, no arc exists, no transformation is at stake. There are stories where nothing happens, the characters are stuck, or stumble blindly through a labyrinth, never finding the way out. Maybe the character is simply a signifier in a system of signs. Modernism and its post- and post-post progeny have made considerable hay from such stories. This accounts in part for the equation of ironic with wisdom.
But if I can invoke Old Man Hemingway for a moment: “True nobility isn’t being better than your fellow man, it’s being better than your former self.” There’s nothing obsolete, inferior, sappy, or unwise in writing stories about that kind of nobility. Ask anyone who’s suffered a great lose, or needed to seek forgiveness.
Does your story concern someone who’s suffered a great loss, rejection, or betrayal? How does the misfortune or opportunity they face in the story speak to that experience, and offer some way to overcome its effects?
Does your story concern a character seeking to come out from under a cloud of guilt or shame, but the person who might forgive or respect her can’t or won’t oblige? How does the external challenge and interpersonal relationships in the story help the character resolve this interior struggle and find some kind of redemption?
Note: Due to an ongoing house renovation requiring my input with workmen, considerable moving of furniture, etc., I may be away from my desk for considerable amounts of time today. I will try to respond to your comments as promptly as I can. Thanks for understanding.
About David Corbett
David Corbett is the author of six novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime, Blood of Paradise, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, and The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories, and his non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest (where he is a contributing editor). He has taught through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character, and Writer’s Digest will publish his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
“The state of lack created by unfulfilled yearning, the desire of the solitary person to find a mate, to fall in love, to share her life, speaks directly if mysteriously or unconsciously to a sense of loss.”
Excellent, David. You’ve clarified what can be confusing about the inner journey. Shame is really a subcategory of loss. Redemption is really a subcategory of love. Brilliant.
Now, the wedding announcements in the New York Times are interesting. The pictures that accompany them often show two individuals whose faces are mirror images of each other. People seem to marry those who look very much like them.*
Couples tend to conform to each other yet we’re talking about couples at the outset of their lives together. What do you think explains this? Is it gene perpetuation? Narcissism? Or is it perhaps that the loss one is seeking to repair is the loss of oneself?
(*My marriage may be the exception here as my wife is beautiful.)
Anyway, great food for thought and a reminder that a story will not completely fulfill us without love.
Hey, Don:
You remind me of the concept of the Hedonic Ladder, which states that a life change (like a wedding) will only create a heightened sense of happiness for a brief period. We return to our normal level of happiness in relatively short order.
I’m not entirely sure what causes the similitude one finds in standard relationships. Self-protection perhaps. Or mirroring (see more below).
Mette and I don’t look much alike — and I’m considerably older — but we share a certain level of mutual interest in books and movies (our interests are compatible, though hardly identical), we’re both pretty silly and playful, and those traits more than anything make it easy to get along.
But the reason I married Mette is because she possesses a key trait I lack: the knack for happiness. I can put a dark cloud on any silver lining you give me. She wakes up every morning in a splendidly chipper mood. I don’t understand it. I’m sometimes even suspicious of it. But I am so, so grateful she’s in my life. She teaches me what I need to know: It’s okay to be okay.
BTW: part of my ability to accept Mette’s love is the result of considerable therapy. My mother was a difficult woman, to put it gently. My early relationships with women like her were stormy (again, to be brief). But my father and I were quite close, and he was the true source of unconditional love in my childhood. At some point, my therapist noted: Why don’t you try dating someone more like your father? (That is to say: practical, gentle, kind, funny, selfless, honest…) The result was my first wonderful marriage to Terri, which ended when she died, and my current one to Mette. They’re quite different women, but share key traits with my father.
As for others, I think some of the “mirroring” you discussed in a recent post takes place. To get along and maintain the bliss, people unwittingly mask their differences and emphasize their similarities. Gradually that stops and the differences emerge. And if one or the other is blind to the unconscious aspects of self that drew them to the other, this can lead to disaster.
Anyhoo, my two cents’ worth. Glad you found the post thought-provoking.
Wow, as if your actual post wasn’t thought-provoking and emotionally revelatory enough, now you share *this*. In the immortal words of Keith Partridge, I think I love you.
Thank you for sharing so much, and in doing so, setting an example for how deep we writers need to dig if we’re going to do this right.
You and I, we need to drink together. Preferably from the skulls of our enemies. Or we could just go to Applebees. I’m easy.
I’d love to have that drink. Someday, when we’re in the same zip code, or time zone, or …
Fortunately, my enemies tend to congregate at Applebee’s.
Win-Win!
Thanks, brother. BTW: My use of Claudio and Bronwyn as the names for my lovers was basically to give you something to chuckle about.
Wonderful post, David. I am critiquing a love/not-love story and passing this on to my friend.
I agree with Don about the backgrounds. What we read in novels (opposites attracting) is not borne out in real life. Most of the stable marriages I know are those people with similar backgrounds. My husband and I are an exception (he’s non-religious American with a Swedish-Lithuanian background and I’m a religious nut from India) but after 30+ yrs together we are more similar, converging upon the same morals and values. It’s the best love story :)
And it makes me realize that all stories have that *love* element, whether it is friendship, romantic, filial.
Hi, Vijaya:
I find it interesting that everyone notes the similiarity in couples, but sees the rule of exclusion at play in their own marriages!
I think your attraction to your secular husband speaks to an unconscious level of skepticism or at least curiosity in your own psyche, and the fact that you have both grown in your marriage a sign of open-minds and open hearts, not blind conformity.
Of course, I have nothing to base that on but gut instinct from what I know of you here. And my usual baseless confidence in my own B.S.
Thanks for chiming in.
P.S. IN re-reading my reply, it seems unusually rushed and slight. What I meant to say: it may be that you found your husband-to-be admirable precisely because he echoed, consciously or not, your own rational/skeptical side. You didn’t need your obvious traits amplified, because you felt confident in those. it was the “otherness,” la difference, that intrigued you. And the fact your marriage didn’t just survive but flourished indicates you both felt open to learning from the other, which I think is the great gift of closeness and love.
David, you had us pegged right away and yes, I do feel rather exceptional (just like Don).
Our cultural differences are more a problem with raising of kids — when I was a girl in India type. But my husband and I are complementary. That adage about finding your other half is so true.
The sad thing about giving away all the secrets of fiction (this is definitely one of them) is that writers may know WHAT they’re supposed to do, but will still not know HOW.
I suggest that the HOW comes from understanding YOURSELF. The actor’s method – find something in your own life that is somehow similar, regardless of whether its intensity is in the same range, or even whether it is in the same area – is what works for me.
Once you identify the emotion the character has, and the emotional journey you’re trying to take the reader on, you can always find that you have experienced that emotion yourself – and empathy will help you write it.
(I learned that from The Fire in Fiction, Donald Maass.)
It seems cold to pin the emotions you’re writing to a corkboard and deliberately make them happen, but if you don’t do it explicitly, you’re depending on some vague subconscious impulse – and those miss all the time. Or maybe it works for genius writers automatically, and I have to struggle. No matter: I can still do it, even if it is work.
Hi, Alicia:
One can easily fall off the bicycle by over-concentrating on the pedals. And fiction that too simplistically dissects the human heart will seem trite and contrived.
As I said in the post, this isn’t a snap. It’s hard to do well. Your intuitive grasp of the character needs to be deep and broad enough so that it fuses all the old wounds and healings into a coherent and yet contradictory whole. That will point to what the character feels is lacking in her life and whatever confidence she possesses it can be appeased.
Whatever happens in the book has to somehow resonate with that lack, or the character is just “doing stuff.”
It becomes mechanical when the writer’s understanding of human nature and command of craft are limited.
I agree that using one’s own experience isn’t just wise, it’s inescapable. But I also think we, as writers, need to use “What if …” to move beyond our own experience to expand our imaginations — and our compassion.
I’ve had this post up on an open tab for about two hours now. I keep coming back to digest it – it’s just that meaty. Which I appreciate very much.
It’s funny, but this last crop of beta-readers almost unanimously agreed that there was something missing from the love story for my primary protagonists. They’re both wounded and need each other in different ways. I’d been so focused on keeping them apart, I think I neglected to clearly define the ways in which they (forgive the Jerry Maguire-ism) “complete each other” in the resolution. And taking a deeper look at that really helps me with the setup.
This has been super helpful today, David. Best of luck with the renovation. Thanks for helping me with the story heavy lifting. Don’t throw out your back on the real thing!
Hey, Vaughn:
Let me repeat: this isn’t a snap. It’s no big trick to slap two plot puppets together and call them wed, but it’s damn hard to create a convincing connection between two well-developed characters. They have, as we so often say, “a life of their own.” They don’t want to conform to our insidious, manipulative intentions.
The fact you worked so hard to keep them apart was by no means an error. In fact, I’ll bet as you go back and examine them again, you’ll see in their resistance to each other a mask or armor against revealing what it is they really want and need. And that’s where you’ll discover the seeds of lack and yearning that each responds to in the other.
Sometimes you can draw that out, reveal it, in interactions with secondary characters, so it doesn’t come out of the blue. But the secondary character cannot completely gratify the need at issue. The best friends can’t be the lover. That’s where the loved one steps in. But first: conflict!
Or so I’m told.
Good luck, and thanks as always for chiming in.
“I’ll bet as you go back and examine them again, you’ll see in their resistance to each other a mask or armor against revealing what it is they really want and need. And that’s where you’ll discover the seeds of lack and yearning that each responds to in the other.”
Solid observation and advice. I suspect this examination will bear fruit. Thanks again!
Hi, all:
First let me apologize for the typose in the final stretch of the post. A lot going on around the old homestead of late.
Erratum:
This accounts in part for the equation of ironic with wisdom. (“ironic” should be “ironic detachment”)
Ask anyone who’s suffered a great lose, or needed to seek forgiveness. (“lose” of course should be “loss”)
Nothing like botching your closer. Sigh…
P.S. Oh, and “typose” should be “typose”.
And…
I repeat: Sigh…
AAAACCCCKKKK!!!!!!!!
Typos.
Shoot me now.
I thought “typose” was especially apt, and (ahem) ironic.
You have no idea how much I would like to take credit for it, and claim I was being ironic and clever all along. Sadly, I cannot. Hand, meet cookie jar.
I found this piece and it’s earlier companion (Dec 8) absolutely brilliant.
The distillate of philosophy and psychology you’ve shared in deconstructing the emotional make-up and motivations of characters works for me. I find these articles and DM’s piece on “emotional craft” (do not have date handy) really reinforce one another. These WU thoughts are not just interesting but fingers-on-the-keyboard useful. Thank you!
In considering the redemptive arc I wonder about the circumstance where the aggrieved may offer forgiveness but the protagonist is unwilling/unable to forgive themselves. The shame or guilt the character experiences is, in its essence, self-imposed. While the forgiveness/acceptance of others can relieve or erase the shame/guilt it can only do so if the “offender” can forgive himself. Perhaps this is the character who has ceased to see the promise of life. Enter external events/love potential (?)
Much to absorb and ponder – have printed this , your Dec 8 piece, and DM’s “emotional craft” contributions. They are on my desk for repeated reference.
Thank you for thought-provoking and USEFUL post!
That’s a great question, Tom. I guess you’d call that another variety of “broken arc,” since the character must find some way to gain respect, forgiveness, or redemption in the absence of the person who can provide it: himself.
I think this happens when the act of shame or guilt/harm that has occurred particularly violates what the character expects of himself. Again, it goes back to the yearning: the kind of person the character wants (or expects) to be, the kind of life he wants (or expects) to live.
In this instance, the character will have to find some way to convince himself he truly deserves the forgiveness that’s already been offered. So the issue isn’t forgiveness per se, but worth. He must rise to the level of his own inner expectation to believe he has erased the stain of his error so he can feel justified in re-entering the circle of love and acceptance.
This raises another question though: Why can’t he forgive himself if others do? Are his standards higher? If so, is that legitimate, or is he excessively self-punitive (a kind of backhanded narcissism)?
Clearly, this can go in many directions, depending on what has happened and why the character finds such severe fault with himself. Perhaps he learns that the forgiveness of others, so rarely given, is a blessing to accept and his self-condemnation is excessive. Perhaps his sense of honor will require that, though he is grateful for the forebearance, kindness, and forgiveness of others, he feels a need to answer to a higher standard, and will need to find a way to show he can measure up.
Nice! Your comments track perfectly for me (and my WIP).
“This raises another question though: Why can’t he forgive himself if others do? Are his standards higher? If so, is that legitimate, or is he excessively self-punitive?”
I think some characters/people see their transgression as more profound than their “victims” because they, at some level, knew the possible harm/hurt yet went ahead. In effect the aggrieved person’s forgiveness is not seen to encompass the degree of the transgression (letting them off easy).
While it could be said standards are higher it might also be that the protagonist felt a particular responsibility for/to the injured or dead party (child/spouse/dependent/vulnerable).
As you note this can go many directions. Character and story possibilities multiplied and potentially deepened. Much appreciate it!
I read right over the typos and supplied the word “detachment” to go with irony, so it all made perfect sense to me.
Thank you, David. I write mysteries with a small element of romance, but I am thinking about writing a new book that focuses more on the romance. So I really needed this post. To my “ears” a lot of the romance I read comes across as souped up or too melodramatic. Thus, I think it can be hard to convey those profound emotions without generating some ick factor (for me at least). I like the idea of trying to suggest a more subtle interplay of complex, mysterious forces at work that the lovers may not always consciously realize or fully express.
Thanks S.K. The love stories I always enjoy most are those that show one or both characters breaking through some barrier, recognized or not, that has sealed away their hearts or in some other way shut them off from the honesty and vulnerability real love requires. “To be loved is to be seen.” I read that once in a John Hawkes story, and I’ve never forgotten it.
Good luck!
David–
The embarrassment of riches in your post requires that anyone commenting will have to pick a “first among equals.”
So (no surprise), I pick what has special application to my current project: “…the character has stopped believing in the promise of life….”
This and many other things in your post help to clarify for me what I’m trying to get right in my current project. Brenda Contay, the journalist/central character in my suspense series relies on a catch phrase to mask what is really a fear of self-examination. This fear stems from feelings of guilt and shame. For false but plausible reasons, she has decided happiness is impossible with the love of her life. In fact, she has stopped believing she is entitled to the promises life has to offer–i.e., happiness. She goes off to Florida to make a “clean break.” The idea of an abrupt, complete end to her affair seems grown-up and real-world to her, but it serves to shield her from self-scrutiny. As the novel develops, this protective shield is worn away.
Thanks for so often making coherent what is anything but.
Barry: I would love to take credit for this fascinating aspect of your character, but I believe the praise belongs entirely and justifiably to you.
In particular, I love the fact that, like so many “adults,” she believes unhappiness is the default state for human affairs. And yet, as you wisely note, that’s just armor against the uncertainty and vulnerability that real, honest connection requires.
Good luck with the novel. Sounds to me like you’re onto something.
David–
P.S. Welcome to the world of home renovation. I’m certain one of the circles you-know-where makes heavy use of it.
Not arguing. But I wonder if sometimes a person is not yet, may never be, ready to seek forgiveness or to forgive. I have observed men and women veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. (Our son fought in both Ramadi and Fallujah. Was proud to be able to guard the Iraqi citizens as they went to the polls during their first free elections.)
But I’ve noticed that many of these veterans still have the 1000-yard stare. They’re not ready to deal with such things as forgiveness or seeking forgiveness, perhaps for several years. Sometimes, they never reach that state. We have spent many days in tears as we’ve heard of veteran after veteran, good American kids, who decided that they could no longer put up with our world, and they decide to take the violent, lonely way out.
The tragedy of their deciding that forgiveness is not necessary is as horrifying to me as watching them go into battle in the first place. What has happened to them that is so bad that the rejection of rejection takes precedence in their lives? That the answer is a loaded pistol, and not someone’s love and understanding.
Hi, Jim:
This is the kind of question that deserves far more than a “Reply” on a comment thread. But let me at least give it a try.
I have a novella out (“The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell”) that deals with an Iraq vet who suffers from what is known as Moral Injury.
As opposed to PTSD, which is fear-based (something has happened that fundamentally alters the individual’s belief in personal safety and well-being), Moral Injury concerns having heard about, witnessed, or taken part in something that so offends the conscience that one’s belief in the worth and meaning of life is devastatingly altered, perhaps for good.
Since I know some vets and have researched the war rather extensively, I know some of the sorts of things that could crack open a young man’s conscience. The hard part was exactly what you address: how to find a way for the character to return back inside the human circle — especially when our culture does not oblige citizens to share in the emotional and physical cost of the wars we deem necessary.
Although I think the military has made strides in treating soldiers severely traumatized by their experiences — more so for PTSD than Moral Injury as yet — this bright shining line between civilians and soldiers, those who never know combat and those who know it intimately — can create a chasm that can’t be bridged.
I have great respect for those who volunteer. But I think it lets too many of us off the hook, and places an undue burden of isolation and alienation on those who are supposed to just “return to normal life.” And I think that chasm also intensifies the belief that “no one will understand,” and there can be no return to the fold.
As I said, this is a topic that deserves far more attention than I can give it here. But the terrible place a soldier can find himself in, especially in counterinsurgency where women and even children can be the enemy — I feel guilty for what I did, my superiors and some of my peers deny it was wrong (That’s war”), my family and friends will never understand — exacerbated by nightmares and other symptoms, create a living hell that these men and women do not deserve. They deserve better, and we as the civilians who benefit from their service owe them that.
Hope is what keeps them around long enough to work through their issues. It can take years to learn to forgive, accept, and love oneself.
Wow, thanks David this is definitely a keeper post. There is much here for me to ponder. My married people in my novel have their marriage ripped apart by a tragedy in the family. So as the story unfolds they are at odds with one another, but always aware of the importance each plays in the other’s life. It presents lots of complications as they gradually come back together. I question how much of that aspect of my story needs to be revealed. The ending might be ending-heavy if I complicate the ending with relationship angst. P.S. Computers will auto-change what you have written. It’s not always you.
Hi, Beth:
The two great perils of marriage: personal tragedy and money. I think the reason the former is so insidious is because each of us grieves in a unique, personal way, and so the difficulty in sharing grief creates a barrier or a breach between the two people who normally would turn to each other. There’s no “strong one.” They’re both devastated and need the other in ways neither can muster.
To avoid an “ending-heavy ending” you may want to stop before total reconciliation is achieved. Show the first signs of their reconnection, and leave the rest to the reader.
This is often true of experiences like forgiveness and reconciliation. Carry it too far, and it stops being believable. But show just the beginning, or show how it can go no further (for now) than this gesture or that concession, and Less is More kicks in.
Good luck — to you and your heartbroken characters.
This is what happens in Ordinary People. The married couple is broken apart. But at the end, the mother and son see the spark of reconciliation.
In my story the protagonist suffers rejection by her mother. The mother loves the other daughter. The protagonist mistakenly believes that if she keeps her sister safe, then her mother will eventually love her.
The protagonist also betrays her best friend and is publicly humiliated. Lucky for her, they reconcile during an emotional scene about trust, honesty, and forgiveness.
Hi, Tina:
Parental preference for the other sibling is one of the great stories of all time, but I don’t think the mother-daughter element, and sibling rivalry between sisters, has been addressed as much as it should. Good for you for tackling it.
David, my girlfriend was introduced to me on the basis of having told a mutual friend that she’d like to go out with a guy who wrote the descriptions on the backs of postcards. Since that was one of my jobs back when sundials were how time was told, we sealed the deal. I completed her need for a postcard writer. Ahh, love and its vagaries.
Yours is a wonderfully meaty post (with vegetables too), and plumbing the deliriously layered depths of yearning, with all its psychological/physical/metaphysical impacts is a rich way to approach character behavior. One of those things where the more digging that’s done, the higher the yield.
The main character in the novel I’m collaborating on now has never been a reality facer, and he has sincere yearning for love, recognition, self-respect and more, but he can’t get out of his own way. His unstated fear is that he never will be whole, or never better than his former self, as you succinctly state. We might let him off the hook late in the book, but the hook will have sunk deeply.
Thanks for a great post; even your typose were helpful.
PS We are having new flooring put in early next week; please come by to supervise. (Or to make me martinis.)
Ha! Last thing you want is me supervising anything requiring skill with tools. But cocktails I can manage no problema.
One of the great conundrums (love that word) in both real life and fiction is when the character through misguided “wisdom” believes the best of life is already over, or that striving for something better is for suckers. And yet how many of us haven’t in some way allowed ourselves to accept that logic — because it’s easier than renewing the struggle, facing the risk of failure again, etc.
But one of the great devices of fiction is wiggling what the character wants in front of him then taking it away. Even cynical protagonists have trouble not reaching out to grab it back.
Good luck with the project.
This post and the comments are a treasure trove of good stuff, David. It will help with at least two WIPs and probably others. The quote from Hemingway was especially appreciated. It explains why I find so much “literary” fiction so distasteful and cold. The recurrent theme seems to be “Life’s a bitch, Go figure.” I like to end my stories on a more hopeful note.