Tag: characters

Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized, Writing

Que Sera Sera — What Will Be, Will Be, Or How Twisting Reality Can be Fun

Posted on by jennrae

Doris Day recently had a birthday, and of course that reminds me of one of my favorite happy songs. I love the tragic so much, it is nice to like a happy song once in a while since different moods are important to writing for me.

They can make or break a story. I listened to Muse for my last writing prompt, which was depressingly dreary. But, a few years ago I would have ended that story differently.

I wrote a short story that isn’t on here back then about a cool blonde in a cafe, calmly waiting for a bomb to explode. A terrorist without a conscious willing to die amidst chaos because she can, her reasons weren’t explained because she was a cool cold collected character. What made her this way? Hard to say. If I wanted to write a longer version I might delve into her more to see why someone would casually throw away her life and the lives of others.

This time I wanted to explore a would be terrorist that as a kid, would not be fully desensitized to people and could still be ‘saved’ in a sense from being part of the machine of senseless destruction.

I wanted to get into the thought processes and how one makes a decision like this that affects so many people, so many strangers really. We can assume a whole swathe of people is one way or like this or that. But, when we know individuals we realize this is a simplistic way of looking at the world and nothing about reality is simple.

People are not inherently bad or good, they are everything in between, and most people have a rationale for their actions. Whether this rationale is logical or not it is still that person’s rationale for their actions.

A lot of times this is based on personal experience and assumptions, sometimes it is based on information that is readily available via the media. The old adage that if it is on TV it must be true, or the newer version, If it is on the internet it must be true is part of this problem.

Either way, if any of my short stories sparks some thought somewhere, good. Then I have done my job as a writer. To illustrate and propagate ideas and hopefully thoughts that can awaken the minds of the sleepers out there.

Honestly though, I just enjoy getting into the minds of people that are far removed from me, it is like untapped characters are exciting and intriguing. I like to get out of my skin and into another. Same reason I love fantasy and Science-Fiction so much. I like to take normal on its head, and tilt it. I get a perverse pleasure out of skewing reality.

Maybe it is because that is a magical power of a sort. To be able to take something mundane, add in a dash of a little experience and somehow voila; it is something extraordinarily weird. That kernel of truth is still in there, way deep in the center of the acorn hoping the astute reader can get to it amidst the layers of shiny metal and fire breathing dragons.

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing

Writing Prompt #9 On Innocence

Posted on by jennrae

Obit for Your Favorite Character Write an obituary for your favorite fictional character (literary, television, etc.), including  how the death occurred.

This is hard because my favorite fictional character is one of my own. But it is like a bad inside joke if I were to use him because no one would know who I was referring to, nor would they have a reason to care. Of other people’s characters I have always had a soft spot for Sandor Clegane, but honestly no one would write an obituary for him. In fact, a lot of people probably would just assume he is dead.  Maybe I can do King Arthur. Everyone knows who he is, and I love me some Thomas Mallory.

I think my favorite in those stories would be Sir Percival though. I can relate to Percival. He is minding his own business when knights happen upon him and he gets swept up in becoming a squire and then becoming one of Arthur’s knights, and eventually he looks for the Holy Grail.  There are three main searchers and only one can grasp the grail. The one that can is Galahad who is almost a stand in for Jesus. He is the son of Lancelot and so pure of heart and just so perfect, he is like a prodigy who can do no wrong. In short, he is boring as hell.  Then there is his papa, Lancelot. He is world weary, no longer innocent; he has had his torrid affair with Guinevere, and betrayed his best friend. He is basically too immoral, too worldly to see the grail. He ends up trying to atone and becomes a hermit.  Percival is interesting because he is an innocent, he genuinely believes the world is a good place, has not had any affairs, and has not done anything bad. But the argument goes that if he was tempted he might, he is too naïve or stupid to be corrupt, whereas Galahad has been tested and is pure by conviction.

Now, I don’t think Percival is stupid. I think Percival is child like in his innocence, and because of this he gets darn close to the grail. But doesn’t get it, because he gets tested and just falls short. But he is close. And the fact he isn’t perfect, like the rest of us on this planet, makes him the most sympathetic of the three. He sees the grail, which is more than Lancelot. But does not get to touch it like Galahad.

Still not feeling the obituary. But I suppose in medieval times an obit would be rather simple. It would be in Latin engraved on a stone saying, ‘Here lies Percival, one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table. He was great, and innocent, but not pure enough. He fell short but he tried till the bitter end. We should all be so lucky to see something so rare and to die with our childlike innocence intact and not corrupted by the world. His legacy will be his deeds as a knight and the search for the Holy Grail. He was an explorer and an idealist. May his name never be forgotten or the role he played in the journey.