{"id":1487,"date":"2012-02-14T10:31:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T16:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1487"},"modified":"2012-02-14T10:31:15","modified_gmt":"2012-02-14T16:31:15","slug":"unexpected-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1487","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected Deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reminded again this weekend of the way death comes seemingly out of nowhere to shatter relationships new and old.\u00a0\u00a0 A friend of mine in another state was participating in a serial transport of a rescued dog from the shelter where it was first found to its future home, some two thousand miles away.\u00a0\u00a0 The puppy stayed at her house overnight, and the next day she drove it to the next person in the chain.\u00a0\u00a0 The person set off…and she and the puppy were killed in a weather-related road accident.\u00a0 You can read about it on my friend’s blog<\/a>, which includes a beautiful tribute to the remarkable woman who was killed.\u00a0 Please do, in fact.<\/p>\n

It’s not only the bad people who die…and the good people who die of disease often give us time to prepare (not happily, but with the chance to say “I love you” a few more times.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The sudden, unexpected deaths of those who are clearly good people hurts.\u00a0\u00a0 Our world is diminished.<\/p>\n

The writer who wants to tell a story with some depth to it is faced with the need to include pain and loss in that story.\u00a0\u00a0 It need not (for my mind should not) be all about pain and loss, unless the writer’s capable of creating true tragedies, in which the reader experiences that pity and awe Aristotle talked about.\u00a0\u00a0 Something (if only the reader’s catharsis) needs to come out of the pain.<\/p>\n

Death is not the only pain available to the writer, of course.\u00a0 But death digs deeper into the reactions of the other characters and the writer (and later, the reader.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What the writer needs to be aware of are the nuances in reaction to the different kinds and situations of death.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The “senseless” death–like that of Catherine and the puppy on the icy road near Tucumcari–is different from the willing sacrifice of a Sergeant Vardan in combat–or the death of Kieri’s predecessor king in Lyonya, of incurable illness.<\/p>\n

More than I realized when I started it, this set of books concerns itself with change and transformation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our main POV characters started with a great midlife change–Arcolin, Dorrin, Kieri all had a major life-change forced on them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So did the secondary, tertiary and minor characters around them.\u00a0\u00a0 Deaths–both actual and symbolic–have continued to transform the entire cast of characters, putting them into new configurations, where we see other sides of their characters.<\/p>\n

Sometimes a character puts on a “red shirt” (Star Trek attire for someone on the away team who’s going to be dead pretty soon.)\u00a0\u00a0 The writer one of whose favorites–someone the writer had planned to use even more in subsequent volumes–puts on a red shirt has a terrible dilemma.\u00a0\u00a0 Killing off favorite characters isn’t popular, and has been\u00a0 overused by some writers as a cheap way of forcing tension.\u00a0 Will this one die too?\u00a0 How about the next?<\/p>\n

But there’s X, whose red shirt is glaring at the writer even as the writer tries to convince X (behind the scenes) not to do this. \u00a0\u00a0 “C’mon, you’re well-loved, everybody likes you…don’t do anything stupid. \u00a0 We NEED you.” \u00a0 And the character sits there, arms folded, red shirt bright as blood, and says nothing.<\/p>\n

The writer can sometimes negotiate a delay. \u00a0 Not this volume, but the next.\u00a0 Or the one after that. \u00a0 The character may consent to have his\/her death pushed back a volume.\u00a0 But at some point the writer gives up and admits that X is in fact going to die in this story. \u00a0\u00a0 How?\u00a0 Well…X is X, with his\/her own fan club, practically. \u00a0 Random death will not do: no rocks falling out of the sky onto his\/her head. \u00a0 Stupid death will not do: no absent minded mixing up of the rat poison with the vitamin pills. \u00a0 It’s time for another long interview with the character. \u00a0 “You’re not stupid, X. \u00a0 And the book has its requirements, too.\u00a0 You’re wearing the red shirt; I get that. \u00a0 So–show me how it goes.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ll put it in where it fits the book best.”<\/p>\n

Then the writer writes the scene, cries for awhile (well, this writer does) and eventually finds the right place to put it in the book.<\/p>\n

Sudden, unexpected, undeserved. and unwanted death still has to come into the story.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe not rocks from the sky, but sickness, accidents,\u00a0 random malicious acts.\u00a0\u00a0 It may be possible to give perceptive readers a hint that someone is wearing a red shirt and it’s only a matter of time…(not always, but maybe)\u00a0 but the “out of the blue” hits have to come out of the blue.<\/p>\n

Like Catherine’s.\u00a0 Like the puppy’s.\u00a0\u00a0 Leaving bystanders (and readers, and often the writer) stunned and uncertain where to go from here.<\/p>\n

The day after Catherine’s death on the road, I was driving home from church in the same weather pattern that had by then moved east enough.\u00a0\u00a0 Came out into sleet, then sleet and rain, then sleet and snow, then snow, including a brief encounter with foggy-icy stuff.\u00a0\u00a0 Thinking of Catherine and the storm, I was as careful as possible and got home safely, having found (and only with one tire) only one icy place on the road.\u00a0\u00a0 I was aware the whole day of danger, though, and the possibility that I, too, could be dead in a moment.\u00a0\u00a0 (And aware that we are all closer to our deaths than we were yesterday.\u00a0 And for some of us, growing older, it feels a lot closer than it did a year ago.\u00a0\u00a0 The freezing fog and the black ice could be over that next ridge.)<\/p>\n

It’s Valentine’s Day.\u00a0\u00a0 Go hug somebody.\u00a0\u00a0 (Me for a chocolate truffle and then going out to make use of the sunshine.\u00a0\u00a0 Lots of work to do, but I really need to be outdoors for an hour.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reminded again this weekend of the way death comes seemingly out of nowhere to shatter relationships new and old.\u00a0\u00a0 A friend of mine in another state was participating in a serial transport of a rescued dog from the shelter where it was first found to its future home, some two thousand miles away.\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,53,5],"tags":[22,106,62,112,107],"class_list":["post-1487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contents","category-life-beyond-writing","category-the-writing-life","tag-characters","tag-contents","tag-craft-of-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1488,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487\/revisions\/1488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}