Creatures of Longing

It made perfect sense that my main character was going to be angry.  He had good reason.  His mother had walked out on him and his dad when he was only three.  He has never understood why she left, and he hasn’t seen her since she did.

What else could he feel except anger? 

And that’s the way the early drafts of Sunshine, my most recent novel, began.  An angry boy—his name is Ben—forced to spend time with a mother he resents.

It was easy to climb inside him, to feel his anger.  To fashion a plot that acted it out. Yet I kept sensing something was wrong with the way my story was unfolding.  Something I couldn’t quite name.

Until finally I could.

Ben was so darned unappealing! 

Then one evening I stumbled upon a film.  A mother of two children was very ill.  The younger child was loving, responsive, always trying to help.  The thirteen-year-old  seethed with resentment. 

I watched this family scenario play out, recognizing its authenticity.  Of course, two different children at two different stages of emotional development would respond differently to their mother’s illness.  Of course, a young teen might be so entrenched in her own thwarted needs as to be incapable of anything but anger.

I understood entirely, and . . . I couldn’t stand the kid!

She was so darned unappealing!

The next day, I sat down to face my angry boy again, remembering the girl in the film.

And I started over. 

In the new draft, I tucked his anger beneath the surface.  It was much more interesting there, and Ben was much more appealing without it.  Instead of the overt anger that had motivated his every move in the early drafts, I gave him a plan. 

A huge one.

He wants to visit his mother because he intends to fix whatever went wrong the first time, whatever he’s sure he did wrong to make her leave.  And once he has proved himself, surely she will agree to come back home.

That desire transformed my main character.

As it transformed the reader in me.

I was free to care about Ben. 

At last! 

I cared about what he wanted.  Even as a reader realistic enough to understand the futility of his desire, I still cared.

That change not only gave me a likable character, it did something else.  It gave me a more interesting character.  The anger gone underground become a source of nuance.

So Ben, wanting to draw closer to his mother, shrugs off her touch.  He didn’t mean to do it.  He doesn’t even understand why he did.  But, longing for her, he shrugs her off.

It’s a fundamental principle of storytelling.  One I’ve explained to my students many times.  And every now and then I have to explain it again to myself.   

Readers are more attracted to positive energy than negative. 

We engage with others who, themselves, engage. 

We love those who love.

And we are, all of us, creatures of longing. 

Whether we’re meeting over coffee or on the page, it is the longing that allows us to recognize ourselves in one another.

In the next story I write, I’ve promised myself I won’t forget.  That kid is going to want something.  Fiercely.

From the first draft!