On Monday, Sandra Ruttan had a post http://dosomedamage.blogspot.com/2011/05/do-you-see-what-i-see.html at Do Some Damage that touched on the issue of race and being politically correct. Something a child of the fifties (me) has a bit of difficulty with. I always find myself having to stop and consider if I'm offending someone instead of just blurting out what's on my mind. And yes, I step in it quite often without intending too.
Of course this had me thinking about a writer's responsibility. The thing is we're all raised differently, in different regions, and with different prejudices (and yes, we're all prejudiced in one way or another). The books we read, the movies and TV shows we watch all shape our thought processes. All of these influences shaped the person we grew up to be and that's what informs our writing. We bring all of our baggage to the story, both good and bad.
What brought this home for me was remembering an incident when I was nine years old. There was a boy in our fifth grade class who was about fifty pounds heavier and two foot taller than the rest of us. His name was Bubba (really!). One day this boy pinned me up against the wall in the hall when no one else was around and started to threaten me with all of the things that he could do to me. I was pretty much scared shitless, but a swift kick to his nether regions doubled him over and gave me a chance to escape to the girl's bathroom where I hid until it was safe to come out. Happy to say that he never bothered me again after that.
Now that incident could have prejudiced me against boys but we had other boys in our class who were kind and friendly so it was just a matter of seeing that it was the individual and not the whole that was scary.
Still that incident shows up in my stories because it's a part of me. What keeps coming back is not the boy but that suffocating feeling I had being pressed against the wall with only half an inch of space separating us. That terror has shown up in many of my stories and I expect in one way or another it always will.
Everything we've experienced, from the smell of apple pie baking in the oven to being terrified half to death in some manner, shapes our stories and spills out on the page whether we realize it or not. We can't help it and to change those stories to please every possible reader would not only weaken the story, but rewrite our own personal history. Besides, isn't that what our work is supposed to do? Aren't we supposed to make people stop and think, laugh or cry, nod their head in agreement or yell their displeasure? We're storytellers - we seek the truth of who and what we are as human beings, warts and all.
6 comments:
Amen, Sandra. Very well said.
Brava!
Some of the strongest scenes in my writing come from these kind of really salient experiences. It's amazing how so many years later they can play and replay in your head. Flashbulb memories really.
Great post.
Thanks, guys! And yes, flashbulb memories describes it perfectly, Charles. I hadn't even realized that's where those terrifying moments in my stories were coming from until I started thinking about that.
When I was in third grade, a kid named Louis Moonblatt terrorized me all year. He had red hair and freckles and to this day, boys who look like him scare me. He looked a lot like that bully on A CHRISTMAS STORY. That was the beginning of my insomnia so his impact was lasting.
Funny how our childhood monsters stick with us, Patti. I wonder sometimes if the boogie man is still living in the closet, but I'm afraid to look :)
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