The Taboo Topics

Most people know the general rule about not discussing religion or politics when you first meet someone.  Yet often that's what fascinates me about other people.  I am not a religious person, yet my interest in religion, and the role it's played in my life, strongly influences my writing.  I tried very hard in The Awakening to depict characters who clashed not because some were inherently good and others inherently evil, but because they hold conflicting beliefs that mean more to them than almost anything else.  None of the characters was inspired by me or my mother, but I'm sure some of the themes in the book came from a lifetime of conflict with my mom over religion.  We both had strong views about it, and over time those views diverged more and more.  My mother took that personally, seeing our differences as a failing on my part or hers or both, as she believed, as many people do, that  her beliefs were the only correct ones.  (Happily, at some point we reached a sort of truce, each letting the other go her own way.)

After my parents' deaths, the way religion can divide as much as unite became even more striking to me.  My mom and dad were hit by an intoxicated driver.  My mom died at the scene; my dad died after two major surgeries and 6 1/2 weeks of struggling to recover.  Because my parents were very religious, it didn't surprise me that many people said things about God when trying to offer words of comfort.  What did surprise me was the people who said things like, "It's God's will."  They must have believed such a concept would bring solace.  For me, though, the idea simply seemed wrong.  Surely a kind or just divine being had no reason to want my parents to die in such a painful and violent way.  And surely the individual who caused their deaths was not a god in the heavens, but a man behind the wheel who chose to drink and drive.  To blame -- or credit -- God seemed to me to let the man who had done this off the hook.  Other variations on the theme included that God had a purpose for everything and everything happened for the best.  If someone who recently suffered a loss or tragedy said that to me about her or his own circumstances, I wouldn't argue with that person.  But I could never for myself consider what happened to my mom and dad, or my or my family's loss of them, to be for the best.

Often I feel people offer comments about God and religion after a death as much to reassure themselves as to comfort others.  Why an all-powerful, all-good divine being would create a world where terrible things happen is a question that's difficult to answer.  One answer is that perhaps God doesn't watch over everyone on a personal level, but instead is only concerned with the very big picture -- the fate of the world, perhaps, or the fate of our souls.  In a culture that prays about the outcomes of football games or even attributes particularly good plays to God, though, that answer doesn't seem very satisfying.  But if there is a god and he or she does influence everyday life, why would that god heal one child's cancer and not another?  Or, worse, help a basketball player make a free throw and seemingly ignore the child with cancer altogether?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but they trouble me, so I write stories to explore them.  Writers get to create their own universe, to create order in their world even if there is none in real life.  That's why I love reading fiction, and why I'll keep writing so long as there are questions to ask.

From Initial Idea to Novel

My first idea for The Awakening was that there would be six pregnant women.  Tara Spencer was still the main character, and she was still a virgin when she got pregnant.  But at least one other pregnant woman also was a virgin, one was in menopause, and the others simply hadn't had sex with a man recently enough to have caused their pregnancies.  I wrote three chapters and an outline, submitted that to the Maui Writers Retreat, and was accepted into the thriller writing class with author Gary Braver.  (http://www.garybraver.com/books.html)  On Day 1 of the retreat, the group, and Gary, loved my chapters, but questioned my idea of 6 pregnant women.  I envisioned all 6 working together against the forces that wanted either to kill them or prevent their pregnancies from coming to term.  The other writers felt it would be too complicated to have so many protagonists and said the story needed just one woman to root for and follow.  I was skeptical -- I really thought I could make it work, which seemed to me to be proven by how much everyone was drawn in by the opening chapters. 

Later the same day, I attended a retreat session with horror writer John Saul and his long-time writing partner Michael Sack.  It was know as getting "Sauled and Sacked" and not all retreat attendees wanted to risk it.  The deal was that the student writer had to write a 21 word (or less) description of his or her book starting with "What if..." on a whiteboard in front of the whole room.  As likely as not, Saul and Sack ripped it to shreds.  I'd learned a lot in previous retreats from watching the process, and once from running an idea past them for a book I'd already written.  This time, I was determined to get their feedback before I wrote 80,000 words.

And so I did.  Saul and Sack found the premise interesting.  But they, too, insisted that 6 pregnant women was too many unless most would be killed off early.  They also asked if it would be catfight to see who was really pregnant with a new messiah.  That absolutely was not the way I wanted to go.

I returned to my retreat group the next day with revised chapters, killing off a couple of women early.  The chapters fell flat.  Gary asked why I wanted the 6 women.  I told him I wanted to show strong women with substantial roles in the book working together against those who wanted to harm them.  So many thrillers, especially in the movies, offer only walk-on parts for women, at best as wives or girlfriends, at worst as victims.  (I am so tired of watching movies where women are beaten, kidnapped, raped, or murdered that I hardly go to see action films any more.)  And even in books, if there is a woman protagonist in a thriller or suspense novel, she's often shown interacting only with men or, worse, always at odds with other women.  Gary suggested that the other women could stay in the book and could be Tara's allies, but she should be the only one pregnant.  That way, I'd have a clear main character and could still show women interacting, both through conflict and cooperation.  I rewrote again.  By Day 5 I had a solid outline to work from, as well as new opening chapters.

As you might guess if you've read The Awakening, Sophia and Nanor (now mentors to Tara), Kali (daughter of Nanor, eventual friend of Tara), and Anne (yoga instructor and friend of Sophia) are later versions of the characters who in the first draft were protagonists.  (I am revisiting the idea of mutliple pregnant virgins in the second book in the series, though with a very different slant.)

During the years it took me to write The Awakening, I never heard of the Bechdel test.  But I came across it later when I started reading blogs by other women writers and realized it hit on what bothered me about so many movies particularly.  To pass the test, a movie (or book) must include at least one scene where two or more female characters converse with each other (meaning back and forth dialogue) about anything other than men.  When I'm at the show, or reading a book, I often mentally pause to see how many, or how few, meet the test.  It can be discouraging.  It's not that there aren't good books or movies that don't meet this test.  I'd just like to see a lot more that do.

For a list of movies that fail the Bechdel test see http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/10-famous-films-that-surprisingly-fail-the-bechdel-test.php). 

Progress on next book - films v. books

I'm about a third of the way through the second book in The Awakening series.  The working title is The Unbelievers, but I'm also thinking about The Revelation.  Except the latter seems a little too biblical.  Which sounds strange considering I'm writing about young woman who became pregnant while still a virgin.  But the story itself -- and the series -- is not biblical.  Or even Christian, though I don't see it as anti-Christian.  One reviewer suggested I had a post-modernist view of religion.  I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds impressive. 

In the meantime, someone I knew in grade school contacted me through Facebook, asking if I had any short stories I thought would make a good film.  He's been studying filmmaking and has made some short films, and he was looking for something to make into a short film that could be submitted to film festivals.  I sent him a couple stories, and the one he really liked was The Tower Formerly Known as Sears.  He wrote a script which has a bit of a different slant than the story, which is all right.  I often think the best movies are ones that capture some of the spirit of the book but show the director and screenwriter's own visions.  Because a film is different from a story or book.  Character, theme, story, all are portrayed in a different way.  That's why I liked the movie The Dead Zone.  It's my favorite Stephen King book, and the movie departed from it significantly but kept the essense of the theme.  The mini-series It actually made me like the book better.  The book was a little too rambling for me, and the mini-series tied it together.  Now I've reread the book several times and enjoy it more.  (Also, the finale didn't seem quite as anti-climactic to me in the mini-series as it did -- and still does -- in the book.)

A hard concept to grasp?

One reviewer said:  "A female second messiah is a hard concept to grasp. If you are religious I would recommend suspending reality. Just enjoy the story for the fast paced thriller and brush over the religious and feminist overtures."

I'm not sure I agree with it being a difficult concept.  I'm not religious now, but I was through much of my life, and I don't know that I would have found that concept difficult.  On the other hand, the idea interested me because I grew up in a church where only men could be leaders, supposedly because Jesus and his apostles were all men.  And I thought -- what would happen if there were a possibility of a female messiah, what would these men think?  How would they react?