A to Z Challenge: F is for Forgiveness

Welcome to the 2013 A to Z Challenge!

This year, I’m focusing on two themes:  Emotions and grammar,

depending on which letter we’re on each day.

I’ll be sharing mostly what I’ve learned about writing emotion into a novel, but I’ll also be throwing in a few key grammar lessons, pet peeves I’ve picked up while working as an editor.

Today’s an emotion day!

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F is for forgiveness:  the act of giving pardon for or remission of an offense or debt; to absolve.

I was going to take the easy way out today and discuss the emotion of fear, but when I completed my first novel, The Mistaken, a strong and undeniable theme emerged, and that theme was forgiveness.  Seems I have a real issue with it, having quite a few people in my life who’ve hurt me in unspeakable ways.  And I’ve had to deal with not being forgiven myself, something which has plagued me for over twenty-eight years.  So I think I have a keen understanding of it.

It’s not an easily believable emotion to write about.  Forgiveness is something that typically comes slowly, over a relatively extended period of time.  In my novel, the protagonist cannot come to terms with the egregious consequences a stranger’s reckless act has had upon his life—the death of his pregnant wife.  He spends a great deal of time conspiring to get even.  He doesn’t begin to heal until he realizes that many of the consequences he’s suffered are due to his own shortcomings, but by that point, it’s too late, and he’s set into motion a horrifying chain of events.

And that, it seems, is the key to forgiveness, to understand not only what instigated the perpetrator to offend, but that she, the offender, is like anybody else, and, most especially, that she is like us.  So writing about forgiveness must include the entire process:  knowing all the facts and how they unfolded, understanding the motivation behind it, and acknowledging the victim's own culpability. 

This doesn’t happen easily or quickly.  People must be allowed their anger and resentment first.  Then they can be made to see that things are not always as they appear, or are as simple as black and white.  When the victim can see the enemy as human, with all the frailties that encompasses, only then can he forgive.  There must be an earnest sensitivity to the very offense she committed, as well as the offender, and her victim.  Otherwise, the act of forgiving feels far-fetched and unbelievable.

  

The act of forgiveness, or his inability to do so, often reveals qualities about the character, his substance, his deficiencies, his level of sincerity, and authenticity, all things the character must eventually be attuned to himself before he can ever move forward.  

A to Z Challenge: F is for Flaw

Welcome to Day 6 of the A to Z Challenge

Many bloggers have chosen a theme for the A to Z.  My pledge since becoming a blogger is to post about writing, so for this event, I will being posting about what I've learned about writing a novel.

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F is for flaw:  a feature that mars the perfection of something; a defect or fault.  (Dictionary.com)

In order for readers to identify with a protagonist, the character must be relatable.  The easiest way to pull that off is to make him similar to the reader, as if he could somehow find himself in the same situation and have a comparable response.  But to make the protagonist interesting, he shouldn’t be perfect, but rather flawed, though not fatally so.  Most often, it’s this very flaw that most interferes with the protagonist achieving his goal. 

He must be likeable and have redeeming qualities, but even if he seems or does something contemptible, the reader must care how and why he got that way in the first place.  In this case, he should be self-aware, have a self-loathing and the courage to change.  Though there is little sympathy for a willfully self-destructive man, we can forgive him if he’s at least trying to be good. 

Most readers can fall in love with the lost and despondent protagonist, as long as they have a reason to want his suffering to end.  Even a tragic character must have something to hope for, and a secret strength within that will allow the reader to bond.  Readers respond to conflicted, fallible characters who endure the challenge and come out a different person in the end.

In my novel, the protagonist’s greatest flaw is that he can’t see, and therefore won’t acknowledge, that he is flawed.  So when he does the unforgiveable, his self-image is destroyed, but he works to right the wrong he’s committed, and redeems himself in the process.                   

I favor the bad boy myself.  What about you?  Do you look for a solid, upstanding protagonist, or do you prefer the darkly flawed variety?