Opium
A blog entry that hit me hard in the heart, as all the best ones do. My affair with Pathos goes back a long way, to a daydream-childhood filled with crushes, into adulthood wherein my frustrated mother forever rags on about me finding The One.
What if I want fantasy? What if I prefer heartache; the fever of anticipation, as opposed to the darkness of reality, dreams met and turned sour?
And then again…frustration often has teeth.
This entry summed it up far better than I could.
Give me unrequited love over requited apathy any day.
≈ Her Point of View ≈
I once had a little burgundy room that required seven coats of the color when I painted the walls. On the floor lay deep red hand-woven rugs, silk purple cushions and Moroccan tables. I called it the Opium Room. In it, my writing desk sat between two windows that overlooked a heart-tugging Tuscan setting in the Hollywood Hills.
A…
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The Colour of Loss
As someone with sound-colour synaesthesia, I’ve often wondered if moods can be similarly affected by sensory-crossover. This entry more than answered my question. A beautiful depiction of mood-synaesthesia.
Writing Reality: Pathos across Genres
My fiction writing grew out of fantasy. That’s a fairly obvious statement to make, given that the format is based around suspension of disbelief, dreams and whimsy – creating either an entirely fresh perspective, or a warped version of our reality. But I tended to lean more towards the former – mythology, an absence of the technology easily accessible today. Magic was a cornerstone, as were epic battles and soul-quests. I’d cast anthropomorphic animals in the roles, since humans – behavioral patterns, beliefs etc – held little interest for me at the time.
Animals proved easier to understand and write about, being governed more by survival instincts and natural tendencies. Even when personified to include materialistic preferences, the characters I’d read about in such children’s fantasy as Brian Jacques’ excellent Redwall saga, and Robin Jarvis’ Deptford Mice series, still lay closer to the ground than mankind. Their lives were far more interesting; it meant I could conveniently leave out such dull areas (how I perceived them then) as money and religion. There was a mental block in place, which meant I truly believed I couldn’t write human characters with inherent / external powers, or have them engage in interesting quests. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.
With age has come not only an increased interest in my race (learning to trust people was a start), but a crucial awareness of suspension of disbelief. It was a revelation to pick up JG Ballard’s High Rise to discover that yes, human society CAN break down in fiction. The book is a bestseller. The circumstances are close to the bone, still somewhat alien, wholly engaging; and – as with any credible work of fiction – it was the characters who made it so.
When I made inroads on adult fiction myself, several years ago, I stuck to my favourite genre; had no problem dealing with landscapes, abstracts, symbolism. I’m more of a concept writer. Magic and nature are easier to identify with, than the ebb and flow of human interaction and behavior. So while scenery dripped with metaphors and genre tropes were played out trick by turn, characters fell over like stacked dominoes, bland and rigid. I just didn’t know how people worked. I’d never bothered to research, in real time or reading across genres.
Recently, I’ve forced myself to step away from conventions, discarding that which appeals to a target audience, in favour of getting to know people in life and in literature – what makes us tick as a society, as individuals, and typical cause-effect triggers. Turns out that humanity isn’t as boring as I’d first, mistakenly, believed.
Writing people across general fiction, has helped me develop a greater focus on the little inflections that make up a larger picture. All those films and books where seemingly “nothing happens” – they’re a great study of human nature, with little circumstantial distraction. It’s the subtle details that so often instigate events.
As part of the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s three means of persuasion, Pathos is probably the one fiction writers are most familiar with. While genre conventions can work as the basis for certain aspects of writing – in fantasy, the presence of a magical field and casting of spells, mythical creatures; in science fiction, the cultivation of remote planetary settlements, following deep-space exploration – these could be seen more as the fallout, than the actual pivot of a story.
It’s the thoughts and emotional reactions of a mage as a person – one wishing to survive, to countercast, to avenge – that causes them to pull out necessary spell components and speak aloud the words of magic. Transplant this scenario to science fiction, and the reactionary fallout – the magical element, used on the offensive/defensive – can be replaced with weapons technology. Both push the suspension of audience disbelief, working against our reality – but it’s the emotional triggers which make the scene more identifiable.
Or at least, it should be. This is where I’ve been going wrong for some time. My focus has been too much on embellishing the contents of a scene, with little regard for the emotional catalyst, and the character behind it all. It’s their lifestyle and historical context, which govern reactions to each situation, and to fellow beings. From here, plot can advance and narrative can be steered.
Your chosen genre may include fictitious races, with ethos and mentality all their own. But for an audience to identify with their cause, there’s a need for Pathos. Our job, as authors, is to get across to the audience how much they should give a damn about what happens to any one character, whether pro- or antagonist. It’s no good writing a complete badass of a villain, if the reader doesn’t at least have some sense of feeling towards them – even loathing takes consideration. Suspension of disbelief is based upon the audience’s assumption of a pseudo-reality; theirs is a need to recognize, sympathize and perhaps even empathize with character decisions.
Comedy-pathos can work wonders for appealing to audience emotions. Let’s face it, there’s only so much tragedy we can all take, before going numb and perhaps cold towards a character; likewise, constant slapstick and banter wears thin. Handled well, the balancing act between set-up and fall can be heartbreaking as it is rib-cracking. When an author or director invests time in creating and sustaining a character-narrative that’s wholly plausible in its trials and tribulations, the payoff is audience engagement to a bittersweet degree:
“Are you the farmer?”
“Stop saying that, Withnail, of course he’s a fucking farmer!”
“I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth.”
– Withnail and I, Bruce Robinson
Withnail’s choice of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a closing soliloquy is a double-whammy of pathos. Not only is the theatrical element present, around which his life has been threadily based; the very fact he delivers such a powerful nest of words to air empty of an appreciative audience, speaks volumes in context. The wolves have little regard for his deliverance; the rain, less so. He appeals to the sky, knowing full well that it can’t answer or deliver the recognition he yearns for. The bittersweet smile says it all, along with his choosing the words of the established bard to get across to the audience the exact level of his pain.
For the Dragonlance saga, authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman created the race of kender to act as both fools and foils for hero and enemy. Agile little thieves (though taking great offence at being addressed thus) with kleptomaniac tendencies, an innocent wit and aggravating humour, they’re also blessed with phenomenal luck. This is handy, considering all races on the fantasy world of Krynn are bound by a desire to be as far removed from kender as possible – for the sake of possessions as well as sanity. They are the comedy sidekick, with a nonstop prattle and jocularity that is a light in the darkness of plot events … and a headache for whoever’s on the other end.
It’s when the kender as a whole, start to notice (and care) about shifting world events, that other races realize the dark depths into which Krynn is sinking. The comedy pays itself off in pathos, with Tasslehoff Burrfoot – a recurring kender-character – acting as a particular benchmark:
“The kender peered around as best he could through one good eye. The other had nearly swollen shut. ‘Where are we?’
‘In the dungeons below the Temple,” Tika said softly. Tas, sitting next to her, could feel her shiver with fear and cold… Wistfully he remembered the good old days when he hadn’t known the meaning of the word fear. He should have felt a thrill of excitement. He was – after all – someplace he’d never been before… But there was death here, Tas knew; death and suffering. He’d seen too many die, too many suffer…He would never again be like other kender. Through grief, he had come to know fear; not for himself but for others…
You have chosen the dark path, but you have the courage to walk it, Fizban had said.
Did he? Tas wondered. Sighing, he hid his face in his hands.
‘No, Tas!’ Tika said, shaking him. ‘Don’t do this to us! We need you!’
Painfully Tas raised his head. ‘I’m all right,” he said dully.'” – Pg 288, Dragons of Spring Dawning, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman.
In opposite effect, it’s when the light of pathos is cast upon the darkest personality, that unusual facets shine; capturing a fuller shape for the audience to see, rather than a flat cutout villain:
“David opened his eyes, sweat pouring down his face, and marched towards the bar.
‘I’ll kill her,” he shouted at the row of bottles.
He thought again of the university girl. Today wasn’t the first time he had seen her… Had she recognized him? No. What would he have been to her?
The stupid idiot who had stood dripping water while delivering a pizza.
She hadn’t even looked at him…just passed him the money, told him to keep the change, and closed the door. And he had stood there on the landing, leaning on the door, crying like a baby.
She was his mother back to haunt him. Same little face, same hair, but healthy and clean. Clear-skinned and bright-eyed. No open sores weeping their disgusting liquid. But she didn’t fool him. He knew it was her…She would pay for what she had done… His grandma had tried to persuade him to go to the funeral, but he owed nothing to the silly bitch who had pumped too much crap into her festering arms.” – Pg 52, I Once was Lost, Sandra Bruce.
Even when a protagonist has the ability to read and manipulate minds, to employ sensory powers out of the control of others, they can still be subject to the same emotional quirks and fluxes that erode the best intentions and upset the most carefully-laid plans – or just create a terrible working atmosphere. A flawless character without emotional reflexes makes for a dull read. We all have rough days; allow your characters the chance to experience the same, if only to offset their better qualities, and to create tension. Relationships make a particularly good crossing-point between genres – especially when inherent powers become as much a blessing as a curse.
“‘I was going to ask her Highness to give me a lift home,” Loftus said, “but I dunno now. Got a date with -‘
He disappeared. A moment later, Ackerman could see him near a personnel carrier. Not only had he been set down gently, but various small necessities, including a flight bag, floated out of nowhere on to a neat pile in the carrier…
Powers joined Afra and Ackerman.
‘She’s sure in a funny mood,’ he said.
When the Rowan got peevish, few of the men at the station asked her to transport them to Earth. She was psychologically planet-bound, and resented the fact that lesser talents could be moved about through space without suffering a twinge of shock.”
“The Rowan felt the links dissolving as the other Primes, murmuring withdrawal courtesies, left him. Deneb caught her mind fast to his and held on. When they were alone, he opened all his thoughts to her, so that now she knew him as intimately as he knew her.
Come live with me, my love.
The Rowan’s wracked cry of protest reverberated cruelly in both naked minds.
I can’t. I’m not able! She cringed against her own outburst and closed off her inner heart so that he couldn’t see the pitiful why. Mind and heart were more than willing; frail flesh bound her. In the moment of his confusion, she retreated back to that treacherous body, arched in the anguish of rejection. Then she curled into a tight knot, her body quivering with the backlash of effort and denial.
Rowan! came his cry. Rowan! I love you!
She deadened the outer fringe of her perceptions to everything, curled forward in her chair… Oh Afra! To be so close and so far away. Our minds were one. Our bodies are forever separate.” – Pgs 142/157, The Rowan, Anne McCaffrey.
The greatest war-campaign may have begun with the “simple” act of one treacherous heart breaking another; the resultant turmoil becomes both back-story and the ripples to reach out and affect / change many lives. The darkest horror story may have the death of a child at its tragic core. Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black sees the broken love of the eponymous character become a curse powerful enough to affect the local community and visiting narrator Arthur Kipps. No one is left unscathed after contact; though to my mind, the supernatural element pales somewhat in comparison to the pathos of her grief, and the terrible circumstances under which it was born.
Allowing your characters the chance to emote fully across genre conventions, can form integral links with the world of the audience. Don’t be afraid to include the small nuances of life, the seemingly mundane details that will flesh them out as people. It’s thought, emotion and memory which make us at once unique, and bound by empathy. Regardless of whether it’s a brave new world created, or a close shave with reality, the result should be an understanding between creator and audience.
Finding Grace
Say Grace.
No, seriously. Speak it aloud.
Regardless of context, of religious connotations and concrete definitions, there’s an undeniable pleasant ring to Grace that has spanned centuries; like so many Old French-derived words, it has the crystal phonetics to retain a universal appeal.
Grace can be made synonymous with poise to describe physical movement; it can be the merciful pardon, willing to pass over another’s foibles. It can become the prayer uttered in the sight of one’s God before settling to a meal; the blessing of divine love, bestowed upon a religious following.
I was asked by James Prescott (@JamesPrescott77) what the word Grace means to me, on a personal level. This is my response.
I am not a religious person; nor do I pertain to be particularly secular in my belief system. As an agnostic, I’m open in opinion and mind to others’ theories and beliefs, but am personally not willing to tie myself to any one creed, having no basis on which to form a steady structure – to be honest, the only thing I’ve come to believe in and respect above all else, is Nature.
This encompasses life and death, the progress and process of what must be. It defines the very paradox of how we go about our lives, in our own time frames, on this planet that’s just another speck in the sky. I’m not willing to believe that this was made so in a completely random act, with no control; nor will I pin a sentient perspective to the fact we’re here, that others have come before and likely more will come in our stead. And when I say “others”, I mean lifeforms in general. We’re all bound up in this, one way or another.
The grace I find in nature, has much to do with its Give and Take attitude – if a living abstract could be assigned an attitude for a moment. Whatever the circumstance, the situation, the fact it’s for better or worse depends entirely on context, and the perspective of who/whatever’s on the receiving end.
A volcanic eruption spews forth ash clouds to blacken the sky, perhaps for months; plants can’t photosynthesize and crops die as a result, while water is tainted. Livestock and humans perish from the smothering heat of Nuées ardentes (“incandescent cloud” / “glowing avalanche”), with their scalding loads of pumice, viscous magma and ash. Pyroclastic flow can wipe out entire cities, as seen with Vesuvius and Pompeii. Icecaps melt, bringing lahars and landslips. That’s even before we get onto structural damage among local human habitations.
But the flipside is fertility, of both natural surroundings and local economy. Soil is enriched with the minerals brought from the heart of the planet. The flooding waters, once they’ve receded, may have deposited an unlikely treasure-trove of yet more minerals, and stones embedded with crystals – both to be sold for local commerce. Ancient civilizations, seemingly obliterated, can be learned from when the pyroclastic flow has cooled and set – a poignant message of the past, to illustrate the volcanic dangers for our future.
It’s this graceful and deadly Give and Take of nature that I adhere to – the closest I would come to aligning myself with a religion. I’ve found that it’s not something to follow; paganism and Druidism still felt too formulaic in my youth, for something that – on a very basic level – is just an appreciation and respect for one’s surroundings. The simple acts are, to me, equivalent of uttering and performing ritualistic prayer to return nature’s grace: Not dropping litter; keeping off of flourishing areas of new growth, or taking care to avoid trampling ancient rock formulations that are prone to erosion; climbing trees, without feeling the need to peel off bark or carve initials that leave a mark of oneself, which the tree itself couldn’t give a damn about and future generations of humans probably won’t either. That peeled bark exposes the tree’s flesh, drying it out. A branch can wither and die from this seemingly small act, taking nests down when it falls; cutting off life for those to come, arboreal and human.
Nature is deadly, sure. Seemingly merciless, sympathetic only to its own environmental needs and “cruel” whims. But it’s this continuous cycle that I find so appealing. It’s a grace defined by its own neutrality – the ability to regenerate life, inability to favour any one species, race, trend or ethos. Evolution and nature work hand in abstract hand, and if some fall by the wayside to keep the planet ticking over, that’s as it should be.
Dialing things down a bit –
When I was a child, I danced ballet. Grace, poise, elegance were words that ran a thread through the training that began when I lived in Germany. My father was stationed at the nearby RAF base, and my poor mother was left to deal with two daughters, 3 years apart in age and different as night and day. She was often exhausted by us, for individual reasons, and by our energy. I’m told I used to regularly make her cry, though not out of nastiness; just an inquisitive nature that somehow got me into the kind of scrapes to cause scrapes …And cuts, bruises, iron-burns, palms slit open on glass I’d mistaken for jewels…
She hit upon the idea of dance. Not only as a way of wearing me and my sister out, but to perhaps instill in us (well, me) a sense of decorum. I think perhaps she had the same misplaced mindset as many others – that ballet is for girls exclusively, can teach an appreciation for all things “girly.” At the tender age of four, I already had this idea in mind, and dragged my heels when brought to the first class.
(picture courtesy of Gudu Ngiseng Blog)
The funny thing is, the hard work it all turned out to be – routine training at the barre, with pointed toes, bend and flex of muscles, maintaining a perfect circle in a spin – appealed to my rough ‘n ready nature. It calmed my head, already full of white noise, and burned up that excessive energy. It was my sister who would drop out, citing boredom. I continued up to the age of nine, harbouring hopes of becoming a prima ballerina. A fall in school, a bad ankle sprain that still plagues me today, put paid to those dreams.
Still, I find that the training – so like the basic level all military personnel go through in their first three months – has stood me in good stead. It comes back to gift me in adult life. I walk tall, no matter what my mood; it’s second nature to pull my shoulders back, align my spine to the backs of my legs. I’ve won over potential employers with the simple fact I sit up straight, appearing alert even if my mind is wandering. It did get me into trouble on the inpatient unit though, where I spent several months for treatment of anorexia; staff mistook my seeming inability to relax as a “behaviour”. Context is a funny thing.
I’ll often practice old favourite moves, for the sheer pleasure of feeling how alive my body is. It’s a sensation never to be underestimated, the natural gift of feeling grace in one’s physicality. Whatever your own state, don’t let go of that appreciation of what your body is capable of. The time spent on that ward, I was stuck in a wheelchair for the first week, too underweight to be allowed to walk. There was a great risk of slipping into a coma, as my blood sugar had dropped to subnormal levels; not to mention what was going on with electrolytes, and my heart. Still, the muscles of my legs twitched and trembled with frantic energy, a burning desire to move. Adrenalin can keep an anorexic going for years. It was an itch I wasn’t permitted to scratch for long months. Progression from the chair, was slow – corridor-pacing, to snail-pace group walks under the impartial gaze of staff; and finally, oh God, heady freedom – walking alone around the sprawling grounds of the hospital, and thence to the nearby town.
I will never forget how long it took to relearn how to walk heel to toe. I’d had a punishing control of my stride for so long, it felt natural to push to the point of burnout, whatever the exercise. It was the greatest gift to stride again, unimpeded by staff or anorexia’s whip, with the natural grace and fluidity taught in those early ballet lessons, when we learned how to smile for the audience even while it felt like our backs and hearts were breaking.
In those formative early years when we returned to the UK from Germany, my grandmother became my confidante. She saw me for who I was – the middle child of three, feeling a bit left out because of the simple mechanics of there only being two parents (neither of which I could relate to as much as my siblings), with too much racing through her mind at once to keep her body still. I got into those scrapes, so she told me, because I didn’t have enough hands to accomplish all that I wanted to do at once.
She’s a live-wire herself, even in later years. But while I’ll only ever be an impatient git, her creed is to bring calm to those about her; to turn the other cheek, showing merciful grace however possible.
Not that she’ll hold her tongue where a scolding is needed. I learned early on that you can’t get a thing past her. Raised by her own grandmother, a Victorian lady of strong traditional values and family presence, my Nanna is a women of conviction. She believes in the good of others. No doubt she will have had cause to doubt this at certain points in her life. But she is a religious woman, upholding a quiet faith in God through childhood years of poverty in Tyneside; being made an orphan by age ten; motherhood with three children, and moving down South to follow my grandfather’s career at the observatory, Herstmonceux.
The great unknown has made up much of her life. Still, she bears it with a grace and dignity I’m forever fascinated and inspired by.
Now in her pale years, she lives with a sense of Self and gratitude for our family. Her ability to find peace when alone – she’s another introvert – was a comforting lesson to a child who felt odd for not being the socialite her sister was. Later, in adolescence and when the actions of my peers left me ashamed for them, her simple elegance was a reminder of who I was, to stay true to what I wanted to become. She’s always supported my writing, has provided a listening ear and ready wit when I needed a spirit-boost. There’s a hard-earned gravity in her words; she won’t say anything without cause, and to be honest some of my best memories of our time spent together, are the great wells of silence when we thought together.
I owe my Nanna a good deal, for providing the core values of appreciation and respect for others that seem to have evolved into empathy. Handy for writing, as well as dealing with the real world. Rather than resort to strong words and actions, we prefer to maintain dignity in the face of ugly manners and disrespect. That’s not to say I will back down, but there’s a need for control in such situations. Loss of it is letting your guard down; a discredit of grace.
It stands that, as an adult, I make my way through the world and fall back on what she has taught me. There are no answers to the questions begged in darkest moments – why people act the way they do, say the things they say, with a cruelty and love inherent of human nature. Some things are irrevocable, left hanging in the air. We’re a chaotic race; there will always be those who give, while others take. I feel that it’s in our best interests and in our power, to carefully govern the way we react to others. I’ll admit to having wished pain upon those who’ve hurt me in the past. I wouldn’t be human if I hadn’t at least entertained such vengeful ideas.
But all they afforded me were brief euphoric sunsets, before the chill nights of despair clawed back up.
Revenge is an easy path to follow, in comparison to the twisting way of merciful grace. There are roots that will twist and tangle about the feet, stones to unsettle every step. Time doesn’t heal, so much as numb certain wounds. I refuse to become another lost soul, wandering the world in a stupor of bitterness and dangling on the claws of one addiction after another. Been there, done that; believe me, the half-life was short indeed.
Grace to me, is being able to look upon the face of the abuser, the name-caller, the one who broke your heart and beat your face out of “love” – and to turn away, the stronger for leaving them to stew in their own weakness. To offer forgiveness, if it’s in your heart to do so – and if not, to leave without looking back. No regret, no guilt, no more acceptance of suffering or being made to feel the victim by those who still live in fear.
Grace is a byword for elegance and good manners, for respect of others and the world we inhabit together, for better or worse. It’s a means of walking upright, back straight and legs poised, ready to carry us beyond what we thought ourselves capable of.
Whatever your take on the word, don’t be afraid to uphold its truth. Whether offering prayer to your God, or extending mercy to one who has shown you none, remember it as being alike to the subtle truth behind the half-smile on a dancer’s face; one that tells the world, my life is my own.
celenagaia 