Author view: Wild Thing (from the inside)

(This is a companion article to my Author review: Wild Thing (from the outside))

By a view from the inside, I mean, very much focusing on why I wrote what I did — the stuff behind what's on the page.

Origins

Certainly the story grew organically.  The seed, as I've written before, was a fictional tragedy, the death of a much-loved character.  To try to ‘get over' that loss, I wanted a replacement who was at least as engaging and fascinating to me.  This was in our long-running Shadowrun fantasy role-playing campaign, which had by then been running for a couple of years.  One of the others (Hi, Dean!) suggested trying the martial artist character archetype.  And I don't know where the idea of the character being an assassin came from, but I think it was accompanied right from the outset with the certainty that the character should be lovable.  Yeah, a lovable assassin.  Even I could see that that would be a challenge, but a challenge was what I craved.  And from the outset, my subconscious was telling me a female assassin would have more scope for that.

Sadly, I think my subconscious was spot on.  Factored into the idea, I'm sure, was an awareness that the average woman is physically weaker than the average man; that women were under-represented in positions of authority (even today; even more so back then, around 1991).  And her age?  Well, there's a similar intrinsic power disadvantage suffered by the young, due simply to their lack of world experience.  It's why we hold the natural and correct assumption that adults will care for and nurture children.  Sadly, this isn't always how things work out in practice.

So even at this early stage, Leeth was starting to coalesce from the shadows, struggling towards her own birth.

Lovability?

If a character is to be likeable, we need to have sympathy for him or her.  I also admit I wanted the challenge of creating a killer who people would care for and relate to.  I knew it would be a hard task, but why not set the bar high?  There was certainly an element of hubris in this, I confess.  But I'm very glad I had the confidence to try.

The next steps had some purely rational elements: the central obstacle to an assassin winning our hearts, is just how wrong that ‘profession' is.  That's a massive negative to overcome.  To gain sympathy, there needed to be something pretty significant to weigh the scale more heavily in the other direction.  I think the first piece of the puzzle might have been the idea of innocence: that she would not know that what she was doing was wrong.

Wait, what?  Not know that killing people is wrong?  Are you kidding me?

No.  That seemed central, to me: that she would embody most of the virtues we want in our heroes, or even just in our friends.  She would be courageous, and loyal.  Happy, and positive.  Wanting to do good, and help people.

Filling in the gaps

From that point, I think Leeth almost created herself.  Who would an assassin be valuable to?  Well, criminal organisations, or governments.  Choosing a government clearly gives lots of scope for moral and ethical issues to be raised.  (Though even a government, I hope, would be unwilling to deliberately groom a child as a killer.)

But a magical researcher, who was unfeeling, who wanted a subject for some research he or she felt was of enormous importance, I could imagine him focusing so utterly on his experimental goals he entirely disregarded the moral and ethical dimension of raising a child.  If he considered himself to be carrying out an experiment rather than raising a child, then the plausibility of the misstep was high.  It also had enormous potential for high stakes: from horrible consequences to massive personal growth.

If our assassin's suffering exceeded that of her victims, maybe she could earn our sympathy, I thought?  And what a Hero's Journey she would have ahead of her: her ignorance could not last forever.

Yeah, even at this stage, it was clear the character would have depth, and might be someone original and powerful.

So Leeth came first, and Harmon moments later.  She would obviously have to be raised more or less in isolation, under Harmon's ‘care'; that led to the invention of the Institute for Paranormal Dysfunction.  Just the name almost sketches out the Institution.  Then we needed a clandestine government agency with a use for an assassin, especially one who had no moral objection to killking, yet who wasn't a psychopath.  ‘Eagle' came next.  Then Mother and Father: the codenames a deliberate highlighting of just how far from reality their roles really would be.  The rest of the Department filled in needed roles while keeping the numbers as small as possible, for logical secrecy and budget reasons.

The final piece

The final piece was: what question would be so big, so valuable to answer, that it would plausibly justify even an emotionally stunted person from realising the wrongness of his own actions?  How about, what made Magic develop in a person — where Magic came from, why it returned?  I had read Julian May's The Many Colored Land series, where the metapsychic blossoming was often a response to impossible stress.  This idea struck me as deeply true: that often we don't know our capabilities until we're pushed to our limits, like an animal is most dangerous when pushed into a corner, or a mother lifting a car off their child.  Hence the idea of stress being ‘the secret ingredient' of Unfolding.

And from there, I suppose the next piece was the idea that Leeth would be too stubborn; too grounded in herself to really question herself.  Not a self-reflective type.  A positive, energetic, irrepressible optimist. Who would not give in.  I deliberately made the two perfectly mismatched, each triggering the other into escalating shows of force and resistance.  The unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.

Building the pressure until something exploded.

From there, it didn't seem a big step for Harmon to decide to try to create a new Archetype: the powerful female, equal to the male (yeah, Harmon doesn't think highly of women.  But then, he doesn't think highly of most people).  A Huntress.  And — it would not occur to him — a killer.  Harmon is a rationalist who disdains emotion, and considers it a weakness.  He's interested only in his experiment, not in raising a child as a well-rounded person.  Such a person could easily overlook the need to give a child any ethical instruction.  And if we place the child in an environment with no one to play with, precious few humans to interact with… and with a shadowy agency working in the background to let the situation develop… then all the ingredients are in place.

The sexual abuse

But why the sexual abuse?  Mainly, because it was about the worst thing I could imagine. It also seemed to grow naturally out of the story.  So we have a powerful character, a highly skilled martial artist able to kill with a single swipe of invisible ‘claws' — who can be rendered powerless by a simple whispered phrase.  Unable to tell anyone of it.

Not to mention, the abuse would leave scars.  Leeth is a person with serious character flaws.

Writing the book, it grew from the intimacy of their relationship: the two locked in their own little world, seeing only the other, a battle for control or independence, each egging the other on.  Leeth, unconsciously so as she matured; but set up, in that, by Harmon's own unconscious desires and self-deception.  Harmon is confident that he is rational and in control, oblivious to and in denial of his own human urges.

Naturally, as Leeth matures, she would gain strength and develop resistance She would start seeing through his deceptions, to the point where he loses control and sees his life's work about to turn to nothing — for him, an outcome so terrible that it leads to his betrayal of both her and himself.

The relationship between Leeth and Harmon is the keystone of the story.  Some reviewers are strongly of the opinion that the relationship is too extreme, that Harmon's actions are completely unconscionable, that a painful death is the only possible outcome for him.  That for Harmon, redemption is impossible.  Some feel little sympathy for Leeth, either: how can murder be justified?  What sort of monster is the author?

But these things do happen in real life.  Adults abuse children, horribly.  Some lock them in basements. Institutions which we expected to nurture and protect children instead harboured paedophiles who did things we wish we didn't have to think about. Some men still consider women inferior, unequal.  Women are under-represented as CEOs, as politicians and judges and leaders of countries.

What Leeth means to me

What I wanted to show was that spirit could be enough to overcome all that.  That Leeth would cope with everything Harmon would throw at her, and it would indeed make her stronger.  Leeth has one advantage, I suppose, at least when it comes to Harmon: he's not trying to destroy her.  He really is trying to make her stronger, and better.  He doesn't know what Leeth will become, and is even happy when she surprises him.

I suppose for me, Leeth shows that if you never give up, the people trying to stop you can't ‘win'.

Author review: Wild Thing (from the outside)

(This is a companion article to my Author view: Wild Thing (from the inside))

Apologies for the long gap in writing. I took a break, and also got sick with a very annoying coughing thing for 6-7 weeks, then just goofed off for a while, allowing myself a rest.

By a review from the outside, I mean, reviewing my book as if it was written by someone else, relying only on what’s on the page.   I’m doubtful it’s possible for an author to do this, but Lathalia, of the Marrickville Writers Corner suggested I do it (an idea seconded by CateM), to clearly state what the book’s about, since it treads some very dark ground, driven by a central relationship that turns badly abusive. But that bald statement actually gives a false impression of the book, hence Lathalia's suggestion...

I do try hard to be be honest and objective when I look at my own work, so maybe I have a slim chance of pulling it off.  In any case, I thought it sounded like a good idea, a challenge, and an interesting psychological exercise, to consciously try to look at my own book from the outside.

I’ll just mention an odd coincidence, too: Kesha’s song “Praying” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Dur3uXXCQ) is currently in the charts, and the lyrics could have been written specifically for Leeth, about Harmon.   I think it's sadly clear that male abuse of women is still an issue to this day.  The overarching theme of the Leeth Dossier, though, is an exploration of the power and importance of emotions. Anyway…

First impression

On the surface at least the book seems of good quality: an attractive cover, and the blurb provides a good idea of the setting, without being too “explainy”.  The text inside is laid out following normal conventions, and with a very readable font. The novel seems a good length, though perhaps too long?  Divided into four Parts, it starts with a Prologue, which is also normally a warning sign.  But the opening sentence is fine, and the first page reads smoothly, sketching a picture that’s an intriguing mix of low and high tech.   We quickly learn a very young child is to be exiled from this odd commune or tribe because of a prophetic vision in which she will kill; more than once.  And, because something terrible will happen if the parents go with her, she’ll be sent away on her own.

We only see “Sara” briefly in this scene, right at the end, but her innocence comes across well. It’s quite moving. For people who are very spoiler-sensitive, I’ll next move straight to…

Overall assessment

By the end of the book, the overall impression I feel is that Leeth, although deeply flawed and badly abused, is more than equal to the daunting challenges facing her.  She demonstrates that with enough spirit, you can withstand and find your way past (or straight through!) any challenge.  She seems to me a unique character, too, mixing unworldly innocence and deadly strength.  She does and says things that made me laugh out loud – and cry, too.  She has a long journey ahead of her though, starting as she does from a belief that it's fine (even good) to kill people, and working as a government assassin while still tangled up with her ‘Uncle’.

But Leeth never gives in, demonstrating an almost archetypal ability to escape control.   Leeth is irrepressible. The book is aptly titled.

Detailed impressions and vague synopsis

Part I opens with the slightly creepy Dr Harmon acquiring the eight-year-old Sara for adoption, but really, to be the experimental subject for his research, at the Institute for Paranormal Dysfunction.  We learn snippets of world history and watch Sara over several years, raised pretty much at Harmon’s sole whim.  He wants to force magic to develop in Sara, and believes stress is a key element in this happening.  Sara comes across as happy, energetic, and trusting.  She makes friends with Faith, a cyborg ‘wardog’ that helps guard the Institute, and Faith’s owner, Mr Shanahan.  She also manages to penetrate the security to visit ‘Godsson’, a mad inmate who is perhaps the most powerful mage on the planet.  Her intervention, aged 9, to help Godsson was both touching and dramatic.

Part II: Years pass, Harmon continues his manipulations, and it seems the imaginary creatures Sara ‘hunts’ in the grounds may be real, and outside anyone’s expectations.  The Godsson situation – his annual ‘attacks’ – also continue, slowly worsening, though only Sara believes them to be real.  While across the country, something terrible changes a murderer into something even more chilling.  Sara’s stubborn determination to ‘help’ during Godsson’s annual attacks become a serious source of tension.

Part III: Sara is now seventeen, and beginning to break free of her Uncle’s influence. Determined to overcome her growing resistance, refusing to allow his experiment to fail, Harmon resorts to drugs.  At this point, things get very dark indeed.   Harmon’s abuse of his position worsens, going deeply into the category of criminal behaviour.  He gets his wish: Sara Unfolds, though not as he had expected, when he realises he’s never told her it’s wrong to kill.  On an outing soon after, Sara kills, unaware the warped killer, magically drawn to her, is at her heels.  Sara – now rechristened ‘Leeth’ – escapes arrest only when a DNA match fails, due to behind-the-scenes plotting by some shadowy figures.

In Part IV, the situation with Godsson comes to an explosive crisis, with Leeth demonstrating both her spirit and her foolhardiness.   Harmon finally realises he has a tiger by the tail, and the book moves to a dramatic climax.  And then continues, apparently calming down… except, as Harmon takes things to a new level, the shadowy figures finally step into the light, in an intervention that changes everything.

(In my next blog article, I’ll review the novel from the inside: why I wrote the book as I did.)