Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Death of a child/empty nest

This is topic Death of a child/empty nest in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I'm having a really hard time characterizing someone.

This is a woman who finds a stranded Indian boy and takes him in, until his father finds him again.

It's her POV. I think of her as a spitfire, confident of any decision she makes, and . . . I have the challenge of making her interesting.

Did she have a son die many years back? That would make this have a lot more meaning for her (especially when this new boy leaves), but the death of a child could absolutely overwhelm the story. (There are other threads not related to the woman.)

Is she suffering empty nest? This would work, but maybe it's too light.

What else might be true about her that would affect how she feels when she's got this foster child? Does this remind you of anything cool?

I may have the problem that I don't want to make her bad -- not very, anyway -- and of course horrible family relationships are more interesting (to me) than good ones.

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

There are about a million possibilities here, and each one would make its own unique story.

Death of a child could turn into a novel.

Empty nest isn't bad, especially if she had about 6 kids and the youngest one just went off to college. That would make her the type of woman who loves the activity of having kids around...maybe all her kids left town when they grew up so she doesn't even get to see her grandkids...

What about this boy? Why is his father suddenly coming back for him? Where was he all that time? That could get into some abandonment issues...did her father leave her? Was she in the foster care system? Does she have some connection to this Indian boy outside of foster child/foster mother? Maybe he shares her passion for ______

Is she married? Did she just lose her husband?

Did she always want to have kids but she never could? Or maybe she's not all that old...maybe she's about my age (28) but just learned that she could never have children of her own.

I have a friend who just adopted 2 kids...she has a heart condition that gives her a choice -- get pregnant or live. (It's not quite that simple...she has better than even odds of surviving having one child...not so good for a second.) I remember in college her defiantly saying she wanted to have a kid anyway. (She's the oldest of 5...family is very important to her.) Anyway, I could picture her in the story you propose. (In fact, I've written someone like her into a couple of stories. )

I'll stop rambling and let someone else talk.

Posted by CoriSCapnSkip (Member # 3228) on :

You may want to check out "Pastora," by Joanna Barnes, a long, looong novel of the California Trail, published in hardcover in 1980 by Arbor House and paperback in 1981 by Avon. It has some similarities to your story.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Maybe she takes him in because he needs someone to take him in rather than out of her own need to take someone in. Don't you think that makes her the most interesting kind of person? It makes her independent, sure of herself, willing to put it on the line for what she believes regardless of what is convenient for her. Maybe it's a considerable hardship for her with little apparent reward other than being the right thing to do.

You can throw in a disaffected child, that always works to bring a little darkness to an older character. Whether you want to counterbalance that with non-disaffected children is up to you. And no one is going to question it, though they might be inclined to automatically take the child's side.

But ultimately, if she's as spitfire and self-confident as you want her to be, then she doesn't need to do this for any other reason than because she believes it's the right thing to do. She's more interesting if she has to put in an effort to overcome her natural inclinations to solitude or more mature associations because children need homes, dammit!

That's just my take on it.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I decided to take your option, Survivor. *I* like the Strong Confident Woman who acts on what's right; I don't want her to be Tragedy Woman. We'll see how it works.

Posted by Hygge (Member # 3313) on :

An idea, I know a lot of people who were adopted when they were babies. It may go against the character traits you have developed so far for the main character to have an independent woman who made that kind of decision.

However, you could make that decision years ago be a life-changing event for the woman and that's maybe why she's so independent now. There are a lot of options there.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Wait...I don't quite get what you're saying. We need to give all these characters names that don't create ambiguous familial associations.

So far, I only know about three characters. A, the strong, independent woman. B, the Indian boy in need of a home. C, the father of the boy, who eventually comes back to reclaim him.

Are you working under the assumption that A is, herself, adopted, and thus unlikely to be strong and independent? Or are you working under the assumption that she is unlikely to adopt B if she's strong and independent?

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

It's out. Fingers crossed.

Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :

I just thought I'd preserve this for posterity:

quote:

Death of a child could turn into a novel.

Seems like there's a "you know you're a writer if..." joke in that somewhere. :maniacal laugh:

And as I have been learning the hard way, one death of a child does not a novel make.

But this lady's story could just be about her wondering why it should bother her. Though I'm not sure how wide the market appeal of someone wondering why something bothers them is. I am like that, but I don't necessarily remember too many books along those lines. Anna Karenina & Gone With the Wind are among my favorites.