Never Judge A Character By The Narrator

Today is kind of a melancholy day for me. It's the 20-yr anniversary of my father passing away, ending his fight against cancer. While this is indeed sad, it also happened over half of my lifetime ago. I'm at peace, but it's still.... melancholy. I mean, how can it not be?

Anyway, I'm not here to depress anyone. I'm here to talk about my writing.

One week into 2018 and I almost failed one of my resolutions already: no more than three Zero-Days in one week.

I was in a reading mood this week. I'm nearing the end of "Ender's Shadow" and I probably would be done by now if I didn't stop to take notes on each chapter as I went.

For those who don't know, "Ender's Shadow" is a parallel story to Orson Scott Card's flagship novel "Ender's Game." The book I'm reading now is the same time frame as "Ender's Game" except told with Bean as the main character, instead of him being a little snot of a secondary character that shows up about half-way through "Ender's Game." Once done with "Ender's Shadow" I want to go back and re-read "Ender's Game" with a new perspective on the events, and see how they compare or contrast with Ender's view of the same events. Also, through Bean, I was able to get insight on a lot of the background stuff, and it will be interesting to see things unfold in "Ender's Game" and now have the background information as to how that came about.

My memory is kind of pathetic though, and so I'm taking notes on where the parallel stories connect or might influence each other, that way when I'm re-reading "Ender's Game" I can reflect back on my notes to get the full picture of the story.

Also, I didn't read "Ender's Shadow" right after finishing "Ender's Game" over a decade ago, mainly because I knew that the parallel story was about Bean, and I could not STAND the character as I went through "Ender's Game." Also, the adults are just so cruel and manipulative to these child soldiers that I couldn't emotionally handle that a second time so soon.

Well, my husband is right, as he often is. Don't let him know I said that.

I couldn't stand Bean because he was portrayed as an uncaring, calculated, egotistical little snot who didn't believe his poop stank and couldn't believe that he wasn't the one in command.

Then I read "Ender's Shadow"....

If nothing else, this story proved two things to me:
   1) Much like with people, never judge a character too harshly; you don't know what's been going on in their life. Also, especially with a character, the narrator's view may paint the wrong picture of a character.
   2) Everyone is the hero of their own story. Bean kind of had to be the hero of his, otherwise, what's the point? However, reading what he had to conquer, and how he actually HELPED Ender, really made me rethink my view of a lot of side characters. As well as reminded me that I needed to mentally plot out my own parallel stories for all of my side characters. Make sure that if I retold the story through their eyes that they are more than simple support; they are the hero of their version of the story.

Another thing came to mind as I got further and further into "Ender's Shadow".... Jolene was basically Bean. Not in personality, age, intelligence, or gender, but in her inability to properly communicate. The reason I couldn't stand Bean before reading his story was because Ender wasn't the biggest fan at first. Ender's interpretation of the kid was what I wrote above: uncaring, calculated, egotistical little snot who didn't believe his poop stank and couldn't believe that he wasn't the one in command. Now that I'm reading Bean's side of the story, Ender's cold snarkiness does seem overly harsh, and it's derived from Ender not understanding Bean's words or motives.

"Just saw your message," said Bean.
"Fine."
"It's near lights-out."
"I'll help you find your way in the dark."
The sarcasm surprised Bean. As usual, Wiggin had completely misunderstood the purpose of Bean's comment. "I just didn't know if you knew what time it was-"
"I always know what time it is."
Bean sighed inwardly. It never failed. Whenever he had any conversation with Wiggin, it turned into some kind of pissing contest, which Bean always lost even when it was Wiggin whose deliberate misunderstanding caused the whole thing. Bean hated it. He recognized Wiggin's genius and honored him for it. Why couldn't he see anything good in Bean?

- Ender's Shadow, Part 4: Soldier, Chapter 16: Companion, page 243; written by Orson Scott Card

That's basically Jolene's interaction with the party in a nutshell. More specifically, her interaction with Mahtab, and in part, Rensin. Much like Bean, Jolene led a life where she didn't learn the same social interactions as the rest of the party. For Bean, it's because he's basically Sheldon from "The Big Bang Theory": a brilliant mind; a genius that makes him have the mindset of a 20-something at the age of 7, but also a social disconnect because he's more logical than feeling. Numbers and logic make sense to Bean, the chaos of humanity and emotions does not. The higher one's factual intelligence, the lower one's emotional intelligence.

Jolene, on the other hand, simply learned, after being constantly hurt by keeping her heart on her sleeve, to not get emotionally attached to anyone. So, when she WAS getting emotionally attached yet again - namely to the two Northerners and a certain half-orc - she could no longer interpret her feelings, and so she lashed out. She may not have realized what she did, but the harsher she lashed out, the more she was subconsciously saying "I love you; don't leave me." It's that weird mental protective shield that "If I push them away then when they finally do leave me it's because I was a jerk, not because they truly hate the real me."

I mean, the tactic worked. They did hate her, they didn't see the real her, and Jolene is moving on with her life with yet another chip on her shoulder. Ignore that she put there herself simply because she wanted people to decode her actions, without them realizing there was something that needed interpretation. No one knew to not take her at face value, although I'm sure Corlmitz suspected.

It's not an exact parallel between the two, Bean didn't subconsciously act like a snot in some veiled attempt to protect himself from rejection. Bean simply spoke facts and kept knowledge of himself close to the vest because those two things were what kept him alive. Ender, a much more emotional person, misinterpreted those features as cold and conniving. Therefore, the reader, or at least me, thought the same way.

Now that I have that connection with Bean, Jolene's pain being spelled out in Bean's laments, the kid is WAY more sympathetic for me. It also helps that Bean is finally showing the reader more emotions, which is another great way to finally connect with the character. I'm now actually nervous for the part of the story I'm at now.

I don't want to put out any spoilers, however, if you've read the book already or never intend to, I'll go ahead and drop a spoiler box. Just click to expand it and read the spoiler, or scroll past to stay spoiler free:

Achilles, a thug Bean knew while they were living on the street, is revealed to be a suspected serial killer, and is now in Bean's Rabbit Army. Bean's all but convinced that Achilles will try to murder him, just as Bonzo attempted with Ender. Except, Bean won't be able to defend himself as Ender did.... Dun dun duuuuun!

Stopping to write notes on "Ender's Shadow" might also help me with my own writing. The main reason why writers are advised to read as well. As I mentioned above, starting to like Bean and understand this character has taught me valuable things that I can use with my own character and plot developments. There was also a beautifully subtle but profound transition with Bean that escaped my notice at first. Going back and finding this moment in the story gives me a new life goal: becoming a good enough author to know how to do a similar transition.

    So Wiggin did understand how his army had been selected, even if he didn't know who had done the selecting. Or maybe he knew everything, and this was all that he cared to show Bean at this time. It was hard to guess how much of what Wiggin did was calculated and how much merely intuitive. "They can't break you."
    "You'd be surprised." Wiggin breathed sharply, suddenly, as if there were a stab of pain, or he had to catch a sudden breath in the wind; Bean looked at him and realized that the impossible was happening. Far from baiting him, Ender Wiggin was actually confiding in him. Not much. But a little. Ender was letting Bean see that he was human. Bringing him into the inner circle. Making him...what? A counselor? A confidant?
...
    Bean wondered what Ender imagined the consequences would be. Merely that the legend of Ender Wiggin, perfect soldier, would be lost?... Or was this about the larger war, and losing a game here in Battle School might shake the confidence of the teachers that Ender was the commander of the future, the one who lead the fleet, if he could be made ready before the Bugger invasion arrived?
...
    "I need you to be clever, Bean," said Ender.

- Condensed passages from pg 245 of Ender's Shadow

Do you see that transition? It's subtle, right?

From the moment Bean heard Ender's name, on page 93, until that moment on page 245, Bean was determined to distance himself as much as he could from Ender; determined to only ever refer to him by his last name of Wiggin. When he talked about Ender, when he thought about Ender, when the narration was with Bean, Ender was ALWAYS Wiggin. THAT was the character's name. But then, there, Bean thought of Ender by his full name - Ender Wiggin - and that was the switch. That was when this kid was finally just Ender, and Bean's idol. That point where Bean realized that Ender was a kid, like him, who is going through trials way harsher than any child should endure, and this kid needed a confidant. He needed something that resembled a friend. Bean realized the vulnerability Ender was showing him, and in that instant, Bean couldn't distance himself anymore.

Beautiful. Simply beautiful. I am so mad that I had missed it at first. It wasn't until about 70 pages later, when Bean had to say goodbye to Ender, did I remember that Bean used to only refer to him as Wiggin. I needed to know when that switch was, and found it in the passage above. So good.

And moments like that every writer should note and keep in a journal somewhere. It's great to have these writing goals and these examples of how to do these amazing bits of writing that say so much with so little.

Anyway, while I think I've more than proved that it is important for writers to also be avid readers, I also went on for far too long over why I was reading instead of writing. My long-winded point is that this was mainly why I nearly missed so much writing. I have become engrossed in Bean's story, and I do want to get this book done soon so I can get through "Ender's Game" before the end of the month.

I didn't completely fall off the horse, though. I may have only spent about 20minutes or so on a few days, and may have mostly just edited, but I DID work on "Peeping Tomcat" throughout this week.

I added a lot of dialogue to the first chapter to better set up Adrien's terrible day without it just being endless "telling" versus "showing". I still have a huge chunk of Exposition Monster while Chat Noir is running around Paris, setting up the world for any who may not be in the fandom, and his reflection on Marinette, and why he lingered at her window. I tried to find ways to add more dialogue and action, but there really isn't anything more I could do with that.

As it is, I think the first chapter is as polished as it's going to get without any outside advice. We'll see what my beta duo of ChibiSunnie and Cyhyr say once I get them the story: one outside the fandom and one within, respectively. I'm still at least a month out from sending them the whole thing, though. I'm still aiming to get it to them by the end of the month; mid-February at the latest. I need to pick up the pace though if I'm editing one chapter a week, and I not only have 14 total planned chapters, but I still have to write/re-write about half of them!

My goal this week is to let you fine folks know next week that I have the next two chapters re-written and edited, and that I have a fix for the Akuma-Attack chapter after. But in order to be that on top of things I should probably get this post up and work on that second chapter!