The Jeopardy Problem

 

There are many reasons that I struggle with producing fiction. 

1) It's very hard work.

2) I get people mixed up all the time in real life. There's no suggestion that I would find fiction any different, and I worry about accidentally marrying people off to their Mother-in-law.

3) There's a strong possibility that I may be rubbish at it.

4) Grammar. No one has a go at my grammar in my own blog, but I think that my use of the English language would make an editor faint.

5) Jeopardy. I'm not sure that I can do it.

Anne Lamott says that jeopardy is essential for fiction, no matter how gentle. She says, quite reasonably, I think, that without jeopardy there is no story. Jeopardy can range from a woman tied up under a bridge waiting for her killer to come back (about 80% of TV output these days) to wondering if people in a tiny English village will sell enough books to keep their bookshop dream alive. 

The Bible is obviously packed to the brim with jeopardy. Will Samson fall for Delilah's ruse? Will Uriah really die when David deliberately puts him in harm's way? What on earth is Joseph doing with Benjamin and that cup? What will Peter say when his accent is recognised as someone who followed Jesus, while he knows that Jesus is under arrest and being tortured? Real life is full of jeopardy. God is obviously not afraid to say so.

Someone who knows a bit about these things once told me that I have a tendency to "extreme empathy". This means (among other things) that I feel other people's pain and problems very personally. I am the kind of person who watches Springwatch and will worry for ages about a duckling taken by a seagull to eat. (By the way, I live on the South Coast, I am a VERY strong defender of seagulls. Just move your chips where it's not so easy for them to grab and stop moaning, I say.) I regulate the films that I watch because I really don't enjoy watching bad things happen to people. This is apparently because I have spent a lot of my youth trying to make sure that everyone was happy and getting to a spot in life where all I did was feel everyone else's feels. I'm much better at this sort of thing these days, but I can still struggle when I write stories. 

This doesn't mean that I don't appreciate some pretty strong jeopardy when it is written by other people. I have read all the Mick Herron Slow Horses books voraciously, and that's a man who is not afraid to kill off central and beloved characters if he deems it necessary. Even someone like Barbara Pym, who you might think epitomised gentle storytelling, writes books full of affairs, break-ups, death and even a bit of stalking. 

I'm learning things. Things that may be quite obvious to experienced writers. But things have to happen in stories. People, it seems, want to read about things happening. It can be completely wild - a sci-fi epic with swashes being buckled and people finding themselves through the medium of gunslinging in the Wild West. It can, of course, be much gentler, but still, things have to happen. Even Adrian Plass' work of genius - his Sacred Diary - has, at its heart, friendships and failures as he journeys closer to a better understanding of God.

How are you with your stories? Do you struggle to do bad things to your characters, or is it just me? It probably is just me. Feel free to disregard this blog.

Lesley blogs at https://wrinklymartha.blogspot.com/ , mainly about her life and opinions, neither of which are that exciting, really, but she is doing her best.