A Friday night guest felt compelled to serve me up a post-chicken helping of this succinct piece of advice: Make Gila divorce Mottie.If you’ve been following my serialized story, Charades, you’ll know exactly who Gila and Mottie are and also exactly why my earnest young guest wanted them to get divorced. For those who need a bit of insider information, Mottie is an abusive husband who ran away from his family and community after making an error with grave ramifications, rather than face his mistakes.
A Friday night guest felt compelled to serve me up a post-chicken helping of this succinct piece of advice: Make Gila divorce Mottie.
If you’ve been following my serialized story Charades you’ll know exactly who Gila and Mottie are and also exactly why my earnest young guest wanted them to get divorced. For those who need a bit of insider information Mottie is an abusive husband who ran away from his family and community after making an error with grave ramifications rather than face his mistakes.
This is not the first time I have been entreated to “divorce” my characters. A highly intelligent sincere individual sent me a very eloquent e-mail pleading with me not to end the story happily. Such an ending she wrote would be an affront to all those who have suffered — and continue to suffer — domestic abuse. “Once an abuser always an abuser ” came her plaintive cry.
Fiction is a powerful tool. Its message seeps in with remarkable ability much more so than nonfiction. It is a strange phenomenon perhaps but stories seem to draw in readers to the point that they live the story. Watching the novel unfold is more than just entertainment; it is on some level a form of living vicariously feeling the characters’ ups and downs with real empathy.
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