Is There a Doctor In The House?

I probably over simplified things when I said the plot itself was easier for me than character development.  The people of TEN DAYS actually drove the plot, at least to a point. After all, the book is all about what happened to them.

Changes came to the characters as I wrote and discovered some of my own limitations.  One character went from being minor to major fairly quickly. I needed someone to carry the historical portion of the book.

There are four main characters in TEN DAYS.  They each provide a perspective - a point of view the others don’t have. They provide information to the reader; without having to provide long sections of rather bland but important background.

The first is Doctor Carl Whitman.  Originally, his first name was Phil, but then I noticed that that made him Dr. Phil, as in the daytime talk-show host.  So, scrap Phil for Carl. I also came to understand my limited knowledge of the medical field and gave the good doctor a little less print than I originally planned.

Dr. Whitman, in TEN DAYS, is a world renowned oncologist.  He is married to a very wealth socialite, and together they have three children.

As the war in his homeland progresses from bad to worse, he sees the health care in the country decline as members of the medical community flee to safer lands.  Carl decides to remain as long as possible to keep the medical services functioning.  

I borrowed the basic idea for this character from the 1978 TV mini-series, Holocaust.  (I recommend everyone view Holocaust at some point in their lives) In that story there is a Dr. Josef Weiss who is torn between saving his family or his fellow Jews.  In the end he is unable to save either.

In the USA, we haven’t experienced war on our mainland soil in a very long time.  It’s easy to forget that even basic medical care can deteriorate when a city is under siege.

I also used Doctor Whitman to explain the “Option”.  It is the method used in the book to commit suicide. The package contains two pills.  One calms the nerves, while the other slowly stops the heart. When the war began Carl isn’t in favor of the “Option”, but the terrible track record of the Enemy causes him to change his views late in the war.

Suicide, euthanasia, and such topics are increasingly in the media.  The purpose of adding them in TEN DAYS was not to take sides, but present them as something someone might consider if the alternative was terrible enough.

These were two of several controversial topics I chose to broach.  In none of those cases am I trying to provide answer - just acknowledging that the topic is out-there being bantered about.

I am not endorsing situational ethics, but I wonder how I would respond if faced with two really grim realities.  It is not a conflict with my faith to try to understand why some people makes the choices they do.  Nor is it a conflict to discuss that people can and do hold to views which differ from mine.  

The Character of the Characters

I’d like to spend a couple of blogs talking about the characters and character development in my first book, TEN DAYS.  As a novice author, I probably spent more time ‘sweating bullets’ trying to make sure the characters were believable than developing the plot.

There was a level at which the plot kind of took care of itself.  I only had to cover a week or so in the entire storyline.  Each day had to follow some logical progression with an outcome which was already predetermined.  I provided background material in a few places, and ‘poof’ I was done.  Okay, it wasn’t that simple, but you get the basic idea.

The characters, on the other hand, required depth of thought.  None of us are two dimensional.  I tried hard to avoid stereotypes.  My opinion is that no one is just simply what we see on the surface so that thinking carries into my writing.  

I stated in one of my first blogs that I’m a Christian.  Just using that label ‘pigeonholes’ me in the minds of some.  For some the title causes them to think of me in positive terms; for others it means that I’m a dimwitted bigot.

Those of us who are Christians can be equally, if not often more so, guilty of seeing those who aren’t ‘one of us’ in very simplistic terms.  When we attach a label to someone we read the label and miss the person.  None of the main characters in TEN DAYS are Christians; it was a very intentional decision.

All four of the main characters are really good people with pretty pure motives.  I made them very likeable.  It was all for a reason - really terrible things can happen to very good people whether they are people of faith or not.

It is sometimes a forgotten tenant of my faith; that I care about all persons without regard to their ‘labels’.  I am free to evaluate where I think they are in life but I’m not allowed to withhold compassion.

My characters are in an unenviable set of circumstances.  Right at this moment there are easily thousands, if not millions, in similar situations around the globe.  Do I care enough to do what I can?  Do I even care?

I’m just not a ‘they lived happily ever-after kind of guy.  Life just isn’t like that.  It’s not that I think life is always tough, but real people go through difficulty and sometimes long stretches of pain.  It makes them/us who we are.  As my lead pastor says, “it’s not if the storms come…it’s when the storms come…”

When you finish reading TEN DAYS I want you to have cried, to have screamed “No”, to be upset with me for having taken you into the lives of the main characters.  If you come away with a sense of loss, felt their hearts race in fear, and then I’ve been an effective author.  While my characters are fictional, they have their counterparts somewhere in the real world.

A Bit of Introduction

I’ve decided to set aside the theme of my garden for a while; maybe I’ll return to it in some blogs later on. Thus far, I really haven’t talked much about my first book, TEN DAYS.

To introduce the book to those of you who haven’t read it - it’s about people trapped in a capital city.  They are surrounded by a cruel, brutal enemy, with no real possibility of escape.  The book is called TEN DAYS because as the story begins they think they have ten days to two weeks to live.

Without having experienced such an event myself, I’ve wondered what it’s like to be in that situation. There have been numerous similar events throughout history.  The people of Berlin had to wonder how they would be treated in the last days of the Third Reich.  Their city had been reduced to just a little more than piles of rubble. The Russians would soon enter, and after the German atrocities visited upon Russian civilians they had to wonder if they were going to experience retribution.  

 

The Russian (USSR) flag waves over the ruins of Berlin.

In the mid-70’s, the civilians of Phnom Penh and Saigon waited the arrival of Enemy forces, not knowing what to expect.  We know the Killing Fields followed the fall of Phnom Penh. What’s it like to await that unknown fate? 

While I doubt most of us will ever face those circumstances, what about those of us who receive word of a terminal illness? There are the different stages of grief even while our loved one fights on. In TEN DAYS I take the residents of this fictional capital city through most of those stages.

Whether it’s battling illness, loss of our income, or the extreme, the impending fall of a capital city, we all long to discover the new “normal” and learn to accept it.  It’s where you’ll find the main characters in TEN DAYS.

I want to take my readers through a broad range of emotion; tenderness, fear, joy, despair.  If I’ve done my ‘job’, they will enter into the lives of the people of the Capital City and come away changed on some level.

Some Final Thoughts on the Garden

I think this is going to be the last blog related to my garden for a while.  It’s possible I’ll return to it at some point in the future. My parting thought concerning the garden is that it’s not going to belong to me forever.

 

We moved into this neighbor over 25 years ago. During that time, we’ve seen a lot of changes.  I don’t think the neighborhood is any more or less safe. It is still pretty much working class, and was probably hit harder than many when the economy went south.  Sadly, I think this neighborhood experienced more of its fair share of foreclosures.

In those 25+ years, some homes have had three or four owners.  I’ve walked the neighborhood a lot. It’s one of the ‘advantages’ of having two dogs during many of those years.   think I took Petey for 5,000 walks (no kidding) during the 15 years of his life.

During those walks, I’ve gotten to observe how people take care of their homes, or don’t.  Some homes have looked worse with each successive owner.  Others have gotten better. There were those which were the pride of the neighborhood when we moved in, and are now comparative dumps.

When we first came to this neighborhood, there was a home about three blocks from here which was a show stopper.  I think it could have made it to Better Homes and Gardens.  The landscaping was picture perfect. The large side yard had a garden I would love to have the skill level to emulate.

The original owners moved out some time ago, and within 2-3 years, the next owners let the gardens go. They went from beautiful, to a neighborhood weed patch, and were finally pulled up.

With all the love, care, and attention I’ve given my garden, some day it will be owned by someone else. I will have no control of what they do with it.  They may not have the time or the interest to work on it. What is is now a passion of mine could easily end-up in the hands of someone who could care less.

I hear comments all the time some wetlands or reserve of tress will remain that way forever.  Forever is a really long time. Others state with full assurance that some hero or group of heroes will never be forgotten.  The same statement holds true; forever is a long time.  As an example, few of the Civil War monuments which dot our landscape seldom stir the passion they once did. We pass them today with little thought.

 As with my garden, we really can’t promise much about anything concerning the future.  I have visited once-grand neighborhoods of my home city of Detroit. Those that built those neighbors, lived in those homes, during their prominence would find it difficult to believe what those areas of the city have become.

What things in life really matter?  What will last?  Am I suggesting that we should never spend our time and money on things that won’t last?  Not at all. Rather, in my opinion, we often spend too much money, on things which will only be ours for what amounts to be little of long term value.  Maybe we need to dial-it-back a bit, and find ways to invest in things of more lasting value.

My blogs, my current book; TEN DAYS, are meant to make us a little uncomfortable (they do me).  Hopefully, my readers are finding me entertaining, but if that’s all that happens; I’ve fallen very short of my goal, my purpose in life.