Progress

Progress is slow at the moment. I've been trying to immerse myself in the world of the novel that I'm trying to create and that's involved a lot of reading and watching documentaries and DVDs. Sometimes I find it hard not to write all the information and research that I've absorbed - the last thing I want is for the research to be obvious and stick out from the rest of the novel. I've read some books where the attention to detail of some things is so great and long that I lose the thread of the story. I don't want to do that. To avoid that pitfall, I have to let the info settle and percolate so that when I start writing again, it reads more natural as if coming from acquired knowledge, not from Wikipaedia or YouTube.

I want to understand what it must have been like for peasants in China when communism was first introduced and how all their dreams and aspirations for prosperity and change crumbled over time. How ideals were betrayed and what started out as salvation for many became their biggest nightmare. How young people could be manipulated to become agents of change to do Mao's dirty work, and what they felt about their actions now, as older citizens having lived through such turmoil.

 I've always been interested in psychology and the reasons why people do the things they do. Even when those things are appalling. Cults and religious sects have always intrigued me, as has 'brainwashing' and propaganda: how children can be used to turn against their parents; how adults can turn a blind eye, particularly if someone else says that they will take responsibility; what it is about some people that gives them the strength to stand alone for what they believe in. Human beings are a complicated species and decisions to do the right thing, betray someone, or pretend 'not to see' are all decisions that are made irrespective of intelligence or race. But the most dangerous of the species are those with nothing left to lose.

It's easy to judge others if you've not been in their situation, so my challenge is how to write about the dark side of people's characters without turning them into monsters or appearing to excuse their actions. I have to absorb the world they live in, try to experience their hopes and dreams, feel what it's like to be betrayed and angry, to lash out and take revenge. We are all capable of cruelty and murder. We are all capable of torturing someone to get information if it meant protecting our families. Being capable doesn't mean we'd do it, it means that there is something there, inside us, to draw upon when trying to imagine characters and what makes them tick. We just have to dig deep to find it, to acknowledge our own darkness, and in that we can not only become better writers but better people.