I got nothin'.I tried to think. Revenge is an interesting topic, so surely I could come up with something to say about it. Turns out, not so much.
I've never had the desire for revenge. The most I've ever thought about it is to think that if someone has done wrong, their Karma will catch up with them.
Now, I realize this is a strange stance for someone who writes mystery fiction, where characters must routinely kill each other.
It dawned on me: To date, I've never used revenge as a motive in something I've written. (Um, once one of my books comes out, you should probably forget you read that. Just to keep you guessing a little more.)
So, instead of making up some nonsense about revenge that I know nothing about (being too calm for my own good and all that), I'm going to share my exciting news of the week:
I finished a draft of my first young adult mystery!
What's it about?
A family curse. A town built on a damnable act of greed. And an evil legacy that continues deep in the heart of California Gold Rush country.
See, I've got greed and desperation in there, but no revenge.
--Gigi
4 comments:
Wow, your YA sounds GREAT! But, um,
curse = revenge
I think.
Revenge says as much about the revenger as the object of their punishing desire. You have to nurse a resentment for a real long time before it becomes full blown revenge-lust (or have an out-of-control ego/bad boundaries).
Or maybe I'm wrong. It happens all the time :)
Maybe revenge is hard-wired. Or maybe the line between helping someone get their just desserts and committing and act of revenge are just ends of a continuum. How are punishment and revenge related. Or...dangit, now I'm all mixed up.
I just know whenever I think about executing revenge on someone (there's a few folks who start me down that road), I get the same feeling as contemplating kicking someone who is down. Ew and icky and really not cricket.
Well, no, now, that's not true. Physical violence repels me, but there are plenty of folks I'd get revenge on by tricking them into exposing their true selves in front of a million witnesses. I'm pretty sure that's a revenge impulse ;)
Mysti -- you're totally right! I never thought of it that way, since revenge isn't the primary motivator in this story (unless I hear back otherwise from my critique partners!), but a certain part of it is tied up in that. Ah, the complexities of human motivation ;)
You are probably one of the most calm people I know. We'll have Martha carry out our revenge for us. :)
I know, Gigi has this zen-like cloud around her that makes you just want to do a lovely pirouette. Come to think of it, you should probably come live here among the savage teenagers Gigi, you'd bring them all together in peaceful harmony.
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