Main Character Arch, Disbelief

I was also thinking of writing a post to go into the layers of inspiration for my current #WIP, but I am trying to brainstorm about how to begin the story properly/ revise or rewrite the early chapters. This post is to address some of the complexities in my main character's arch which impact both the context of how to address the stakes at the beginning as well as how to address her aha moment - I will get into why it is less of one aha moment and more true to real life.

First, if we are exploring her state of mind when the story starts, she has built support network around her in her relationships. Part of this is because she was chosen to rule and carry out her vision for a new direction the Empire can develop, and she is surrounded by people with different agendas, or simply the inability to see that vision without anything concrete to demonstrate the potential. This actually speaks to our experience and journey as artists and the creative process. There was a lot of me in writing these themes, surrounded by people telling you to quit an endeavor and pursue a different direction or path that seems easier. People who hear you describe a novel or see a clip, and have zero vision for the reality of the final project and can be quite disruptive in trying to "help" by superimposing how they would do or write things into your creative process. We have all been there.

This is why when she becomes Empire, she needs support. She doesn't expect to do this on herself, and she wants to build and support her own emotional and mental health while taking on enourmous burdens of responsibility. However, many of her relationships she pours into developing the people around her. She does not fully know if her theories will come to fruiting. She has theories that if she develops emotionally invested relationships with her spouses who she also oversees their professional and leadership development, that they will also be on her team and bring this vision into reality. However, for the first decade of her reign, this has largely been theory. She feels good about her relationships, but is forced to make a decision to bring in a new addition to her family, and she fears that it will destabilize her efforts.

Of these relationships, her first husband is the only person who knew her before her reign began, and that is the only relationship where she actually can receive more than she pours out. She sees that relationship as a cornerstone of her support structure, and believes that without that, her support system will crumble. She is also faced with the fear of being like her brother, and exploring his narcissism, she wishes not to share any personality traits with him.

These are the layers of her state of mind at the beginning of the story, this chapter in her reign and series of events.

I knew when I started the book that I would challenge that relationship. As I wrote the first 50 pages or so, I thought I would have to kill that character. I did have a brief brainstorm session about that idea, and then challenged by one of those disruptive people in my creative process, evaluated the players on the board and how the conflict would play out. It involved the MC facing more prolonged challenges and increasing emotional burden than just the loss of one relationship. I made many jokes on twitter about what I did to the characters. These events provoke the climax, when she faces losing all of this, and facing her fear of shared personality traits with her brother. All of which cause her to react in a state of brokenness and complete a total mental break.

Her recovery, which I myself had to puzzle out as I wrote, showed her that the other relationships were there to support her and pour into her when she needed it. However, I am not sure how well I emphasized this aha moment correctly, because one reader thought this meant she realized she was not "dependent" on the man. I wrote another post about this, because this perspective irritated me. The power dynamic of the relationship puts the man without any power over her, not fiscally or institutionally, so there is no dependency on him. It also made me concerned, and want to emphasize, that relying on other people is not a weakness. I saw another author write a book about a woman who did not follow the rules and was penalized and cast out of society. To me it communciated that if women do not behave how we want, they are cast out and pushined, not worthy of finding a tribe to support them through that challenge, which I find incredibly toxic. (I have experienced this societaly behavior pattern first hand)

Her aha moment was never completely about that relationship, either. Because it was also her process of understanding that sharing certain personality traits with a family member who is not well, does not mean you are like them in the choices you make about how to apply those traits. That the same trait can become a strengthness or a weakness, depending on how you chose to develop and apply it. The result is that she does come out of the challenges to everything she believed at the beginning of the story stronger, and more confident, both in seeing that her relationships were stronger than she imagined, and she had the support she did not think was there, as well as seeing pros and cons of the theory she was developing and testing about bringing her spouses into leadership positions with her.

These are the elements I am challenged to improve upon during revision. I have yet to find my collaborative person who can see the book the way I do, to help me develop and polish the manuscript to the point it needs to be to get these things across correctly. Still on the search. Everyone who sees it puts pressure on me, that it is "ambitious" and has so much potential to be powerful, that their version of support is to enter into my creative process in disruptive ways. Still searching someone who can fully understand all of the wonderful aspects of this book with me.