Like some of the bloggers who have posted this month, I don’t really read regularly in any genre that truly puts a villain on the page. When I saw this month’s prompt, my mind instantly went to Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series. I also considered writing about the antagonist in Kristan Higgin’s most recent novel, Always the Last to Know, who, like Snape, is far more complex than she first appears. But then I read Barbara Binn’s blog featuring COVID-19 as a villain created by the 2020 writers’ room, I veered in yet another direction.
Barbara’s
post spurred me to consider how I often use an external force as a villain in
my own writing. War – WWII specifically in my case – is the overriding
antagonist in my novels. It rips my characters out of their ordinary world,
keeps them from their loved ones, is a source of loss -- loss of comrades,
friends, loved ones, loss of liberty, loss of innocence. They all wanted to do their part. My heroines will maintain that despite the hardships and grief and separation from home and loved ones, they wouldn't have missed it for the world. Naturally, my combat veteran heroes might have more complex emotions on that point, though they too were proud to have been part of such an important undertaking.
Though I don’t show it
on the page, it’s safe to assume that war leaves an indelible mark on my
characters. My heroes and heroines get their happy ending, but as in any
well-written romance novel, their evolution and personal journeys to resolve
their inner conflicts and their relationship barrier are shaped in extraordinary
ways by the war and its lasting effects.
They might well have taken advantage of benefits that allowed them to buy
a home with a low-interest loan. My characters returned home to a booming
economy that bore little resemblance to what they had experienced during their
childhood and adolescence.
Yet, there were surely negative effects from the war
as well. Both my heroes and my heroines may have suffered from some residual
PTSD, though it would be decades after the war before their struggles had a
diagnosis and a name. Framed photos of loved ones who were lost in the war will
long trigger grief and sadness. Some of my characters may have preferred to
shield their children from later wars.
Down
the road, I plan to do a “reunion” of my Clubmobile Girls heroines, perhaps set
in the 1970s, to explore some of the long-term effects. I know that my
heroines, based on their historical counterparts, will have often enjoyed
professional and career success while also raising a family (including their
daughters, who are no doubt among the vocal feminists advocating for equal
rights beginning in the 1960s). As with my heroes and other male veterans, my
heroines will cite their wartime service as the most memorable and
transformative experience of their lives. They left their overseas postings convinced that they could now do anything, anything hey wanted was within reach. Of course, that wasn't completely true, but their optimism no doubt helped them topple barriers that might have once stymied their progress. My heroes may have taken advantage of
the GI bill to pursue additional education or start a small business after the
war.
War
is definitely a non-traditional villain, but a villain or antagonist all the
same. And as with human villains, its arc is neither simple nor a
straight-line.
Learn
more about me and my writing on my website, and you can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
You can find my Clubmobile Girls books on Amazon.
4 comments:
I worked with several WWII veterans who had been hospitalized and heavily medicated due to what we now call PTSD. In those years, the veterans were considered to be of poor character or deficient in some way. No wonder they did not talk about their experiences or feelings. Watching some of the documentaries as this is the 75th anniversary of D-Day and learning even more. So few of these heroic men and women are still with us. Capturing their stories is even more important. Losing our history is as bad a glorifying or mis-stating it.
Interesting post. All war is devastating . PSTD is well known now, but for years it was not recognized as a result of war. Thank you for your post.
In my novel, BLINDSIGHT, the antagonist is an organization, the Mendoza Drug Cartel. I needed a concrete human stand-in for the cartel to engage readers' emotions. I chose the drug lord's right-hand man, Gregory Killingsworth. He represents twisted, violent and merciless"business".
Do you use stand-ins for war, or for "the enemy" in your books?
This is a very interesting, thought-provoking post, Eleri.
All War is devastating and has been as long as there has been history (written or oral). Not only for soldiers but for those in the countries that are overtaken, bombed, women abused and children made into slave labor.
I remember WW2 Veterans who we now know had PTSD, were classified as "shell shocked." The assumption was that the bombing and the guns were so loud and frightening that it put them in a stupor or made them hypersensitive. It is also true that anyone who suffered from "shell shock" was considered to be not "man enough." It was what one expected from women but not men.
Not only did most men not talk about it but they also did their best not to even think about it. My husband was fortunate to go to the 50th anniversary of D-Day back in 1994 and was on the beach for the re-enactments. He was with a veteran contingent and their families. He spent every hour he could simply listening to the stories and cataloging them in his mind--some of which he later used in writing and editing the Time Life books about WWII. To this day, whenever there is anything about WW2 on the news or television he retells some of those stories because it made such a big impact on him and he tears up in the memory.
I'm glad you are writing books about that period of time. Whether they are romances, historicals, or some combination of genres it is an important time for us all to remember.
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