I've just returned from the Swanwick Summer School where I had a fabulous week, learning lots, making new writing friends and eating far too much delicious food. I also came back with drafts of some flash fiction pieces and a short story I hope to get ready for a competition after this blog post tonight. One lovely thing about social media is the way it is easier to stay in contact with people (and I don't know why it is but I always respond quicker to a FB message, to an email or whatever than I do "real mail" delivered by the postman but there you go). So hopefully I'll conjure up wonderful thoughts of a great week whenever I contact/am contacted by people I met at Swanwick.
But it is now back to earth with a bump and a return to real life. So how do your characters do this when they have had this fabulous adventure but it is all over? I love the way J.R.R. Tolkein does not gloss over the fact Frodo was badly damaged (especially in terms of mental suffering) by all that he went through. Equally Sam was not so damaged and could/did make a new life for himself in the way Frodo could not. So when thinking about what happens to your characters, for the ones that survive, how do they survive? How do they cope with all that they have seen? Is their society sympathetic? (And if not, why not?).
But it is now back to earth with a bump and a return to real life. So how do your characters do this when they have had this fabulous adventure but it is all over? I love the way J.R.R. Tolkein does not gloss over the fact Frodo was badly damaged (especially in terms of mental suffering) by all that he went through. Equally Sam was not so damaged and could/did make a new life for himself in the way Frodo could not. So when thinking about what happens to your characters, for the ones that survive, how do they survive? How do they cope with all that they have seen? Is their society sympathetic? (And if not, why not?).
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