Sunday, January 15, 2012

Real characters harbor real dreams
... and real fears


A few days ago, I read an article in the Times, "A Poverty Solution That Starts With a Hug" by op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof. The gist is that while many factors contribute to poverty and delinquency in youth, a perhaps overlooked factor is "toxic stress" that can harm a child even before birth.
"It's not the natural stresses of childhood that pose a problem. Every baby or small child will be hungry or frightened at some moment. [Toxic stress is] the lack of a comforting, stable, protective, adult presence to help a child recover [from these normal stresses] that changes things." -- NYT parenting blog
Photo courtesy of Giglig

Toxic stress can have lasting debilitating effects, preventing the development of healthy coping mechanisms and contributing to behavioral, intellectual, and health problems.

“You can modify behavior later, but you can’t rewire disrupted brain circuits” -- Jack P. Shonkoff, a Harvard pediatrician (link)

Eliminating toxic stress also seems to be a key step toward breaking child abuse cycles.

As a Life Book Writer, working with nonprofit children's services and CPS, I'm always interested in searching out root problems and finding solutions to them.

As a fiction writer, these articles made me think about a post written by kidlit author Pat Esden. She asks the implicit question What is your main character's greatest fear? I've been struggling to get a good hold on my book's MC, and this question really hit home. I decided I'd ask Emily, but that aside...

What a person fears is at the root of a person's hopes and dreams. If I dream about making a difference in the world, going out with a bang, or whatnot, it's because I fear being irrelevant, overlooked, useless.

Thinking about fears, I read Small Voices, Big Dreams' second annual survey, which polls 100 children (ages 10-12) in 36 developing nations and 6 developed nations using 6 open-ended questions:
  1. What would you do as president [leader] to improve children’s lives?
  2. If you could grow up to be anything you wanted, what would you be?
  3. If you could spend the day doing anything you wanted, what would you do?
  4. Where do you feel safest?
  5. When you think about staying safe and healthy every day, what is the one thing you worry about most?
  6. If you were the president [leader] of your country, what is the one thing you would do to protect children? 
Among other things, the results show that
“Children in the poorest countries are placing their hopes and dreams on their ability to learn, and they want to use their education to improve their communities.” --Anne Lynam Goddard, president and CEO of ChildFund International (link)

When I grow up ....
In developing countries, most children want to be teachers or doctors
In developed countries, most children want to be artists or professional athletes.

Our hopes and dreams point back to our fears, I believe, at every age.

Our environments dictate these fears, too. And if our earliest environments are saturated with toxic stress? --An odd idea, being suffocated by a lack of something. But isn't that what hunger is? What poverty, fear, disease, war are: simply the lack of food, lack of security, lack of health, and lack of peace? -- If even before birth, we're missing stability and the sense of safety that equips us to deal with natural stressors, how much more susceptible will we be to the effects of these stressors?

~~~

As a human being, I hope these articles help raise awareness about the need for solutions.

As writers presenting reality as it is or could be, what are some of the things your characters have feared most or wished for hardest?

Always,
Lora

11 comments:

  1. I love this post Lora. With my children, I've dealt very directly with this toxic stress and seen first hand the effects. Early childhood is critical.

    In my current WIP, my character's biggest fear is that to move away and break the cultural stereotype of who she is and what her family represents (appalachia) she will have to leave her family behind. In its manifestation, she thinks her fear is that she will never get out (conscious fear) but losing her family is truly the underlying fear.

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  2. In this order, here is what some of my MCs fear: the truth leaking out, the past and what it could do to ruin the present, poverty and destitution, worthlessness, authority and what it can do to destroy someone, the cruel nature of another human being, finding love, losing love, destroying love, losing one's soul, and losing one's life.

    That about sums it up. Fascinating post!

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  3. Things that make you go hmmm...
    I seriously loved this post Lora! Not just for what I can ask my MC to help get to know her better, but for myself personally as well as better understanding my children.
    Thanks!

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  4. One of my characters deals with fear of CPS. Isn't that sad?

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  5. Wonderful, inspiring post--on many different levels. It really drives home the reason it takes a lot of thought and work to make characters truly feel real.


    #4 Hit me because I think that is of equal value to a character's fear and can be a real writing tool.

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  6. "What a person fears is at the root of a person's hopes and dreams. If I dream about making a difference in the world, going out with a bang, or whatnot, it's because I fear being irrelevant, overlooked, useless."

    The root of a person's hopes and dreams may be fear, but perhaps does not need to be. Beware the seduction of pat explanations! Certainly a deeply rooted fear causing a character's hopes and dreams can make for gripping fiction. Maybe even in real life a deeply rooted fear reliably causes some of a person's hopes and dreams. But I'd be loath to conclude that fear accounts for all hopes and dreams.

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  7. @JRo--Thanks for your thoughts. Ahh, the loss of family especially when you have to move. Very tangible.

    @Mary Mary--Wow! Intriguing fears! I'd be very interested to see what you did with those characters. Thanks for leaving your thoughts with us :)

    @Deana--Hi you! I'm glad you found it helpful. Hope you're enjoying tackling those weekly goals you posted about earlier.

    @Angelina--Yes, but totally understandable. The system may sometimes be the better of two evils. Sadly, it's often an inescapable quagmire full of people too burned out to do more than "their job."

    @Pat--Thanks, and I agree that #4 is really important. It's something I'll wanna ask my MC too :)

    @Guy--Oh, rightrightright. Of course :) But sometimes pat answers, though wrong in many circumstances, can be useful.... BUT thanks for the reminder.

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  8. You always write the most interesting and informative posts, Lora. I'm very impressed.

    I agree with this notion and I'm using it directly as the trigger for some really bad things that will happen in my next book. I also used this theory to some extent in my first novel. When he's not paying attention, the MC turns into exactly what he always fears and does something he never thought possible.

    As far as the real world goes, it's easy to see how these factors manipulate the human psyche in children. My brother is a perfect example. He grew up very differently than I did and so turned out quite different. That's why I vowed to be a stay-at-home-mom when my child started school. And I've done so since kindergarten. Now that he's getting ready to run off to college in the fall, I can say it was the best decision for him, and it shows. He is a remarkable young man.

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  9. LOVE this post, Lora. Even the list of questions asked of children an author could use to ask her character and really get a hold on her/his emotional state.

    My MC's fear is that she's not good enough - a fear that developed from harrowing childhood circumstances that still consumes her as an adult.

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  10. I love this post, Lora! As a writer and a parent, I search this questions ferociously.

    I am currently watching my own dear child deal with the fear of losing who she is just as she is discovering herself. It's complicated and mired with hormonal changes and medication that may or may affect her personality. Let's just say, I'm doing some hard-hitting research right now that will make my next book kick butt.

    Thanks for sharing this!

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  11. Wow - your post has made me think about my novel on a whole different level. Thanks!

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