My Version Of Sophie’s Choice

Sort of. Where I’m at in the story (my OCD-ness likes to write chronologically) is Sabina’s parents have no other choice than to tell their daughter that she’s about to be handed over to a life of suffering because of her diamond tears. For a little backstory–

The stars are the gods. The stars bestowed one immense power in each of the Previes when they were born while living in another kingdom. Fast forward past information that isn’t relevant at the moment, the Previes die, or rather opt to die because, really, immortality would get boring, and now they exist pretty much in Past (”heaven”) although they have access to this world via a mirror. They can also possess animals but the rulers of Past (whose names escape me, bad author) forbade human possession. Yadda, yadda, yadda since they were no longer capable of a tangible human form in the living world, someone had to rule.

Enter the Giver. The Previes bestow their power on the Giver, a new one once every X number of years and then the Giver filters the gifts throughout the people, never giving more than one to a person and never giving everyone a gift. Balance is key. Under normal rule circumstances, Diamond Criers existed at about one in ten. Under the now usurped rule, they’re dwindling and are hovering somewhere closer to one in a hundred, perhaps even one in five hundred.

When the Goquin usurped, they got themselves in a bit of a tiff. They couldn’t kill the Giver because that would destroy the powers and there wasn’t anything they could do about the Previes since they wouldn’t survive the climb up the Mountain of Past to get to them. Also, the Previes wouldn’t bestow power to them anyway so slaughter was out of the question. So they exiled the Giver and made sure to keep him alive so they could siphon his powers. Unfortunately, their methods weren’t able to suck all of them up, Criers being one of them and, of course, the most lucrative. So they relied on the Giver to, well, keep giving, which he did. Bestowing the powers onto the people acted as a sort of released for the Giver. Keep the powers in and go mad with it all. So he kept giving. Unfortunately, since he is still mortal and living only by the graces of the powers, he did start to fade, which equaled a drop in Criers.

The Goquin went nuts when their stash of Criers died because they treated them like shit and their source was quickly dwindling. When the age of the Criers started getting younger (Criers in their 30s had stronger bodies and could thus persist, went younger because the fewer there were, the longer the Goquin needed them to last), people started hiding their Crier children. The Goquin got pissy and mutated one of their powers into a Sickness. As you may or may not know, an occasional sickness actually acts as a cleansing agent. Not here. This Sickness is entirely controlled by the usurping Giver and attacks children first, then parents, leaving the sought Crier untouched. The goal is to inflict torture on the people until they bring the Crier out, usually out of weakness on the parents part of mob mentality on the rest of the kingdom. It’s usually sacrifice a few to save a many, not the other way around and people would get a little pissed when their innocent children were dying because someone didn’t want to hand over a Crier. A very sick, yet I think very real, human reaction to the situation. The mind can work in demented ways under such duress.

So the fading Giver got wind of this and fought his end even more. The survival of the kingdom lay in his ability to produce Criers so the people wouldn’t get decimated. A sadistic cycle but refer back to the few for the many statement. In his eyes, to save his people as a whole, it had to be done. Someone would rise up eventually . . . he hoped.

Now my WIP essentially focuses on the trials of one Crier, Sabina. Now imagine you’re her parents. You have a baby that cries diamonds and knowing the climate of the kingdom, know full well what that entails. You can’t hide her because that would mean sacrificing your other children, along with everyone else in the kingdom. So do you tell her when she’s old enough to comprehend that she’s headed on a path to misery or do you let her live her life as a child should, carefree? If the latter, what do you say to her when you get the letter that the Seek is on and her life as a Trade is coming? How do you explain something like that to a 10 year old kid? Do you?

I didn’t have an issue writing from the angle of the girl because I believe I know just how she would react. There wouldn’t be anything the parents could say to make it ok, to get her to understand. Not a word. Her brothers had been telling her stories like this for years and for years her parents had been telling her she was safe when she really wasn’t. Resentment, mutiny, hatred, rage. Her parents were going to sell her out, in her eyes. I think some comprehension can come from the parents because their backs are against a wall. I talked about this on AW and my only conclusion to end without pain would be to have a familial suicide. However that would result in a rather short book since I’m only on chapter four.

Essentially, they don’t have a choice. They hide her, the Sickness gets released, everyone dies except her and she goes to a life of suffering anyway. You kill her humanely and you might has well take your own life as well as that of the rest of your family’s in order to spare them the pain of what would come. So what would you do? I feel like the parents are fish gaping out of water, however I think that’s pretty accurate. Can you put such a thing into words?

And keep in mind this is not your typical “chosen one” story where a ten year old is OK with something like this, for the good of the kingdom type of stuff. To that I say bullshit. I don’t think a ten year old out there would be OK with something like this, do you?

~ by Donna on May 15, 2008.