Oops! I missed it again! Oh dear…this isn’t going to become a habit, is it? I’m usually so good about these things…
Reading and Writing This Week: This week has been a bit crazy, so I haven’t done much reading or writing. However, I did receive my copy of Auralia’s Colors and have gone a chapter further (yay!) and finished Chapter 4 of The Queen in the Wooden Box.
Deep and Important Thoughts Pondered Today: Abortion. Every time I do any kind of research or reading about abortion, I get inflamed with the desire to write some really powerful, allegorical work of fiction about how horrible it is. But all the ideas I get fall by the wayside because they were stories founded on a symbolic concept, not interesting characters or a unique world/society that came to me. *sigh* It’s very frustrating. I think I have 5 or 6 different story stubs and idea documents stashed away. One day I hope to make something of one of them.
Tasty Foods Eaten Today: sweet potato fries dipped in a blend of sour cream, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Delish.
Stuck in My Head Right Now: This.
Hello! Bethany, perhaps the task of writing about this crucial theme will happen in a different way than in a story devoted to the topic. Perhaps you’ll write a novel in which a character, not necessarily the protagonist, has experienced this. Just a thought. I haven’t yet read fiction about this terrible experience.
Happy reading! And congratulations on completing Chapter 4 of The Queen in the Wooden Box! I’m eager to read it.
Sweet potato fries? Good for you. Sour cream? Consider it health food. Eat up!
God bless you!
Maria
Perhaps so, Maria! But writing a story about someone who had an abortion doesn’t suit me, I don’t think. I’m more inclined toward writing against the general idea in a sci-fi setting: human beings being “disposable” just because they’re a nuisance, human life being considered non-human, etc. Things like that.
Bethany, I think I understand. Tell me if I’ve got it right.
Writing about it in the way you’d like is to be further removed from its horror, while still being able to expose it?
M.
It’s not that I want to be removed from the horror so much; it’s that I want to combat the basic concepts and excuses behind abortion – for example, the idea that a disabled baby will have a horrible life and aborting them is the “merciful” thing to do, or the idea that a fetus goes from a glob of tissue to a human being at some magical point (like the point when you decide you want the child). I want to combat the worldviews and mindsets that consider abortion acceptable.
I understand. And believe that God has put this worthy attitude and desire in you.
I believe so too.
As if in answer to my wondering and wishing, last night a book idea crash-landed in my head! It would actually be part of a larger series I’m already planning to write someday, and deals with abortion and other associated ideas more directly. Incorporating it would merely mean putting some darker, more adult content in the series, which previously I hadn’t thought I wanted to do. The series is aimed at Christian readers, though, so it wouldn’t be as likely to touch and affect unbelievers. But it’s still an idea. Maybe I’ll write it someday…
I know exactly how you feel! I’ve always want to put something like that in a story, but still haven’t figured out quite how. After reading this I was thinking about the best way to approach it, and every idea was a science fiction story. That just seems to suit it. I think it would help too, because at least to me, it’s a completely “alien” thought process.
And congratulations on finishing another chapter!
I think the reason science-fiction suits anti-abortion themes so well is because abortion is the result of scientific progress gone wrong, and erroneous “scientific” ideas. Also, science-fiction enables us to imagine into the future. It prompts us to wonder what it would be like if a technology, idea, or theory was taken to its full potential.
For example, one of my abortion-themed story ideas (a very old one) was based off this premise: what if, sometime in the future, personhood was defined as 8 years old, or something like that? What if a parent could do away with any young child because of inconvenience or not wanting them, and it didn’t just end at birth? With that idea, I was attacking the concept that a pregnancy is just “tissue” and then suddenly magically becomes a baby as soon as you decide you want it. When does that “tissue” become human, if not at conception?
Yes, you’re right that sci fi lends itself to this theme, and in so many ways! Science, sometimes falsely so-called.
Bethany, if you decide to make this issue part of your planned series, before you deal with it you might want to research societal infanticide and murder of unwanted children. It’s already happened (happening?), and getting a better grasp on this, you could have a stronger foundation from which to explore and reveal the horror, and as a result a better springboard to show how abortion is another form of the murder of children.
What has struck me about pro-choice, is that it is nothing new, in a sense. Though the choice has now been delegated to mothers instead of fathers (at least in the West). In Rome, the pater familias had the power of life and death over his children. I don’t know much more about this than that. But such things are a place to begin.
Best wishes and prayers,
Maria
These are some good research ideas, Maria. I think the book I have in mind would excellently illustrate abortion as social infanticide – within the series, the government holds power of life and death over children, taking it a step beyond the father or the mother.
Yes, a step further. A huge thing to stand against, if you had to.
Could we see the next writing post soon? Characters and motivation is one of my favorite topics… 🙂
Yes, Greytawnyowl! I’m so sorry I haven’t blogged in awhile…I will try to write a post about that soon. 🙂
I’ m looking forward to it. 🙂