1. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    From mercenary to surrogate motherhood in a day?!

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Link the Writer, Mar 19, 2019.

    Character Development Question:

    I feel I’m rushing Geia’s development too quickly.

    She’s a mercenary, never had kids (though she has a husband who lives in a cottage) and chiefly keeps her emotions bottled even though she has a sensitive personality.

    Well at some point during the story, she gets involved in a riot in the capital city where a persecuted minority (the Necri) are getting murdered left and right. Geia fights and ends up rescuing Mishu from the carnage.

    To make a long story short, in the span of maybe a day or so she goes from rescuing a kid she’s never met before to acting like her surrogate mother, comforting her when she’s having flashbacks to the riots.

    Is this rushing things? I mean, I guess it could work if she once had a child/wanted a child but is infertile.

    Thoughts?
     
  2. XRD_author

    XRD_author Banned

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    Hang a lantern on it and it will work. :)

    It worked in Aliens with Ripley and Newt because Ripley's daughter had died (of old age).

    It works in my WIP (instant big-sisterhood, not motherhood) because of a connection between two women that is hinted at but not revealed until book 2. But I hang a lantern on it: one of the young women's father and her eldest sister, who both know the connection, comment on it: E.g. "You love her. Just like that."

    Fiction is all about improbable things happening.
    Hanging a lantern on it is the author tacitly acknowledging that it's improbable.
    If you've watched Hudson Hawk, and remember what happens to Tommy Five-Tone, they hang a huge lantern on it:

    Tommy: "Can you believe it!?" (for I think the third time)
    Hudson: <pauses> "Yeah. I believe it!"
     
  3. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    My thinking is that since Geia lost her own child, feels for the plight of the Necri, and is naturally a sensitive person...she’s gonna listen to the motherly instincts she thought she had battered down.
     
  4. Fallow

    Fallow Banned

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    I think the issue here is the difference between Geia's actions - providing care and affection - and her actual level of personal emotional commitment. She can be very loving immediately while working through her personal feelings over a longer period, or keeping her distance permanently. A good foster parent does this all the time - being nuturing and kind while still being able to keep enough emotional distance to allow the child to be adopted away.
     
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  5. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    They did this in Jurassic Park. Alan Grant didn't like kids then he was stuck with two when the dinosaurs got loose. Lots of people don't like or choose not to have kids but that doesn't mean they don't know how to be kind.
     
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  6. raine_d

    raine_d Active Member

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    I would suggest that a certain level of well-meaning clumsiness in the comforting at first would go quite a way to make it more believable. If she has spent her life keeping her own emotions bottled, dealing with a child's is going to be a steeeeeeeep learning curve.
     
  7. MusingWordsmith

    MusingWordsmith Shenanigan Master Contributor

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    My two cents, I think a Warrior Woman who's still got those maternal instincts is an underrepresented type. Usually she's just written as Tough, Butch, and Masculine, so kudos to you for allowing a bit more of her softer side to come out!

    As for your specific question- I feel like I'd have to know the character better to really advise. It could work if that's the type of person she is.
     
  8. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    She's never had kids, but could she have had younger siblings?
     
  9. Alan Aspie

    Alan Aspie Banned Contributor

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    I think you should read Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa.

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102030.Musashi

    It's interesting book based on real person...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

    ...who by the book did kind of adopt a kid (which he used as a weapon in a battle but also took care of).
     
  10. cosmic lights

    cosmic lights Contributor Contributor

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    I'm not a maternal woman and I do find it very hard to relate and talk to children. I am much more likely to adopt a stray animal than a child. It took me a long time too bond with my sister's daughter. Women all have maternal instincts to some level they just need waking up. My sister had an operation and my niece stayed with me for a few weeks. In the beginning it was hard. I comforted her because there was no one else in the house to do it. Otherwise I would have let them do it.

    But after a while of getting to know her I did it because I wanted to do it.

    Maybe to begin with your character comforts this child because it takes a cold person to watch a child sit and cry and do nothing. No one else is there to comfort her so Geia has to do it. From this, a connection can be gradually built. Having her own child or even a younger sister die is a predictable back story for the character but one that would explain her actions. But I would be more inclined to go the opposite route. No child. No younger siblings. Maybe she was the youngest and treated like a baby so she never learned to be responsible for anything else. It would provide a larger character growth. She's not reverting back to old skills, she's learning new ones entirely. That's harder. She not re-discovering her maternal side, she's learning that she has one.

    Either way would work fine, though. I just wanted to present an alternative suggestion.
    Good luck.
     
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  11. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Have you ever heard of the wire mother and the cloth mother? It's an experiment where baby monkeys were deprived of actual monkey mothers and given access to a bare wireframe "mother" (essentially a doll) or a wireframe mother that was covered in soft cuddly cloth. The monkeys with the cloth mother were much better off emotionally, better able to cope with frightening things, and so on.

    My point is that your character doesn't have to be good at mothering to be useful. An "Oh, my God, she's shrieking; what do I do?" cautious patpatpat on the child's back, and not actually fending off the child when clung to, would probably do pretty well. If she can cope with a cat, she can probably do a decent mothering job.
     
  12. Thundair

    Thundair Contributor Contributor

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    I would try to keep the warrior side of her active by defending the kid under dire circumstances.
     
  13. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Returning to add: A person, male or female, doesn’t need to want a child to be able to be a decent human being and provide comfort. I don’t feel that the question of whether she ever wanted a child is really relevant.
     

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