(no subject)
I read a book recently, and I just can’t quite get it out of my head. Not maybe in the usual way, but this was a middling book by a damn good author, you know? So it didn’t shine the way it might have, otherwise, but there was something magnetic about it anyway. In someways it felt like a sketched out draft. Not in the writing, necessary, but in the way the plot elements fit together. Almost gelling, but….just not quite fitting. Even though it was a delightful read. But the reason that I can’t just leave it as a fluffy delightful thing without much substance, as I would be able to with anything else, is because there was this shining core of a story and a character relationship that hooked me and hooked me hard, and I want it. I want that story, that seed of a story, but there isn’t enough there for me to concretely say what I would have rather the story been. It’s just this nagging sense that there’s a perfectly developed whole, just waiting to be carved out and revealed.
The element that caught me was, well:
a character's life derailed by unexpected mishap, experiencing something confusing, terrifying, overwhelming, isolating, but then someone who doesn't particularly have a reason to show them kindness does so.
A character whose life has been hard and isolating unexpectedly having the hope that they're not alone dangled in front of them, and just as quickly dashed, because they're not meeting a fellow traveler who could lend them support, but someone who has been suddenly forced upon the road and is overwhelmed and hostile. But they show that person kindness, and support and help them, even though most people'd absolve them of washing their hands of it, because they can't leave someone to be as alone as they were.
And the connection between two people, trust and vulnerability and fellowship and love.
Urgh. I want it.
The element that caught me was, well:
a character's life derailed by unexpected mishap, experiencing something confusing, terrifying, overwhelming, isolating, but then someone who doesn't particularly have a reason to show them kindness does so.
A character whose life has been hard and isolating unexpectedly having the hope that they're not alone dangled in front of them, and just as quickly dashed, because they're not meeting a fellow traveler who could lend them support, but someone who has been suddenly forced upon the road and is overwhelmed and hostile. But they show that person kindness, and support and help them, even though most people'd absolve them of washing their hands of it, because they can't leave someone to be as alone as they were.
And the connection between two people, trust and vulnerability and fellowship and love.
Urgh. I want it.