Your opinions, please, on a question about Ambition/Relationships
Whether or not I should scrap a story--a story I've worked on for years--hinges on this: I have a definite problem, something the character wants more than anything in the world. I have obstacles that get in her way, people who want to hold her back from her single-minded pursuit of her goal. But my question concerns the character’s growth. If she decides to stay the path to her dream and to not cut back for the sake of a friendship, is that wrong or is that OK, and could the arriving at that decision be considered growth? In one sense, it's resisting peer pressure, and certainly everything that's happened in the story up until the end has made her think a lot about dreams, goals, relationships, priorities, commitments, drive, ambition. She knows that most people think that if you're choosing between making a friendship or a goal your top priority, that you should choose a person over a thing. But she realizes, too, that it depends what your goal is. If it’s a worthy one, if it meant helping lots of people, then it might be worth hurting this one person’s feelings. But her goal is not like that. It’s nothing bad, but it’s not noble. It’s just her wanting to be really good at a sport, world-class kind of good. And she realizes this might be considered selfish, but at the same time it can’t be considered evil to want to explore your limits. It can’t be bad to want to earn a college scholarship, to want to make a career out of doing something you love.
I know most people might expect such a story to end with the MC choosing to cut back on her efforts to reach her goal to spend more time with a friend and salvage that relationship. That’s the warm, fuzzy thing to do. But that's a predictable and not very realistic ending. Most really driven people I know are almost helpless to their ambition. They might cut back to salvage a marriage or temporarily to help a friend or relative who's in crisis, but we are talking about a kid in this story, a kid with a friend. People dissolve marriages over the issue of one person being a workaholic and the other not being able to live with that, so what would be so evil about a kid deciding that her friend can take her as she is or leave her, but that she is not going to give any less effort toward her goal on account of this friend?
I mean what if one of our daughters had a burning desire to accomplish something in her life and she let one of her friends pressure her--a friend who they might only see for another couple years while they are in high school together, a friend who might be jealous of this daughter’s successes and not have pure motivations for staking more of a claim on my daughter’s time--and keep her from giving 100% towards this goal? Wouldn’t we want her to have the courage to say, “No, you know what, this is important to me, and I only get one shot at it and don’t want to look back and regret not having given it my all. I like you, I never stopped wanting to be your friend, but if you need more of my time than what I can give, I guess you can move on and find another friend.”
What if one of YOUR friends was irritated by the amount of time you devoted to writing and they kept asking you to go out to lunch with them, or shopping, etc.? And what if this friend got nasty and threatened to withdraw her friendship if you didn’t cut back on your writing to spend more time with her/him? What if you had already tried to find more time for this friend without having to cut into writing time, but that still wasn’t enough? Would you say, “Sorry, take me as I am (and for what I can give), or leave me.” I would. I wouldn't do this to one of my kids or my husband or to a friend or family member in crisis, but I would to an everyday friend who just wanted more of my time on a regular basis. Especially if this friend were targeting my writing, questioning my dedication to it as opposed to her. And I think arriving at this, especially as a kid, finding the courage to say this, shows a sort of real growth. Do you, or do you think I'm evil?
Thanks for any thoughts on this.
I know most people might expect such a story to end with the MC choosing to cut back on her efforts to reach her goal to spend more time with a friend and salvage that relationship. That’s the warm, fuzzy thing to do. But that's a predictable and not very realistic ending. Most really driven people I know are almost helpless to their ambition. They might cut back to salvage a marriage or temporarily to help a friend or relative who's in crisis, but we are talking about a kid in this story, a kid with a friend. People dissolve marriages over the issue of one person being a workaholic and the other not being able to live with that, so what would be so evil about a kid deciding that her friend can take her as she is or leave her, but that she is not going to give any less effort toward her goal on account of this friend?
I mean what if one of our daughters had a burning desire to accomplish something in her life and she let one of her friends pressure her--a friend who they might only see for another couple years while they are in high school together, a friend who might be jealous of this daughter’s successes and not have pure motivations for staking more of a claim on my daughter’s time--and keep her from giving 100% towards this goal? Wouldn’t we want her to have the courage to say, “No, you know what, this is important to me, and I only get one shot at it and don’t want to look back and regret not having given it my all. I like you, I never stopped wanting to be your friend, but if you need more of my time than what I can give, I guess you can move on and find another friend.”
What if one of YOUR friends was irritated by the amount of time you devoted to writing and they kept asking you to go out to lunch with them, or shopping, etc.? And what if this friend got nasty and threatened to withdraw her friendship if you didn’t cut back on your writing to spend more time with her/him? What if you had already tried to find more time for this friend without having to cut into writing time, but that still wasn’t enough? Would you say, “Sorry, take me as I am (and for what I can give), or leave me.” I would. I wouldn't do this to one of my kids or my husband or to a friend or family member in crisis, but I would to an everyday friend who just wanted more of my time on a regular basis. Especially if this friend were targeting my writing, questioning my dedication to it as opposed to her. And I think arriving at this, especially as a kid, finding the courage to say this, shows a sort of real growth. Do you, or do you think I'm evil?
Thanks for any thoughts on this.