fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4612 ]

[ SECRET POST #4612 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4612 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

__________________________________________________

13.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 14 secrets from Secret Submission Post #660.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Because I have one

I have this idea about writing about someone who was tormented by a bully throughout childhood and adolescence and confronts them as an adult when said bully is in prison.\

I initially thought of having the MC confronting this bully to prove to themselves they were no longer afraid of them. But I feel like this could come across as jerkish and pathetic somehow or petty. IDK I'm thinking of making the bully be a relative to at least somewhat explain why the MC would be visiting this person in prison and it would make the past bullying more deep and painful for the MC.

Does making the MC and their bully related make more sense? Or would it work to have them not related at all? I don't want the MC to come across unsympathetic , i guess.

Disclaimer: Not a writer.

I think a family gathering would make more sense. A lot of times you can't avoid your abusers when they're relatives, a lot of families have frequent gatherings or yearly reunions. I can't imagine taking the time and effort to go to a jail or prison to confront a bully or abuser, family or not. Just saying what I would do.

Thanks that's actually a better idea.

Finding out someone who was a shit to you when you were kids is in gaol, and specifically seeking them out (a very literally captive audience) just to go "Nyer nyer, look, you're in prison and I'm doing things with myself that don't involve the phrase 'bend over and cough', sucks to be you," would be... very hard to sell sympathetically.

Visiting your shitty cousin Mike in prison and going "Gee Mike, it sure is a shame that your parents refusal to punish you for all the heinous things you did as a kid turned you into an adult who's going to be in and out of prison forever,"... might work?

But why does the main character have to confront them anyway? "You have no power over me, that's why I took time out of my week to come see you"? Why no just let them know the other person is in prison, have the main character think about visiting them to gloat, and think better of it?

I decided to have it set at a family reunion instead. Good points there.

I don't know that it makes the MC look unsympathetic - that depends on the details of the bullying and why the former bully is in jail. It could look petty, mostly because it seems kind of...ineffective? Pointless? It's just, well, to me it sounds like one of those scenarios that people think is a good idea, but wouldn't work in real life. It's a little after school special.

Yeah that's true. I decided to have it set at a family gathering instead.

It does sound a little pathetic, yeah. I know you said in later comments that you're thinking of changing it to a family reunion instead of prison but the new setting doesn't really make it not-pathetic. It's the confrontation itself. It's every bullied victim's trite fantasy, but most people either manage their trauma on their own or grow out of the need to rehash something that happened to them in childhood.

Or more realistically, they understand that you can't really go back and relive that moment and make it better. Life just isn't that tidy, it doesn't usually offer that level of closure and justice wrapped up in a big red bow. So I guess it depends on whether or not you want this story and this character to sound real, or if you're just writing revenge fantasy wish fulfillment stuff.

I've decided I might not write it at all, tbh The more I think about it the more its like "naaaaah"

I second the comments about someone going out of their way to confront their imprisoned bully being a bit too... idk, wish fulfillment fantasy? And while a family reunion would work better, it still seems like having the bully’s victim choose to confront the bully over past trauma instead of ignoring them would be unlikely. Are there ways to pit them against each other/have a conversation or argument where the victim doesn’t plan to in advance?

Maybe have the bully show up at a reunion and it’s the first one they’ve been to since they got out of jail? Do they remember (or want to remember) the bullying differently than their victim(s)?

What if they approached their victim to greet them like they were old friends? What if they meant it? What if they didn’t and wanted to pick up the abuse where it left off?

What if they were genuinely trying to clean up their act and apologize? What if they were cordial to their former victim, but as the reunion went on it became obvious to the former victim and/or others that the bully had just picked a new (potential or current) victim?

Idk, just spitballing random ideas.

my first thought would be 'what happens when the bully gets out of prison in six months?' since most people aren't held in prison indefinitely even for very heinous crimes.

Making them related would make more sense, especially since it gives them a reason to know about them being in prison. Otherwise it would seem pretty pathetic and petty, imo. I could see myself being sympathetic to them if they had reason/inside knowledge/some sort of ongoing relationship with each other, other than them being basically strangers at that point. (if that makes sense)
I would probably make them related in some way.

This kinda reminds me of this scene (at 1:46-ish):
https://youtu.be/QexFlioNXt4

Does anyone here have experience with long road trips? Especially long road trips with kids?
Main character in a story I've been toying with has a six-year-old, and they're driving from Chicago to Portland. I thought that 2-3 weeks would be a good, relaxed sort of timeframe - a couple of hours driving every day, and lots of time at each stop to take in the sights.
And thoughts?

It depends on exactly what kind of roadtrip you have in mind, I guess. I think 2-3 weeks is way too long. Even if you don't push it, it's probably like 5 days of actual driving, 6 at most. And I don't see how you could really stretch it past 9 or 10 unless you had the characters stopping for multiple days somewhere along the way, or even multiple places along the way - obviously all bets are off if that's the case.

And in my experience, parents with young kids are likely to push the driving because driving a long way sucks ass and they want to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

You may be right! I live on an island which is like 6 hours across from furthest point to furthest point, so my perspective on things like this is a little... useless? Like when Americans talk about travelling an hour or more to work, that's just bonkers to me, lol.
So yeah, I'll compress that down a bit. Part of the issue, for me, is that they get stuck in Montana and don't make it to Washington - but they don't know that's going to happen, and I don't want to just go "And then they drove for a week and it was super boring and then PLOT HAPPENED!", you know?

Yeah it's tricky. I guess you probably can have day 1 as just the novelty of being on the road and driving, and then if you have them get to Montana sometime in the afternoon on the third day maybe, which is realistic, it only leaves the second day of driving to sort out.

And, IDK, maybe there's some roadside attractions in one of the Dakotas somewhere you can use for a bit or something.

(also, Portland is in Oregon)

Re: Writing Questions

(Anonymous) - 2019-08-23 03:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Writing Questions

(Anonymous) - 2019-08-23 04:48 (UTC) - Expand

We did road trips from Arizona to DC, from DC to Alaska, from Arizona to Louisiana as a kid and, though there were a lot of us kids (3-5 depending), two weeks is too many, even one week is kind of pushing it. I'd recommend at least some of the driving be done when the kid is sleeping. I'd also say go for as long as possible the first day, so the novelty of it hasn't worn off.

Oh, fair point. The main character is a single parent, so I wanted to make sure she was well-rested, because it's not like she can get someone to take over in a pinch - but your point about getting a good distance in on the first day makes sense, I'll make a note.

Honestly, it really, really depends on the kids. In stark contrast to the other nonnies my family frequently did weeks-long road trips with three kids and honestly, we loved it.

We were absolute NIGHTMARE children on trips that were only like half an hour long. But stick us in a car for hours on end and we were blissfully happy.

holy jesus 3 weeks with a 6 year old sounds like pure hell.

I road trip regularly for both work and pleasure but "road trip" implies driving at least 6 hours a day, if not 8, because you're still trying to get somewhere. Only driving 2 hours is...well, let's put it this way, I drive 2 hours to get from home to a large city to do some specialty shopping and then back and it's been barely half a day, I'm back home in time for dinner. Allowing for sight-seeing, you still would want to drive much further than that and overall take no more than a week to get across country.

reminds me of the trip we took when I was a kid from here to Denver. Even stopping for an extra day in Rapid City to see Wall Drug, we still made the trip out in five days and that's with tourist traps and a zoo along the way. I don't think my parents would have survived taking longer to do that trip because kids get bored easily and at some point even stopping to see another roadside monument is boring as fuck. A six year old might not be able to appreciate the sights between here and Portland; the Corn Palace or Minneapolis Zoo, maybe, but Mount Rushmore? The endless expanse of nothing that is Wyoming? Mountain vistas? Nah. Tots aren't into that shit.

I don't have kids, but I've been on long roadtrips and that doesn't sound relaxing to me. It sounds like a living hell. Two hours a day is torturously slow when you're crossing that much distance, even if you factor in bathroom breaks and assuming you can find enough truly interesting roadside attractions every hundred miles or so. Shit, crossing Nebraska alone is like 7 hours straight driving - that's at least three days by your time schedule. No sane parent wants to spend that much time trapped in a car with a six year old. Unless you looooooove cornfields, there aren't going to be that many fascinating sights to visit. Assuming these people will be leaving each day in the morning, say around 9am, they're going to stop before lunchtime. Hotels don't usually allow check ins until 3pm. What are they going to do in Bumfuck, Idaho with a six year old for four hours? And after they check in, what are they going to do until it's time to go to bed?

Other pertinent questions:

* are these people planning to spend much time at their destination?
* are they going to take the same route back, at the same speed?
* who the hell has that much vacation leave?
* factor in how many hotel nights that is and how much that will cost. Even if you stay in cheap motels for like $50/night (and you do NOT want to do that, trust me) that's almost $700 for accommodations, doesn't include all the extra meals and gas money and you're not even in Portland yet.

SA as above, forgot to add that personally when I go on roadtrips I try to drive MINIMUM of six hours a day and that's only if the traffic is a nightmare and I'm going to be tired out from the hassle. 8 hours a day is more reasonable and if I'm with someone who can take alternate driving shifts, we're going to go at least 8, maybe 10 if we can.

America has a lot of land to cover, people are used to driving long haul if they want to get from one region to another. Unless you have all the time and money in the world, you don't really have a choice because you'll only have so many days of vacation time and you don't want to spend all of it on the road unless the journey IS the point.

I used to do yearly road trips with my family, only we'd basically drive 24 hours straight to our location, spend time there, and come back. Me and my sister would sleep mostly, we'd always pack a cooler and bucket of snacks, (cereal, sandwiches, chocolate bars, etc..) pillows, and blankets. Depending on the era you're writing in, we'd have little notebooks we'd draw in, or those little dvd players, later on our computers. Not sure if this helps, we were pretty well behaved I guess;; But it's what I got for my road-trip experiences...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #4612 ]

Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

AYRT

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

AYRT

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions

Re: Writing Questions