Good People / Bad Situations

Recently I was reading an interview with a popular author who was saying how much she loved to create bad characters — that they were much more fun to create than good characters. I thought about that for a long time and finally realized that I disagree. I prefer creating characters who are essentially good but who are faced with a very bad situation.

The thing about bad characters is, well, it’s sort of hard to like them. Even if I view them with all the compassion in the world they still aren’t people I’d like to have in my life. But good people in impossible situations — they’re fascinating. It’s a situation I’ve explored in both of my novels so far and now that I am beginning a third one that theme seems to be showing up again.

What do you do when you find the love of your life and then realize that to do the very best thing for that person requires that you let them go? Or what do you do when you have two loves and, while the second love needs you, the first love is what you need? Those are the dilemmas faced by characters in my first two books. Now I’m thinking about what happens when you make a great sacrifice for someone you love and that sacrifice turns out to be pointless? These are all interesting questions to me.

The truth is I really haven’t known a lot of genuinely bad people in my life. A few — enough to convince me that they do exist. But, for the most part, the people I have known have been good people who are in situations that make them question the limits of their goodness.

I have read lately about a book called Why Good Things Happen to Good People by Stephen Post, PhD. I took the quiz on his web site and found out that I am a “moderate” giver. Well, I thought it was a dumb quiz to tell the truth. There is a big difference in my mind between “giving” and being a “good person”. I have known people who were very giving who were not particularly good. They gave because it made them feel generous and self-righteous and as though they were building up brownie points in heaven. In the quiz he asked how much you give to your family and to your neighbors and how creative you are in finding ways to give to them. It sounded a little bit like the quiz should have been named “How Co-dependent Are You?” As a graduate of a lot of years in a 12-Step program for co-dependents I know that giving is not always a healthy thing.

But goodness is another matter. Goodness is the practice of trying to behave in a right manner. Of trying to put good, positive energy in the world through words and deeds and being a person who shares light and inspiration with others. Perhaps that is why I am so fond of the This I Believe series on PBS I mentioned yesterday. Those people, the ones who take time to write those essays and put them out into the world, are adding goodness to the world.

In Christopher Koch‘s book The Year of Living Dangerously the character Billy Kwan has a conversation with Guy Hamilton, who is overwhelmed by the poverty and need he encounters in Jakarta. He questions Billy’s continuing efforts to help a couple people when the need all around them is so overwhelming. Billy says, “I believe that all I can do is add my light to the sum of light.” I think that is a beautiful concept.

So I continue to believe that writing about good people in hard situations is a worthy endeavor. Maybe it helps someone else when they are in a similar situation. If nothing else it helps to add a little light to the world that has enough bad characters in it. One character at a time....

Thanks for reading.