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Letters From Alex
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Disorientation

I’ve never quite understood Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which is probably the point because it’s pretty much an exercise in nonsense. Alice follows a white rabbit with a pocket watch through a rabbit hole where a potion shrinks her to the size of a doll then a cake makes her nine-feet-tall and she cries a lake of tears and…

It gets crazier from there. Ever play croquet with a flamingo?

But I’m reading it now with my daughter and it’s resonating for me. Alice becomes totally disoriented—and lots of people (including me) are feeling disoriented by the weather and the world and what not. And sometimes disorientation becomes the norm for a while. 

Feeling disoriented can be unsettling in life, but it’s great for stories. For example…

“Cathedral” – a short story by Raymond Carver in which a curmudgeonly guy is thrown off balance when his wife invites an old friend, a blind man, to come stay with them.

Coming to America – a movie in which a pampered prince from Zamunda comes to NYC to search for a bride, posing as a commoner, a classic fish-out-of-water story. 

The Year of Magical Thinking – a memoir by Joan Didion in which Joan’s husband of 40 years suddenly passes away, leaving her very much alone. 

Think of the really disorienting times in your life, like…

You bring home that baby from the hospital and you’ve got no earthly idea what to do and hopefully it doesn’t turn into a pig like the baby in Wonderland. 

You’re driving along and the sky is an eerie pastel shade and the radio tells you to stay away from a certain intersection because a tornado is heading right there and you realize you’re at that very intersection. 

You travel to Marrakesh and you’ve been told repeatedly not to let a stranger act as your guide, but you’re wandering through the labyrinthine medina jet-lagged and you do just that and who knows where this guide is leading you?

Yeah, those things happened to me.

What’s really interesting is how your characters handle the disorientation that overtakes them. Do they find themselves drowning, or learn to ride the waves, or discover how to reach a saving shore? Or…something else?

And, hey, we have the perfect contest for these disorienting times: Invent a Word. Words help some of us make sense of things, and we’re giving you permission to add something entirely new to our language. Lewis Carroll was quite good at inventing words. Like galumph.

And as the Mock Turtle in Wonderland says, “Why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?’”

Alex Steele

Gotham President

Letters From Kelly
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Characters’ Resilience

In 2001, I volunteered for the post-September 11th disaster recovery, and one of the first things I learned from the crusty, kind-hearted career FEMA workers there was not to use “endurance” and “resilience” interchangeably.

It’s embarrassing to admit (because I’m persnickety about word choice!), but I did use “endurance” and “resilience” interchangeably. Big mistake.

Because they are so, so different.

Endurance is simply withstanding adversity, often at length. That’s it. It’s Kate Winslet in Titanic, clinging to that door.*

Resilience is something more. It means a person or community has met adversity, absorbed its blows, adapted to it, and recovered. Someone who is resilient may change, but they’ll still preserve the most essential aspects of themselves. It’s Margot Robbie at the end of Barbie — she reclaims her home and her community, but she will never return to life as she previously knew it.

Because stories are all about adversity, it’s important to ask: Are your characters (and maybe their communities) merely enduring the plot? Or are they resilient?

And if it’s the latter, it’s important to understand, resilience doesn’t just happen. Like any good story, it’s created.

What do you construct resilience out of? I’m glad you asked! Three main components:

  • Preparedness. A community in Oklahoma’s tornado alley is more resilient if it’s got a state-of-the-art early-warning system and enough sturdy shelters.
  • Easing Suffering. The more relief someone gets from their misery, the more quickly they can heal. (Breaks from all the suffering are often appreciated by audiences, as well.)  
  • Speeding Up Healing. The faster you clear debris, counsel the bereaved, and treat the wounded, the faster the recovery.

You can see that if a character is resilient, they enter a story on p. 1 with traits, resources, or connections that will enable them to absorb the blows and emerge more or less intact. The trick is identifying them.

Some questions to ask yourself about your resilient characters:

  • Were they well-prepared for their trials? Or did they possess a previously unknown (maybe even secret) advantage?
  • What will help ease their suffering through their crises?
  • What will help them heal? What will make things worse?
  • When they emerge from their adversity, what aspects of their previous lives or of their deepest selves will be lost? What will be preserved, or restored?

Hint: One of the most surefire, reliable ways that people ease one another’s suffering is through  comfort and joy — food, love, friendship, laughter, community. It’s why the mass assault of people rushing in to help survivors after a disaster is so moving. All of that kindness and camaraderie is a balm—literally.

Your characters may not have 1,000 strangers swarming in to help them clear away debris, but if they’re resilient, they, like Barbie, have loyal friends, ardent fans, a cool pink convertible, creative instincts, and Rhea Perlman. (Or the equivalent.) Look for the places your characters will find joy, or where they found it before their troubles started, and you’ll find the key to their resilience.

*Yes, I am on the That-Door-Was-Big-Enough-For-Two team.

Letters From Alex
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Weathering It All

Frightening things are swirling around us, more frightening than what we see on Halloween.

Hurricanes. Wars. This election.

I was curious to see what I wrote about this time four and eight years ago.

November Letter 2020 (about the climax of that super stressful year)

November Letter 2016 (about anxiety—mine, yours, ours)

Is there wisdom that can guide us through this? The universe recently tossed me these useful thoughts:

“Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.“

Khalil Gibran

“We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.“

Rumi

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.“

Frida Kahlo

If you seek shelter, you are always welcome to be with us, in one of our classes or our free Friday Write-Ins. Perhaps we can help each other through theses tides and tumults.

Alex Steele,

Gotham President