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lagilmanSo, brought a story to the crit group last night and got some very useful comments (as per usual, I was being Too Subtle in making my point -- half the time I feel like I'm slapping people over the head with a clue-by-four by the time I'm done with revisions, but oh well). However, I also noted something that was both interesting, and disturbing.
The backstory of Protag1 takes place in WWII Germany, and involves the influence of a Nazi officer on then-young Protag1. Protag2, almost a century later, happens to be an Israeli. The assumption was made by several members of the group that this was a story, however indirectly, about the Holocaust.
Um, no. Not even buried deep in my subconscious, really [Protag1 self-identifies as Arab, not German]. But I wonder now if that's going to be an inescapable conclusion by my readers. If so, it's going to obscure the actual point of the story (indeed, the readers who assumed A did not get B at all, while the readers who did not assume A seemed to grasp B). Are we that steeped in history (usually a good thing) that nothing in the present setting/action of a story can outweigh the past influences of German vs Jew?
(as a writer, a history buff, and a Jew with German friends, this is a question of more than academic interest to me, actually, and one that's going to keep me thinking even after the story's off to market)
It is possible that the various ages of my readers came into play, now that I think about it. Hrm. I need to try this on a 20-something...
And no, I really can't extract the German element from the story, not without making it an entirely different story, and changing the other protag to another Semitic culture doesn't work either, for reasons having nothing to do with religion and everything to do with culture. Argh. Oh well, this is why we call it "work."
The backstory of Protag1 takes place in WWII Germany, and involves the influence of a Nazi officer on then-young Protag1. Protag2, almost a century later, happens to be an Israeli. The assumption was made by several members of the group that this was a story, however indirectly, about the Holocaust.
Um, no. Not even buried deep in my subconscious, really [Protag1 self-identifies as Arab, not German]. But I wonder now if that's going to be an inescapable conclusion by my readers. If so, it's going to obscure the actual point of the story (indeed, the readers who assumed A did not get B at all, while the readers who did not assume A seemed to grasp B). Are we that steeped in history (usually a good thing) that nothing in the present setting/action of a story can outweigh the past influences of German vs Jew?
(as a writer, a history buff, and a Jew with German friends, this is a question of more than academic interest to me, actually, and one that's going to keep me thinking even after the story's off to market)
It is possible that the various ages of my readers came into play, now that I think about it. Hrm. I need to try this on a 20-something...
And no, I really can't extract the German element from the story, not without making it an entirely different story, and changing the other protag to another Semitic culture doesn't work either, for reasons having nothing to do with religion and everything to do with culture. Argh. Oh well, this is why we call it "work."
