Nearly thirty years ago, I accomplished something good that had me on the front page of statewide newspapers, repeatedly. Many, many good things happened for hundreds of thousands of people as a direct result of my efforts.
Then some bad people asked me to do some unlawful things, which I refused to do.
At the same time, other people wanted to make money they weren’t entitled to.
Thirty months into the project, I found myself accused by a state-wide elected official of malfeasance.
I was the subject of several frontpage exposes.
Instead of withering as you are supposed to when attacked like that, I found a good attorney and fought like a wildcat. What I found was a disgusting series of actions by a conspiracy that included about a dozen people. Some were fools. Others found a way toward enrichment. One traded his soul to become a congressman. Others were forced to take part. One had been a friend for many years who I had done a huge service. The conspiracy involved lies, distortions, and even rape.
Two years after I was “crushed” by this conspiracy, I was again the subject of widespread articles, this time on a national basis, for creating a new sales system that won me many national awards and positive recognition.
At least three times since then, I’ve had similar experiences of betrayal. If you attempt a large-scale operation it is inevitable that people will do bad things. How inevitable? It is felt that one in five is completely dishonest. Another one in five will be dishonest, if she thinks she can get away with it.
That is the reality of the human condition. How much you will lose to dishonesty is in direct proportion to how much you have at stake.
When I started in the insurance industry many years ago, I was confronted with the statistic that more money is lost to companies each year to employee dishonesty than to fire. I’ve watched huge losses pour in where the person you would least expect to be part of embezzlement is the one who took the most.
Perhaps that is why I occasionally will write a story where the protagonist is betrayed – seemingly by everyone around her. . .because it happens.
For every story I’ve written like that, I’ve written three or four where the only person holding back the protagonist is the one looking at her in the mirror. Self-betrayal is also very prevalent.
Inevitably, when I write of conspiracy, I will receive a comment that the reader couldn’t finish the story.
I have to wonder . . . did those readers stop reading The Prince and the Pauper, Huck Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, The Odyssey, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Catch 22, etc. My writing isn’t in that arena, but the story structure is. These are some of my favorite books and it's also inevitable I would mimic them.
The main villain in Aunt T’s is largely fashioned from today’s headlines at the corner of narcissism and power. I can totally understand why that makes anyone feel creepy.
Jill
Comments
There is conspiracy and there is conspiracy
I've read most of those titles ( the Prince and the Pauper, Huck Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, The Odyssey, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Catch 22) and found Catch-22 real hard going whereas, Catcher was much easier but I was 15 at the time.
It is a real shame that you have encountered so many bad people in your life. Even if you assume that most people your encounter are total and absolute shits until they prove otherwise you will still get burned. I had this happen to me just the once. It took me five years to get over it and to get beyond it. It sucks. Life sucks.
But... geting over and beyond it can make you a better person. A more cautious person but overall a better one.
Aunt T's was hard going at times. Perhaps a little hint that 'getting even' was going to happen sooner or later a little earlier might have helped. I nearly quit when you mentioned those dreaded words 'Vitamins and Hormones' Ugh! But that's probably me.
Samantha
Growth
Many years ago I was delivering the keynote speech at a state convention. Another speaker was the director of the state mental hospital. During lunch, we sat next to each other.
I asked him what life was like for the people in his institution. He said that most of them were so sedated that their lives were pleasant. But - he said they experienced little personal growth. He explained that we need aggravation in our lives to grow as human beings.
For every bad thing that has happened to me, I feel as if I've had a much more enriched life experience.
Do I wish I had the $millions I've lost due to criminal activity launched against me? . . .maybe.
I have enough money.
I just feel sorry for the people who were hurt during the process. The woman who was raped to demand her participation. The people who lost opportunities. The entire state who lost the budding industry I was creating.
I write largely about bad people as cautionary tales. I try to be measured in delivering their punishments.
I'm not Dante.
JIll
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
How It Really Works
I've had really nice things happen to me.
I remember my wedding day like it was yesterday.
I recall the birth of my first son down to when I saw his little finger and recognized him as a mini-me. We laughed about this just the other night. He's 45.
I was given an award as a national agent of the year from one of the largest insurance companies, in a ceremony in Hollywood. I can remember that event very vividly, even though it was nearly thirty years ago.
I've had bad things happen . . . and the strange thing is . . . those memories are much less distinct. Our minds, thankfully, help us forget horrible things.
It is important that we not forget too much. It is important that we understand that actions have consequences. People who have not experienced consequences are social landmines.
Cautionary tales are essential to human growth.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Hugs
Hugs
-- Daphne Xu
I've had bad things happen .
I've had bad things happen . . . and the strange thing is . . . those memories are much less distinct. Our minds, thankfully, help us forget horrible things.
I have been involved in depression research. One of the treatments tested was based upon the idea that depressed people are not as good at remembering the details of the good things.
If so, depressed people don't have the same usefully selective feature that you describe.
Objective quality of a work of literature versus comfort
I've never tried to hide the fact I'm def one of those people who has a hard time dealing with the means, regardless of how worthwhile the ends might be, especially in my fiction tastes hon :)
Heck, there've been several stories I've read for you that I was completely honest about not being able to finish. That inability to handle certain kinds of or certain levels of struggle/tribulation is why I won't read Charles Dickens *at all.*
Different people go into fiction looking for different things. For me, my enjoyment of fiction comes as much from an escape from the real world as from any wish fulfillment fantasies I might indulge in. While I like my stories to have a realistic BASE, I'm very much a fantasy kind of girl, and a romantic, and as such I like to keep at least a bit of Disney Princess at the fore of my thoughts when I read or write.
That's part of the reason you get so much better response than I do though. We both write wish fulfillment, but a lot of what you write is quite a bit more 'real' in the way the world around the characters works. Many people want that, relish in that sense of overcoming the kinds of challenges they themselves face every day.
It's all good.
*hugs*
You ask about people not finishing all those classic pieces of literature. Of them all, I've seen film adaptations of a few, but the only two I've actually read are Huck Finn and The Odyssey. In both cases, those stories have indomitable main characters who never falter in the face of any challenge they go against, which is what carried me through reading them. Finn never takes anything that happens around him so seriously as to be truly bothered, even by the most harrowing of ordeals: he leads a charmed life in as much as he refuses to not let it be so, and that keeps the terror and dismay of the story to manageable levels. Likewise, Odysseus, while imperfect, never falters in his commitment to returning home, and at all times has the intelligence and willpower needed to face the challenges he is given.
A bit part of the reason I've never read Catcher, Mockingbird, or Catch 22 is because I've heard from everyone who's read them that they can be depressing (if good.) I've heard they can be heartbreaking, and painful in a very real way because of the issues they tackle. Heck, when we were expected to read Mockingbird when I was in high school I ignored it, and when I took the test on it assumed the worst imaginable answer to almost every question was the right one. The fact I passed the test with a B very clearly told me it wasn't a book I'd have enjoyed in the slightest.
I have enough of that kind of pain, I feel, in my own life, and read to escape it, not pretend I've overcome it.
People read for different reasons. I love a great many of your stories because they give me something that I desperately need in my life: hope. Not hope that I can one day overcome my own issues -- that has to come from within -- but hope that the world I would be struggling to get to is worth it. Hope that, even if you're right and 40 percent of people are inherently or opportunistically dishonest, the other 60 percent can be capable of making something better than that, of BEING something better than that.
You write a range of stories that can reach a reader like myself just as easily as they can reach a reader who wants something more painful, more raw, than I could ever handle. All kinds of stories are needed, and having that variety of representation not only makes our community richer, but you as a person richer as well.
*hugs*
Melanie E.
Catch - 22
Catch - 22 is by far my favorite novel.
Joseph Heller wrote it for ME. At least, that's what I thought when I read it in high school. It wasn't assigned reading. Far from it. The nuns didn't even have a copy in our library.
A Catch 22 is any circumstance over which you're at a disadvantage and can't escape due to ever-changing redtape.
Time after time that novel delivers on the complete absurdity of war -- or any top-down organization.
Heller is the master of what was known at that time as black humor . . . humor with a dark edge.
Nine years ago was the fiftieth anniversary of its publishing. I read it again at that time and loved it more with a more mature POV as a reader.
In college I wrote a term paper on Catch 22. The professor who graded that paper wrote a letter of recommendation for me for my packet. It led directly to me being hired for my first job.
Mel - I love a writer like you who gives me the opportunity to flow with what I'm reading.
I approach my business with the philosophy that I reject working with forty per cent of those who apply to work with me that I feel are dishonest. Of those remaining sixty percent I spend ninety percent of my time working with the top twenty percent.
Things do organize themselves on bell curves.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Write
Your responsibility is to write to affect your reader. Readers are the only judges of what is safe for them to read.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
for me, it just reminded me of my rapist
an utter narcist, with too much power, who used drugs and threats to keep me (and others) compliant. but the happy ending made it worthwhile, so there's that. huggles!
Dorothy . . . Rape
Thirty years ago my attorney wanted to steal one of my businesses. In the process he raped a woman who worked for me who had been a life long friend.
Although I don't know your pain, I've come close enough to know the utter frustration.
I understand your reluctance to read stories that remind you.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Forty Per-Cent
In my fifty years of commercial experience interacting with others I have found that 40% of people will be or become dishonest if given the opportunity....as long as they think they can get away with it.
I was for many years a contractor in civil engineering and my profession had a reputation for skull-duggery which was too often deserved. I was lucky in that I worked for a succession of good bosses who always tried to do a good job and when I ran my own projects I always tried to follow in their footsteps and give an honest outcome for an honest effort.
That was not always easy as there were as many villains employing us as there were chancers and shonks on our side. Developers and Government rarely wanted to pay for a good job as required by the terms of their contracts. Sometimes this was because their administrators simply did not have the commercial skills but all too often it was because they just wanted to save money either for their own benefit or to impress or curry favour with the higher-ups in their organisations.
Such behaviour was particularly prevalent with privately-owned companies who believed that the dollar amount that they had contracted for should be the final sum for a job no matter how many times they changed their requirements. A certain percentage of those people deliberately entered into contracts with no intention of ever paying for what the contractor had actually done. The final 10% was theirs by right even though that was the builder's profit and the attitude was that their lawyers were better than your lawyers (and had deeper pockets), so sue me.
All of that serves to demonstrate how I can understand and empathise with many of the plot lines and characterisations in Jill's stories. Been there, seen the bodies, done that and swept up afterwards. So I have no problems reading one of her stories even if there is some nastiness along the way.
As far as the classics go, some grab me and some don't. My high-school English teacher recommended a then newly-published book called The Lord Of The Rings which enthralled me then and still bears re-reading sixty-some years later. We were also reading Shakespeare at the time and I credit him with making those works come alive and they stay with me even now. Another commentator mentioned Catch 22 and that is another that I shall never forget, but after school I mainly went into histories, except for science fiction and I won't bore you with all my favourite authors. We could go on for years!
I have also quit jobs where I thought that my reputation for honesty would be compromised and been surprised by people who I thought were my friends suddenly become willing to turn against me. Funnily enough I never had any difficulty in finding alternative employment.
Anyway, I guess at the end of it all my point is that a bit of angst in the middle of a story should not deter you from continuing to read and when it comes to an Angela Rasch tale the end is always worth the journey.
The Bad People
I worked as a materials engineer assistant for the State Highway Department for two summers.
Part of my job was to take a truck out onto the new interstate highway and take cement cores to see how the cement had cured over the last four years, since being poured.
The highway's specs called for a fourteen-inch slab of concrete. I took hundreds of samples and NEVER found one that was over eight inches. Can you imagine the amount of material the contractor saved? Can you imagine how many people had to have known what was going on?
There is a reason our infrastructure is in the shape it is.
Thirteen years ago, a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis killing 13 and injuring 145. It didn't surprise me. My guess is that shoddy materials played a part.
Who would do such a thing? How could we let it happen?
The forty percent rule applies and explains.
When I wrote about forty percent of people willing to do dishonest things -- I did so to try to get through to some who have high expectations, from their fellow human beings.
There are marvelous people who should be cherished. There are a lot of people who have very little in the way of fairness in their DNA.
Twenty years ago I started a fund-raising arm for our school district. Eventually that non-profit has generated over $8 million in donations. Only rarely did anyone turn me down when I asked for their time or money. Yet -- when all was said and done fewer people donated than those who didn't.
A good friend of mine told me that most people screw up their lives because they simply are afraid to ask for help when needed. He was a philanthropist who gave away a fortune (Percy Ross). Like me -- he was a realist about the good and bad in people.
Stories should reflect our society. There are wonderful feel-good stories all around us. There are also shysters who will do whatever they can.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Those of us over a certain age
have usually experienced the effects of dishonesty. I spent over forty years working for the NHS and saw all sorts of thievery going on not to mention the nepotism and outrageous amounts paid to management consultants. I had equipment stolen from my locker when I was a student by another student on my course. That was hard to take, robbed by a colleague. My son in law is an auditor and while working for a bank, he told me that they had so many people working there who were clueless, it would have been easy to rob them. Thankfully he didn't, he's as honest as the day is long - even though he effectively has two mothers in law - but he also left another job in construction because he could see millions being ripped off and whenever he reported it to his boss, he was told not to worry. He did worry and left.
Betrayal can take many forms, I have been outed to the press three times, the last time was to the notorious News of the World. I was fortunate that in the end it did me no actual harm, though it caused me and my family, a great deal of anxiety and worry at the time, I was delighted with the show of support from people who I didn't really know well at all. So sometimes bad things bring about good outcomes.
I had a really good female friend, went on holiday together and so on. She helped me immeasurably through my transition and then a few years later dumped me and many other of her friends without any goodbyes let a lone reasons. It seemed out of character and I felt very hurt and frustrated trying to contact her before another friend told me we'd all been dumped because she had a new man in her life. Obviously my friendship was disposable.
I sometimes include characters like these in my stories, including as the protagonist, as Angela says, life is like that, so who am I to disagree?
Angharad
It's So Hard To Remember
When bad people do bad things it rarely has anything to do with their victim. They're looking for an end result and have no regard for who gets in their way.
Good people don't act that way. They are compassionate and considerate. This works against them when they're wronged because they tend to try to figure out what they did wrong to be so abused or wronged.
In most instances, it has NOTHING to do with you.
That friend who dumped all of you got a better(?) offer. You were right to feel hurt. You were right to feel frustrated. You were also right to let it go.
You've risen above the hurts in your life by writing a very positive saga. It's an accomplishment few can match.
I'm a smaller person than you. I pattern myself after Chaucer's Canterbury Tales by giving those who have wronged me a prolonged life in fiction.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
"I have to wonder . . . did
"I have to wonder . . . did those readers stop reading The Prince and the Pauper, Huck Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, The Odyssey, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Catch 22, etc."
Yes! :P
Every book you mentioned, (and many more) made me appreciate Cliff's Notes in high school. The only one I even remember is Of Mice and Men, but only because of the movie. Some of the "classics" we're forced to read in school are fairly boring, and at that age I never cared to study the human condition.
Maybe it was the settings. Maybe it was the era in which they were written. Maybe they shouldn't be read by kids. Maybe it was being forced to read them on a set schedule and having no choice in the matter. Maybe it was the rabbits, George. Whatever the case may be, I never cared to finish them, nor go back to them later in life. I prefer to be entertained, or at the very least entertain new ideas.
Have you asked the commenters what it was that made them stop reading?
I personally wouldn't be interested in any conspiracies right now. But that has more to do with the current political climate and everyone at each others' throats. Also, political ads are annoying the hell out of me, and most of those are framed as conspiracies against opponents. So I wouldn't say it would make me feel "creepy," but it sure would be a turn off right now. :P
~Taylor Ryan
My muse suffers from insomnia, and it keeps me up at night.
Oh Well
Have I asked the commenters why they quit reading?
Probably with too much regularity.
The answers are in three camps:
1.) The genre doesn't interest me.
This floors me because the stories are flagged. Why did they open the story if the genre is not their cup of tea? Seems like a waste of time. There are thousands of stories to read on BC. Pick something else.
2.) The story is too real.
How the hell can a story be too real? Isn't plausibility basic to surrendering your disbelief?
3.) You suck as a writer.
Occasionally, I do. But since my books have generated tens of thousands of dollars in revenues for Big Closet through actual sales it would seem that occasionally my writing doesn't suck.
If writing too much like Harper Lee or Joseph Heller is a turn off for you than you probably are wasting your time reading my efforts. My goal would be to be a tiny fraction as good as either of them.
Thank you for your comments. BC is BIG! There is room for divergent taste. I search Netflix a lot and am amazed that at least 90% of their content is pure garbage. Somebody loves all that trash. That doesn't make my taste elite, or even better. It simply suggests different strokes for different folks.
I'm not trying to write for the reader who doesn't want to explore the human condition. When I write a story I initially identify a theme. That theme revolves around such a search. Love conquers all. Compassion solves most problems. People know much more and much less about us than we think they do.
I've read some of your writing. If you truly were as uncaring as you try to make me believe you couldn't write as you do.
Reading Cliff Notes does not equal reading the actual book. Occasionally, I will buy a synopsis of a economic text. But reading a classic is so much more than reading a synopsis of the story.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
1.) The genre doesn't
1.) The genre doesn't interest me.
This floors me because the stories are flagged. Why did they open the story if the genre is not their cup of tea?
Unless it is a serial story, you have to open it to read the flags ...
Don't get me wrong
I said I didn't care back then about the human condition. Most high school kids don't. They just want to get on with their day. So the Cliff's Notes helped me pass the class. :P
I do care now, and going back to explore those years with hindsight is actually a gift. Most of what I wrote while in school revolved around dark humor and trying to gross the English teacher out with my descriptions of rancid rundown abandoned houses. It never worked. The teacher just praised my description. But I grew up... I think.
I would wager that maybe if the books weren't forced on me back then, that I might be more inclined to read them at leisure today. They're just not light reading. So when you had to read chapters 1-4 before Monday and fill out a questionnaire, I was in the boat of "I got math homework, and a choir concert too you know?!" Tends to make you really resistant to "enjoying" a story.
All that being said, I don't think I've ever quit a story that I voluntarily started reading. So you'd never see that comment from me. Actually you'd probably never see a comment from me, because I rarely comment. I'll say that you'll never see a half kudo from me. :P
~Taylor Ryan
My muse suffers from insomnia, and it keeps me up at night.
Good luck with Your Writing
All writing and reading must be taken in the context of the world around it.
I was reading Catch 22 in the mid-60s. For a variety of reasons, I was opposed to the Vietnam War long before many people knew it existed.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I'm in Pieces....
sings
(The Name of the Place is) I Write it Like That!
Love, Andrea Lena
Dave Clark Five
There was a brief moment in time when it was valid to ask which is the better band? The Dave Clark Five, the Stones or the Beatles?
My favorite DC5 song was Because.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Give me...
one kudo and I'll be happy
just...just to write something new
give me...give me
a wee bit more attention
and maybe a comment or two
I write BECAUSE it brings me satisfaction
but I also hope for
some kudos, don't you?
oooo
Because because
it's just what I do...
Love, Andrea Lena
Bad people ... Good people ... People
What an interesting bunch we are! I thought I was interesting! I have worked in some of the toughest industries going and in many parts of the world, and if I have learnt the secret to a stimulating existence (still plenty to go) it is just one thing: People.
You will meet bad ones, you will meet good ones, you will meet people who are both of those things at the same time, and you will meet (my least favorite) people who just exist. Such people do not change you, or add something to your experience.
I like to think that a good writer is an observer of people. I am not sure whether I am a good writer but I can say that for anybody of interest that I have ever met I can tell a story - maybe not 100% true but based on the person they are.
I am lucky that I have a very good memory and an enormous well of experience to draw from.
I have been bruised by my life so far; I have lost money and made money; been lied to and betrayed; been hurt and suffered loss; but I would not change a moment of it.
Maryanne
First things first
You are an excellent writer, without a doubt.
You are right publishing stories like "The Girl Who Saved Aunt T's".
Those readers who comment that they stop reading your stories are wrong.
But you are mature (sorry, not the words to say to the lady) and you have to understand they have right to be frustrated. Their comments are actualy what they feel and what they are... they are peaople - somewhat weak, somewhat coward, somewhat ofended and hurt. Your stories are just a trigger.
Don't judge yourself and your writing relying on their comments.