Something about Rejection–Randall Brown

It is, as we all know, the middle of the story—the thwarting again & again of a character’s deepest desire—that makes the ending hard-earned and thus worth something. How many times must a character face rejectionbefore the ending will matter? (Too many, perhaps). Each time, though, the character survives, enlightened (because all stories are about reaching epiphanies, aren’t they?) enough to face something harder, until by the end there’s nothing more to grasp.

It’s tempting, at least to me, to write the story in which the character reaches from the pages, grasps the writer, and throws him/her into the story’s middle, that continual confrontation with obstacles and fear. I wonder how the brain interprets these vicarious journeys from quietude to conflict to resolution. Does the brain ever think that, for the writer and reader, the experience actually took place?

Writers, of course, do actually have their desire thwarted, again and again, thus guaranteeing the feeling that the acceptance (should it come) matters. I wonder if indeed, as in traditional story structure, it is that “middle”—the rejection after rejection—that gives publication its supernatural wonder and supreme sense of accomplishment. What might publication be like if that “middle” became easy, if anyone could write a story and have it published? What would it matter, then, to have someone say “yes”?

Yes, it would matter, wouldn’t it? Because we write for other reasons than publication. We want to be read. We want to get it right, that translation from mind to story. We want to nail the ending, just once. We want to figure something out and what better way than push a character through a series of conflicts. We want someone to get us. We want to prove our high schools wrong. We want. That is why we write, yes? To recover all the things we ever wanted. To be loved for something that is essentially ours. Because someone loved us too little or too much. For reasons beyond us.

Perhaps the real question is not about taking away the middle, the rejection after rejection, but taking away the ending, when someone finally says, “Yes.” I’d still write. It would still matter. And realizing that is what gives me whatever it is needed to send the next story out with its desire for acceptance (yes!) but also its desire for something else, something that doesn’t matter what happens next.

To find out more about what happens next for Randall Brown, visit his blog at http://randalldouglasbrown.blogspot.com/