Secrets and Lies: Forgive Me

How do you feel about the hero or heroine keeping secrets from the other? Or lying?  The romance writer takes a gamble with secrets and lies. She knows that just because a character forgives another character, this is not a guarantee of reader forgiveness.

Generally, I'm instinctively ambivalent to betrayal in both my reading and my writing. I don't want the hero or heroine to break the trust of the other. I simply don't like that sort of conflict in real life so why would I search it out or create it? My patience for misunderstandings is relatively short.  Heck, life is too short!  And, in my writing, I want my hero and heroine to be liked. That's personal as well. If you like my characters, you like me. Why gamble with characteristics or actions that are going to risk that with the reader? After all, there are other conflicts available, either internal or external, and I don't think there has to be a lie or a secret. 

So, as a reader with that ability to see all sides of a situation, the reasoning for the betrayal is weighted heavily with a sense of what is right.  I must be convinced of the validity of the mitigating circumstances.

That's what my rational mind tells me, anyway. But somehow, in both my novels to date, a secret or a lie sneaks in.  Actually, that's not accurate.  It doesn't sneak in, it enters boldly as the only logical option to a human -- aka messy -- situation.  Once I get to know those two imperfect people, it seems almost inevitable that a secret or a lie becomes a possibility real and imperfect people would consider.  Then, it grows as a valid reason for character change for both characters; for the one perpetrating the betrayal and also the one on the receiving end.

When I think about the heart of the matter, this secret or lie evolves out of what one of the main characters wants most. What that has been in both my stories has been the hero's desire to protect the heroine. His method of doing so, whether or not somewhat misguided by his sense of knowing what's best in the long run, has involved a lie or a secret.

So, there it is.  After much soul searching, a betrayal has been reasoned out to be necessary.  We're "on board" for all sorts of  hypothetical "no-no's."  Isn't it amazing what we can justify?  With the proper motivational understanding, we can say...he had to do that because of such and such and some how, it makes sense.

So just how do we define "some how"?  This challenge is not for the faint of heart.  How much betrayal can a reader can stomach,  what is forgivable and is reader sympathy maintained in the midst of a betrayal?  A writer may wonder and worry if the bases were covered.  In my opinion, here are a several possible emotional tools of the trade, so to speak, when delving into the realm of "secrets and lies":

1. Guilt. This one I think is very effective. Guilt implies that the character is aware of doing something wrong. Is it tearing them up inside and are they on the brink of confession? It can be overplayed, of course. Feeling guilty but continuing bad behavior or rationalizing it away too long is risky.
   
2. Intend to Tell. Is it a matter of bad timing? Perhaps the character comes around to the error of his/her ways and the reader sees this.  But, wouldn't you know it, he/she waits a bit too long, and, bam!, the betrayal happens anyway-- the secret is leaked in the worst possible way. It might be an overused ploy, but it's effective because the blame isn't really placed solely on the character.  Good intentions should count for something, right?
   
3. Sacrifice. What is more honorable than a sacrifice; the act of putting another's needs before your own? The downside is that it's possible that the character on the receiving end will feel betrayed by a sacrifice. This could happen if, for example, a heroine doesn't want the hero to sacrifice if it means losing him! But the reader may be sympathetic.
   
4. The"For Their Own Good" clause. Perhaps this is a bit of a God complex. The character knows best. I'm guilty of using this one quite often for my hero. I guess that's part of the package for an alpha hero to believe he is right and he is protecting the heroine with a secret or lie for her own good. Guilt can be smothered and actions rationalized with the For Their Own Good clause. There is a line that can be crossed with this one, and many a villain has walked over it. But when used for good, I can't help get a bit of a gooey feeling that the hero cares so much to take such an active role for what he truly believes is protecting the one he loves.

When it goes wrong.  What is unforgivable? I think the answer to this can be either an absence of the above or perhaps the excess of the above. For me, what it comes down to is if the betrayal leads to character change for the good and if it's not an interchangeable betrayal. Could this scene be plopped down in a different story?  If so, it didn't really seem like a necessary plot that that evolved from the circumstances.  I've heard that advice for love scenes and I think it applies for betrayal as well. In other words, what counts as a forgivable betrayal is different for every person and every character.

What makes betrayals forgivable or unforgivable in your opinion? Do you ever write conflict that in your own life, or reading, you'd shy away from?

The Flavors of Conflict

Choices. Choices. Have you ever been so inundated with choices on a menu, like the array of ice cream options or coffee variations for instance, that you just give up and say "vanilla" or "just black " please? It's just too much. Sometimes I think that way about conflict. With so many options, how do I choose? Or maybe, the first step is going back to the basics of "vanilla," but with the understanding that vanilla doesn't mean boring, but pure and basic.  The options of what can be added to it are endless.

Take the exam essay topic I have for an American Lit class: how traditional forms of support, such as family, religion or community, don’t work for a character any more and cause a character to feel alienated.

Essentially, this is a method the writer uses to create conflict. The menu is varied, but a basic "vanilla" flavor of conflict is "loss of a traditional form of support." It almost guarantee some form of conflict. Too vanilla? Remember, not boring, but a pure base to add the right flavors.

For my essay I have to use examples from various works and I found it amazing how the "flavor" is built on the basic concept of this conflict; the loss of traditional forms of support. It can even be a perceived loss of support brought about by a change in the character.

In the short story "The Second Choice" by Theodore Dreiser, the feeling of alienation in the main character, Shirley, is influenced by her attraction to an outsider. This outsider, Arthur, "arrived with a sense of something different" and set in motion a change in Shirley's perception of her world that she must deal with after he leaves. In reality, her world hadn't changed. Her job at the drug store is the same. The houses on her street are not only the same, but painfully identical:

There was Mrs. Kessel in her kitchen getting her dinner as usual, just as her own mother was now, and Mr. Kessel out on the front porch in his shirt-sleeves reading the evening paper. Beyond was Mr. Pollard in his yard, cutting the grass. All along Bethune Street were such houses and such people -- simple commonplace souls all -- clerks, managers, fairly successful craftsmen, like her father and Barton, excellent in their own way but not like Arthur the beloved, the lost - - and here was she, perforce, or by decision of necessity soon to be one of them.

Her world is held in comparison to the "glorious interlude" she shared with the outsider and her contentment in the familiar routines is lost; her community identified distantly as "such houses" and "such people." Additionally, this is how she now perceives the hobbies and social events she had enjoyed "before Arthur":

That was another thing Arthur had done - - broken up her interest in these old store and neighborhood parties and a banjo and mandolin club to which she had once belonged. They had all seemed so pleasing and amusing in the old days - - but now - -. . .

Shirley now sees her world through Arthur's eyes, and the sameness and routine is something to be endured. While Arthur has left to explore the broader world, she is now an outsider trapped in a limiting social context of the turn of the century.  She's deeply aware the only option is marriage - - especially, if, as a subtly alluded possibility, Shirley is indeed pregnant. And even if she resumes the course of her former life, the loss of her support system by her changed perceptions reduces all aspects of her life to a "second choice."

I think you could take almost any story and find ways the character has lost traditional forms of support and/or feels alienated.  Many of these stories also use the arrival of an "outsider."  Do you think your story has a loss of a support system and/or a character feeling alienated?