Blog entry twenty: The young person’s guide to time
This blog is designed to be read in conjunction with chapter twenty, The young person’s guide to time, now published on this website. The title is a riff on Benjamin Britten (for all you classical buffs), although I think it’s something of a misnomer; as our heroine is not being confronted with the true nature of time (at least not in this chapter!), but rather the true nature of her existence!
The opening section of chapter twenty was written several months before I reached this stage in the story; so there was always an element of trying to find a narrative pathway through to that particular moment in time, the moment when Marta has to confront the fact that she is not a unique individual, that she is not even a ‘real’ child. This serves to dramatise the fears that all children have at some point in their development; that they are not in fact the offspring of their parents, that they have no place in the world, that they are not special, and that no-one actually loves them!
When I first re-read this chapter I thought I had gone over the top; thinking that Marta’s reaction was too extreme given the circumstances! But while editing for publication I’ve changed my view!
My reaction was partly emotional; as I found (after a period of ambivalence), that I was moved once more, as I had been when I originally wrote the piece! But this was also an intellectual response; because when you factor in the peculiar nature of Marta’s upbringing (as a child with no parents), and combine that with all the traumas (admittedly, mostly self-inflicted) that she has had endure so far in her life, her suicidal impulse is entirely predictable…
But I do think I have put my heroine through too much; in the process stretching dramatic license to the limit ( this is fiction after all!), and if some hypothetical future editor were to suggest changes, one I would probably agree to would be reducing the number of times she is placed in mortal danger…
I like the language in the passage that opens the chapter; the moment when Marta concludes that she’s essentially a forgery achieves the lyricism that I strive for, and the rest of the chapter is basically a flashback to the events that led her to that revelation.
I also decided to lift the lid on the true nature of the Nurses (peeking behind the scenes of the Alpha Mission), presenting Six Gee as ‘she’ actually is, rather than how she presents herself to the Children.
The ‘Eve’s Rib’ passage in Marta’s final remembered dream is an obvious play on Christian creation mythology, Marta also misquotes Matthew 5.29 in line seven; and, of course, her first words (which also close the chapter), are adapted from Shylock’s speech in The Merchant of Venice!
As I mentioned, I went through a period where I became ambivalent about this chapter, thinking it was too melodramatic; but now I think that it is important to demonstrate that there are psychological consequences to the kind of trials that the Children undergo. All too often in contemporary televisual SF, the main characters experience things that would have most of us in therapy for the rest of their lives, without any apparent psychological damage; and I wanted a counterbalance to this.
It’s also important to stress that Marta is now ‘different’; she has grown-up, and views her world (the Mission, her companions, her partner, and Alpha 5 itself!), with a new kind of detachment, that distances her from everybody else.
And this is important for what is to come…
Happy Reading