Breakthrough!

Friends, I'm so excited! Last night on the wee puddle-jumper prop plane to Seattle, I finally (FINALLY) figured Charlie out. Maybe you are bored by Charlie by now. God knows she's been a handful. Maybe you were hoping for some lyric and expansive travel writing about Oregon pinot noir country and how being in wine country always leads to great spiritual insights. Too bad.

Claire helped me figure her out actually. See, the beauty of Claire is in her simplicity. The facts of her life are going one way and she is responding in essentially the opposite way. Her denial is almost poetic. She is facing losing her breasts to mastectomy surgery, so rather than mourn their loss in a healthy way...she dolls them up in lingerie and learns to strip. The stakes are high and you can see how that storyline can escalate to a climax.

Charlie hasn't been that clear. What I'm missing is the opposites. There is huge power in opposites. Think about it: love – hate, black – white, Bush – Gore (I've been getting my fill of American politics these days. Sorry). If you pit good against evil, there is an explosion of drama. Good by itself is kind of boring. Evil by itself is unappealing. But chocolate and peanut butter together? Magic.

So. Charlie's dad kills himself. She gets depressed after his death. An unfortunate reality of depression is it can lead to becoming suicidal. She's now obsessed with suicide on two levels. This throws a lovely opposite into the mix with accident-prone David. I thank my friend D for this insight. David's injuries are all unintentional, Charlie's are self-inflicted. And, I figured this one in bed last night at 2 am, they don't meet in the clinic because she's the nurse and he's the patient. They are both patients! Of course.

Incidentally, a fully formed scene between Charlie and a bitchy male nurse jumped out of my head at 2 am as well. That's how it works when you are tapped-in creatively. Whole scenes seem to be waiting for you. They are almost impatient to get out of your head, like they have been hanging around for freaking ever waiting for you to show up and figure it out.

So. Back to Charlie and her dad. In order to avoid dealing with the pain of losing her father to suicide, Charlie throws herself into the details of his death. She CSIs his death and in the process becomes this sui-scientist. Through her research, she realizes that her dad and her have been punters. There is a serious art to effectively offing oneself. Really, her dad was lucky he actually died from his suicide attempt. His suicide was actually kind of pathetic. She begins planning the perfect suicide.

Only, what do you do once you've planned the perfect suicide and it's really just a way to avoid dealing with your dad's death? I mean, we are not in cry-for-help Kansas anymore. If she does this...it's forever.

See? I've upped the stakes. I've backed her into a corner. I'm forcing her to choose. And I've taken the writing further. Rather than shy away from the suicidal aspects of this character, I've taken them up to 11.