Avocations
Writing
Notes on The Farm
*Character Dictionary
This is a fictional tale although portions of it are very loosely based off real people, places, and events. No character in the story represents any real person even though some real people served as a template for a fictional character. Some characters have a combination of traits taken from more than one person and some characters come entirely out of my imagination. These traits are really just a starting point and not intended to be an analysis of, or commentary on, any real person. For example; I was thinking of a specific person when I started writing about the character Abigail. It made it easier for me to picture her but I intentionally exaggerated her bossiness. Everybody has a little of that bossy side to them but the reference person has no more or less of that quality than any other real person. Another example is Jake; The reference person has a unique personality but I greatly exaggerated some qualities and added others. Like being loud and walking like a zombie. The reference person does not in fact walk like a zombie and while he has potential for being loud he does not utilize that potential any more than any other real person. These differences could sometimes be explained by the over active imagination of a ten year old kid but mostly it was a matter of adding spice to the story. I apologize in advance to anybody who may see themselves in any of these characters and come away with the impression that I am in any way denigrating them. That is certainly not my intent.
*About the story: Benny is a fairly normal ten year old boy. He comes from a nice suburban existence without much of anything to fear. He goes to visit some friends of the family and gets to spend some time on their farm. The story is mostly about his growth as a person as he deals with things that are outside of his normal realm of experience. An important part of the story includes the common childhood experiences of bad dreams and being afraid of the dark and ghosts or things hiding under his bed or the boogie man. That is highlighted by the story starting with his having a nightmare. The farm exaggerates this fear by adding an element of credibility to the ghosts but there will never be an actual physical representation of a ghost in the story. Instead the ghosts will be revealed through events, perceptions, suppositions, and superstitions. In rare cases a person may think they see a ghost but there will always be the lingering question of was it real. I think portraying a ghost that way makes it more scary, interesting, and closer to real human experience. The ghosts will also be a way to gage his growth as he starts to change the way he perceives situations and deals with them.
*A comment about ghosts: I thought it might be a good idea to state explicitly that while I believe many unexplainable things happen in life, including things unseen, I do not believe that any residual part of any real person ever remains in any animated fashion to inhabit any part of the world physical or otherwise with the exception to the part of those persons which remain in our memories and the impact they had on others during the course of their lives. As an example the efforts of George Washington can be seen in the freedom we enjoy in the United States today. In that way one could refer to the spirit of George Washington. I do however believe in a Creator who governs and judges in all matters including life and death, existence and nonexistence. I also believe that evil can and does exist as a thing definable and relevant in the real world but it plays itself out through human actions. A thing that is not physical must have a physical agent in order to impact physical reality.