1. Lorraine Cassidy says:

    This is eye-opening. I have been having trouble writing one of my stories, and this actually helps me understand what I was trying to do. Do you have some other suggestions for me to read/watch to help in portraying these small daily tragedies?

  2. Kessie says:

    Oooh, this is a very good analysis. Even as a little kid, I understood that the dad was in trouble on that tragic walk to work. And for some reason, watching them tear up his flower and break his hat was silly and awful at the same time. But a child could understand it. Watching a parent die? As a kid, that was too sad to grasp. I stayed away from those kinds of stories.

  3. Haven’t seen the new Mary Poppins movie, but something to consider is that people often aren’t upset about the small things in and of themselves, but rather their implications and results.

    If a parent doesn’t spend enough time with their kid, the kid isn’t necessarily going to be super upset about one or two times when the parent misses an event or conversation. The child will probably instead be upset by implications such as ‘my parent doesn’t care about me’ or ‘my parent won’t take the time to teach me things I need to succeed in life. I’m scared about my future.’

    Of course, even little every day tragedies can snowball into things with major consequences. In my current WIP, the main char’s mother was often rather harsh and strict toward her son, and even though she actually cared about him, she didn’t show it often enough. It completely destroyed their relationship and led to her son making a lot of bad decisions.

  4. Noah says:

    Great post! Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

What do you think?