Getting Some Sun

     "You need to go outside and get some sun," Mama would say. But I didn't much care for the outside, preferring instead  the indoor protection from the hot Georgia summers and the mind-crazing gnats. Summer days at home always included books and daydreams. I read year round, but vacation from school provided me time to lavishly enter into the worlds authors created. One summer, reading a book set in England, I drank hot tea and read the dialogue with a feigned British accent. Another summer, my sister found me with tissue in hand, crying because Jo in Bleak House had "just" died.  I would read and pretend all day, and even  imagined my own stories, hiding my efforts from my family as if they were national secrets.

     Then and now, I most appreciate stories that are believable. That is, characters presented in such a way that they contend with my emotions and intellect, my humanity. My biggest summer reading disappointment was a romance series that I started and abandoned before my senior year of high school. I soon discovered that this particular author wrote formulaic romance novels that were sadly predictable. The stories began, progressed, and ended the same way: boy meets girl, awkwardness, scenery, sex scene, argument, another girl, make up, sex scene, happiness.  Boring! Even as a young woman, I had figured out that relationships are complicated and betrayal costs more than a  princely, apologetic embrace. 

      I learned then to look for authors who invite me into a world realistically, which all good stories will do no matter the genre.  I dismiss the  "happily ever after" stories because I know how living is messier than that. Even in good stories involving the supernatural, the fleshing out of the plot mandates qualities I recognize. Heroes are permanently scarred, poverty in spirit isn't easily overcome, ignorance destroys communities, and abuse shades a person's happiness for a lifetime. Jo dies, remember? 

      A 40-year-old student put this into perspective at the completion of a Contemporary Literature class I facilitated. Before the class, she was "addicted" to "cheap romance novels." I suspected a sitcom mentality and worried for a while, but at the end of the course she said, "I will never read a book the same way again. You showed me characters who were real."  That is the goal, y'all.  Excellent writers converse with their readers as if to say, "Come with me, and let's work on this together: I'll show you what happens and who is involved. You think about why and what if. " Readers so engaged will be tempted to pray characters through their conflicts. Missing the sunshine in favor of a quiet reading room will seem a frivolous requirement. Besides, nowadays, anyone can spray some sun on.