2015
“I was thinking I might write a dystopian sci-fi book about a girl fighting for her life and her family.”
Devon tilted his head down so he was looking at her over his bifocals. He looked at her silently long enough that she said, “What?”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Why? What are you writing about?”
Devon immediately raised his head in the stereotypical gesture that put his nose in the air. He wiggled back and forth a little as he got settled in his seat and Chandra knew she was in for a lecture. “I’m writing about society. You know, about just how oppressive it can be and how we all struggle to maintain our own sense of individuality in a world that’s constantly telling us how to look, how to dress, how to talk.”
Chandra blinked. “O.K. … So what’s the plot?”
“I haven’t quite worked that out yet. I was thinking I would make my MC this sort of outsider who’s trying to find out who he really is and where he fits in this world, you know?”
Chandra decided to ignore the fact that Devon was constantly bemoaning the use of abbreviations instead of words when people talked because he thought it contributed to the downfall of language. Somehow that disdain never reached literature-related abbreviations, such as “MC” and “POV”, because he thought using them made him sound smart and in-the-know. “Sure,” she said. “So, how does that work out for him?”
“Oh, he’ll have to die at the end. You know, in cases of man vs. society, society always wins.”
Chandra wrinkled her nose. “So, why write about it? Sounds like you’re going for a depressing ending in which everything you try to promote throughout your story doesn’t make it. That makes it seem like you’re trying to say we’re all fighting a losing battle.”
“We are, aren’t we? Just look at how toxic our society has become, and yet it’s too big and all-consuming for us to have a chance of changing anything. Just look at what happens to those who try to go against the grain. They’re ostracized. They don’t have friends. They don’t have girlfriends, which means they don’t have sex and therefore can’t reproduce.”
“Wait a minute, you’re telling me that every man having sex has a girlfriend or wife?”
“Yeah. How else would they have sex?”
“So prostitutes are no longer a thing? Or one-night stands? How about friends with benefits?”
“Ah, but they don’t have friends, much less friends with benefits.”
“That doesn’t address my first two points.”
Devon continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “We need human contact to survive. That’s just a fact. So what happens when all our human contact has been reduced to emojis?”
Chandra’s hip buzzed, so she reached for her pocket and pulled out her phone. She angled the dark screen so she could look at it without Devon seeing it was blank. “I have to take this,” she said. “It’s my agent, but keep up the writing and we’ll meet up again next month, right?”
Devon nodded and Chandra left, pretending to answer her phone.
To be continued …