Technical Aspects | |
Story length: | 3,500 words/14 pages double spaced |
Voice: | First person, present tense and past tense |
Genre: | Fiction |
Copyrighted: | © 2012 |
Story information | |
Main character: | Catherine |
Character description: | A married woman who sees a therapist because she feels she does not know how to love her son. |
Supporting characters: | Unnamed therapist, unnamed husband, six-year-old son Cameron, best friend Tamara. |
Setting: | Indeterminate modern times, indeterminate setting |
General Plot | |
Catherine sees a therapist because she's worried she doesn't love her son the right way. She's heard so many stories about how powerful the mother-child connection is, and she doesn't think she feels it. Through a series of anecdotes she reveals to her therapist, the story explores Catherine's lifelong ability to feel certain kinds of love only vicariously, and explores what--if anything--she should do about it. | |
Information, inspiration, and other notes | |
I think this story probably grew out of my annoyance with people who think it's their right to tell other people what they should feel and what their relationships should look like. Human experience is such a broad spectrum, so I wanted to explore a character who has an atypical experience in the world. (I didn't specify whether Catherine is neurotypical, but she may not be; I didn't feel like I had to put a label on her.) Oddly enough, I seem to have written the first third of this story in a half-awake state. I went to bed, got up three hours later, and thought writing it had been a dream until I saw it was actually saved on my computer. |
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