Control: Deconstruction of One Difficult Scene from a Teen Horror Novella…

Do you remember what it was like to be so sad you couldn’t express yourself? I wanted to write about that for my new teen horror novella. I wanted to write about a young man who has no friends and the tragic way his life goes. I tried to write the scene and desperately failed.

Why? Well, it’s complicated. I, Dalton Lewis, don’t think about the real world a lot. I think that’s the problem with my current writing — I’m not thinking about it in my surface thoughts as I’m doing it. Why? Why not? I would think that would become the number one priority…to think about my writing as I write it. That should be important to me.

I’m writing a scene in a story — in this scene a boy, Kevin, goes through a day of school without anyone talking to him all day long. No one says a word to him the entire time. Then he talks to his stepsister after school, and there’s an awkward conversation where she tries, really hard, to give back to him and to reach him and be nice to him and tragically fails. It’s a really important scene to develop the characters, especially Kevin, a very unhappy young man destined for great trouble. A lot of the plot rests on Kevin’s unhappiness and so I wanted this scene to work, to really show what it’s like to be that unpopular.

The conversation with Marie — the stepsister — and her boyfriend — JAA — initially went differently. Initially JAA said that the white people didn’t care about him, and I decided that was just liberal bullshit and the scene was better if he trusted the rich white people who tell him that they have his back. That’s a better character, I think: a rich young black man who is supported by the system and wants to make something of himself, intellectually and physically.

Marie herself? She is an object of desire for all the characters. Everyone wants the pretty teen girl who is wonderful and caring and giving to everyone. Everyone loves the girl who cares for everyone. People idolize her because she gives back to the community and loves everyone in her life. This idolization makes her the object of all of everyone’s desire — and this causes very real trouble for her as the story continues.

How does this reflect the real world? Well, we all know a girl who is the object of everyone’s desire. That’s something I think I took from the real world. Also some girls date rich athletes who are smart…I think that’s a thing. As far as the person who is ignored all throughout high school? That was my freshman year of high school — in which I talked to no one, pretty much ever, all year long, except for Sal, a friend of mine to this day.

How do I end the scene? I end the scene with her discovering that he’s gay and making fun of him for it — even though she is into girls herself. I thought that he’s so scared of admitting to being attracted to men that the scenario would implode. I wanted the case to be a tragic scene. I wrote it to the best of my ability to describe Kevin’s situation.

It’s his suicide note.

Thanks, and take care, friends.