Katniss Everdeen

The Dangerous Side of Hope

July 22, 2013 by • Life at Warp 10, Marcy's Blog • Tags: , , , • 15 Comments

The Hunger Games by Suzanne CollinsBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

In a world that can be dark and brutal and unfair, hope is one of our most powerful weapons. It can also be a weapon used against us, to keep us from changing our lives.

In the movie version of The Hunger Games, the screenwriters chose to pull back the curtain and give us a look at what was happening with President Snow and the game-makers while Katniss was in the arena. (I love that they did this.) In one scene, President Snow summons Seneca Crane, the head game-maker, and asks him an unusual question.

“Seneca,” he says, “why do you think we have a winner?”

Seneca frowns. “What do you mean?”

“If we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up twenty-four of them at random and execute them all at once? It would be a lot faster.”

Seneca doesn’t know how to answer.

President Snow almost smiles. “Hope. It’s the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. Spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.”

President Snow realized what most of us don’t. Hope, like many other great things, has a dangerous side.

A little hope is what keeps us in a bad job, a bad relationship, or any bad situation. We have just enough hope that we tell ourselves if we stay long enough something might change. We might get that promotion, that raise we deserve. They might realize how wonderful we are and treat us better.

For all the people in the districts in The Hunger Games, seeing one victor gave them just enough hope that their lives might get better if they persevered long enough. That little thread of hope kept them controlled.

But a lot of hope is what freed them. And it’s what can free us.

Because Katniss didn’t play by the Capital’s rules, and because she succeeded due to daring to try something different, she gave the people of the districts a bigger hope. A hope that said they could change things rather than waiting for something to change.

A little hope convinces us to wait, that if we’re patient, things will naturally change for the better. A lot of hope convinces us to act, that if we take the initiative, we’ll be able to have something better than what we have now. It tells us we’re strong enough, smart enough, valuable enough, brave enough. It tells us we can change our circumstances if we’re willing to take a risk.

Those of you who come to my blog regularly know my husband and I have decided we’re tired of having just a little hope. It’s time for a lot of hope. So he’s going back to school, and I’m self-publishing (first book will release next month if all goes well!), and yes, we’re both afraid. Terrified really.

But hope is stronger than fear.

What risk have you taken lately in the hope of making your life better?

I’d love to have you sign up to receive my posts by email. All you need to do is enter your email address below and hit the “Follow” botton.

Enter your email address to follow this blog:

And don’t forget that you can receive a free copy of my guide Everything You Always Wanting to Know about Hiring a Freelance Editor by signing up for my newsletter. <–Click right there. You know you want to 🙂

How to Keep Strong Female Characters Likeable

April 4, 2012 by • Writing • Tags: , , , , , , , , , • 50 Comments

A few weeks ago, I asked “What Do We Mean by Strong Female Characters?” and argued that a female character doesn’t have to deny traditionally feminine qualities to be strong.

But what if you need to write a physically strong woman with few of those traditionally feminine qualities?

Sometimes a story does call for this type of female character. In the novel I’m working on with my co-writer, Lisa Hall-Wilson, our main female character is an Amazon. She’s been raised to hate men and to see all signs of femininity as weakness. If we allow her too many feminine qualities (at least in the beginning), we’ll undermine the believability of her society and her character.

Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games is a great example of this as well, as is Kara “Starbuck” Thrace in Battlestar Galactica.

Katniss doesn’t want children. She’s more at home in the woods hunting than she is helping her mother nurse others. And she’s placed into a situation where it’s kill or be killed.

Starbuck is a fighter pilot who needs to be tough in order to get respect and survive. Her commander assigns her emotionally grueling tasks like interrogating (i.e., torturing) prisoners and assassinating a dangerous superior officer.

So how do you make sure this type of female character is still likeable?

Unfortunately, most of us can’t relate to this type of woman. She’s not like us. She’s not like our mothers or our best friends or our significant others. And when we feel like we have nothing in common with someone, it makes them difficult to like. If your reader doesn’t like your main character at all, that spells death for your story.

As writers, we have to do a little extra work to give that common ground if we’re creating a strong female character who denies traditional feminine qualities.

Answer the question “What made her this way?”

When Katniss’ father died in a mining accident, her mother sunk into a deep depression. Katniss had to feed and care for herself and her younger sister. She had to be the “man of the house.” She didn’t really have a choice. Her world dictated how she feels about motherhood as well. Why would she want to have children when they could be reaped for the Games and killed?

The writers of Battlestar Galactica also recognized the need to explain how Starbuck became so hard. We get glimpses of Starbuck’s abusive mother, one who told her daughter that she was weak and a failure, and who beat Starbuck so often that she came to believe pain was a way of life.

In showing how Katniss and Starbuck became who they are, the writers allowed us to sympathize with them, even pity them. And as the old English proverb says, “Pity is akin to love.”

NOTE: I’ve had to remove the rest of this post because it’s now a part of my book Strong Female Characters: A Busy Writer’s Guide. You can buy a copy at Amazon, Amazon.ca, Kobo, or Smashwords. They’ll be available in more places soon!

Enter your email address to follow this blog:

The Missing Hunger Games Line

March 29, 2012 by • Behind the Scenes, Life at Warp 10, Marcy's Blog • Tags: , , , , , , , , , • 36 Comments

The Hunger Games movie posterEven though I loved The Hunger Games movie that released Friday, I couldn’t help but notice that the screenwriters left out one of the most important lines in the book.

The night before the Games begin, Katniss finds Peeta on the roof of their hotel, watching the Capitol celebrate.

Peeta tells her, “I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games.”

This makes no sense to Katniss. In the book, she replies by telling him to care about staying alive, and in the movie, she explains that she can’t afford to think that way. Although that particular line wasn’t in the book, it was a perfect addition because that’s the way things are in District 12, where Katniss lives. Thinking of what might be only leads to disappointment. You have no chance of bettering your situation, nothing you do changes anything significant, and the best you can hope for is to survive.

And that’s the best she hopes for from the Arena as well. Only one of the twenty-four who compete comes out alive. To Katniss, any expectation that something might change this year would be futile.

Yet it’s Katniss who, by the end of the book, thumbs her nose at the Capitol and forces them into allowing two winners of the Hunger Games for the first time ever. And over the next two books, it’s Katniss who, without even meaning to, ignites a revolution and changes her world.

She learns one person can make a difference.

I’m not sure whether the scriptwriters missed this theme running underneath all the books or whether they didn’t catch the line that brings out the deepest facet of it, but in Chapter 7 of The Hunger Games, Peeta and Katniss are arguing about which of them has the better chance of survival and of getting sponsors. Each believes it’s the other.

Peeta turns to Haymitch (their mentor) in exasperation and says, “She has no idea. The effect she can have.”

They left this line out of the movie, and without this line, part of the message is missing.

Not only can one person make a difference, but sometimes we make a difference in others’ lives without even knowing it.

Katniss didn’t set out to change the world. She just did what was right and change followed. She had no idea of the chain of events her seemingly small actions would cause.

It works the same way in real life.

When I was twelve, the boy who sat behind me in class would ask me to explain all our school work to him. I dreaded feeling that pesky tap-tap on my shoulder. When I finally lost my temper, he confessed—he couldn’t read. Somehow he’d slipped through the cracks, dismissed as either stupid or lazy, when he wasn’t either.

So I taught him (and felt guilty about snapping at him). At the time, I didn’t think it was anything important, but a couple years later, I overheard him telling a teacher how much I’d helped him and how much it meant to him.

I treasure that memory. So often I struggle with feeling insignificant and like nothing I do really matters, and that memory helps remind me that I won’t always know how something small I did positively affected someone else. If I hadn’t overheard, I would never have known I made a difference.

We’re not all destined to be famous leaders or world-changers, but that doesn’t mean we’re not making a difference in the individual lives we touch, sometimes when we least realize it, often just by doing the right thing. And that too is important.

Do you ever struggle with feeling like what you do doesn’t matter? Has someone made a difference in your life, probably without realizing it?

(If you’re looking for a movie review of The Hunger Games, Karen Rought at The Midnight Novelist has a mostly spoiler-free version, and Jessica O’Neal–the sexy little nerd–does a great job of analyzing the actors and the flow of the movie.)

Enter your email address to follow this blog: