And I probably tricked half the people here into clicking based on the title alone. I am sorry. I had no idea what to call it. lol. Hope this isn't rude but I had a thought. I wanted to share. I don't really need help with it. It is an idea I probably won't reach for years but all the same I had it and I wanted to share. See what you guys think. That is what this section is for right? If not please help me understand what mistake I made. So a character has to say goodbye to her mom. Hence the title. Let me explain. I wanted to gush that before people questioned the nature of my title. Take your standard Chosen One style hero(Brittney). Yeah I didn't like thinking of them that way but for the most part it is accurate. Now the enemy sends people after her mom. Brittney sends people to protect her mom. Thing is enemy gets there first. The mom is not helpless and defends herself just fine. Maybe suffers mild injury. She later sees Brittney and questions the logic of sending men to protect her. Brittney explains the situation. And the mom does this; She takes her medicine and flushes it in front of the daughter. Medicine she will not be able to live one day without. Brittne panics and issues peple to go get more medicine but the mom interrupts with lines like these; "Won't matter. I won't take it. I shoot myself in the head if I have too. You are distracted and I have lived plenty long enough(Mom is 45-ish. Brittney 20ish). You need to live and I am not going to sit here and be a risk. Nor am I going to let you make bad choices in order to protect me. This isn't a discusion. Time to say goodbye." How would you react? Or thoughts in general? Thanks for listening.
I'm having trouble with this for several reasons: - As someone who will be 50 this year, I assure you that 45 is not "plenty long enough". - If Mom's going to kill herself, why does she do so in this dramatic, showy way that will cause the maximum pain and conflict to her daughter? Why not find a poison that will cause her to quietly die in her sleep? Mom is feeling like a narcissist to me here. - Why does Mom need to die? Why can't she just vanish, leaving a note? - Surely Brittney is going to be far, far more distracted by grieving than she would have been just worrying about Mom.
Yeah, it seems really needlessly dramatic. I would think that if anything, rather than flushing the medicine, she might wait until her daughter's not around and purposefully overdose. It'd be a pretty painless way to go. Leave a note for Brittney to find and whatnot. If part of your plot doesn't hinge on the mom being dead, I'd suggest having her join up with her daughter maybe? Or just disappear so her daughter's enemies can't find her, like Chickenfreak suggests? Killing herself would surely be a last ditch effort - my mom is over 50 and I know she wouldn't be like "yknow what, I've lived long enough, may as well off myself and cause my daughter great emotional pain instead of trying to help her in any way". Unless the medicine she needs is for an illness that makes her extremely sickly and weak, or something like that. But even then, losing a parent would be a massive emotional blow and she'd be bound to know that.
I would just nod and say good bye, understanding her reasons. Then when she passed I would have something to keep on me to remember her by. And keep fighting.
Actually the 45 being long enough line is a reference. Because the character was told at age 14 she wouldnt reach 25. So that is her throwing a wise crack at the fact she lived so much longer. Yeah technically the mom could run and hide. Though wouldn't be to hard to give a reason why she can't. And she kind of was going for posion. In a sense. By not taking her medicine she would die in her sleep that night. Though even with her medicine she probably wasn't going to survive another year. Hence her reasoning. She was dying either way. She wasn't about to be a distraction to her daughter. A bit nassasitic I guess. lol. Any other thoughts? Thanks for the feedback. I knew someone would take that position. Sorry. I couldn't think of a better title name. Don't worry I don't plan on leaving any time soon. I guess the context of the medicine was something I should have done better. She is in chronic pain which is slowly getting worse. She probably wouldn't have lasted one more year as it was. Why she doesn't do it in private is kind of to avoid the emotional blow. She wants her daughters grieving to be brief. This scene would probably tie into them having dinner and the mother saying goodbye as she goes to sleep for the last time. The fact that her mother found it needed to die as to not be a target for the enemy to exploit is I think supposed to enrage Brittney motivating her even more then before to win. Seem legit?
Well, it makes me really, really dislike the mother. I see her as controlling and narcissistic and deeply lacking in empathy. Now, maybe that's who she is, but I'd hate for you to get that result unintentionally.
I am not exactly sure. I think it kind of fits. I mean. To give context. My main story is about someone else. The mother hear(named Cerra) was part of that story. So this story is 20 years later with her daughter being the MC. Cerra did the following things; - Ran away from home in response to learning she was sick - Stole, did drugs, probably hurt people in her quest to feel alive before dying. - Became a terrorist. - Turned over a new leaf in response to someone helping her. - Tried to die to protect those friends - Became angry that she survived and they died. - dedicated the rest of her life to raising her child. Sound like the words you used?
Kind of, though I don't know about the new leaf, at least in terms of relationships. I'd imagine that she gave her child a pretty lousy childhood.
New leaf was more or less her following the person around saying like. "I owe you. Let me pay you back." Why do you think she gave her kid a bad childhood? Funny enough Cerra is wickedly smart. Like smart enough where a school would hire her on the spot. So I saw her as taking a teaching job and living a life pretty much alone with her mind set being on providing for her kid as best as she could. You think she would have failed?
Because in this situation, she is effectively shouting at her child, "I'm gonna DIE and you can't stop me! Do you hear me, I'm gonna DIE! Your mother's gonna DIE and it's ALL BECAUSE OF YOU! Are you in enough pain about that yet? Are you angry enough yet? Should I die now or should I wait for you to feel some more pain?" That level of breathtaking cruelty is not, IMO, consistent with being a loving mother, or ever having been a loving mother.
Maybe my description was wrong. lol. There is supposed to be some salt in it. But I see her being more like; "Sorry but I love you and I can't even imagine the thought of you dying. I am dying first it is the rule." And maybe a bit of "I have been in pain for a while now. I lived a lot longer than anyone ever thought I would. I got to see a lot more of your life then I deserved. I probably should have let the end come a few months ago. I am damn sure not going to live on at the cost of putting you in danger!" Does that sound better? Or sound the same?
However it's phrased, it's still, "I'm choosing to die, and my death is because of you." And it also still seems thoroughly unnecessary.
Yeah but some of the coolest things are unnecessary. Like in this case a reader is following the daughter. I like imagining how much the daughter is going through. Like her arguing with her mother. Or her grabbing her and hugging her. The tears! The feels! Not just then but also later. When she is back on the battle field and you see the pure hate in her eyes at the enemy! Isn't all of that nice?
It would work better for me if there were some actual reason for the mother to die. Say, they both need the medicine and there's only enough left for one. Or the daughter defends the mother, and then the mother takes a bullet/knife/whatever for the daughter when the fight goes badly. Or something. I assume that none of those actually work, but you see what I mean?
That moment when tranlating an idea to a briefer form sort of harms it. Funny enough she never had medicine. There is no medicine to her condition. I used that in this explaniation because I thought it added the correct feeling. She is dying either way. Her condition will kill her. I played with the idea that the daughter had a spell that was acting like medicine. In that version of the idea the mother was trying to express to Brittney that is working less and less each time. Brittney is kind of in denial about it. So in that version there was no attacks and it was just Cerra telling Brittney that it is time. Time to let go. Same basic feel emotionally. I mean the emotional aspect of saying goodbye to a parent. What do you think of that?
For me, it depends very heavily on the circumstances, as you can tell from my rantings above. The circumstances before your latest post have the mother making all the decisions, making the daughter responsible for her death, being arrogant and lofty. A softer situation would be different. I find myself concocting the idea that the daughter could be a part of the decision, maybe pour more energy into one last spell that gives her mother some healthier hours that let them share something that was once part of their relationship, lets them recall how they used to be and used to communicate, before the mother burns out once and for all.
And your ranting of the circumstances is why I like you. So you like the softer situation. Technically way the way I see it. Spell is kind of again the wrong word. Funny enough the mothers condition is that her body doesn't leak energy like a traditional person. Wich is why she was supposed to die at age 25. Something large and complex reset her gauge then. Which is why it took her to age 45-50 ish to refil. The idea is the daughter was forcible removing energy from her. Something that is actually hard to do. The idea is that with each use the daughter was damaging her mothers body. So there is only so many times it can be done before her body is just too damaged. Meaning probably wouldn't be one big spell at the end but the last moments before she finally dies. Which sadly enough is going to result in her body almost literally bursting. Poor girls.
