Good question.
My short answer is: it's fiction. Fiction is written to amuse, entertain, and possibly make the reader question things in his or her own life. That's my job as an author…making the reader feel something––rage, happiness, regret, or maybe joy.
I
expect there will be some (maybe even a lot) of readers who will get bent out
of shape over the depiction of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in my YA novel. After all, Bonnie
& Clyde were downright nasty criminals from the 1930’s who were in love. In
WANTED: DEAD OR IN LOVE, they come back
to life, and they’re not necessarily typecast as “the bad guys.” No doubt about
it, Bonnie and Clyde did a lot of horrific things in their day and were eventually
gunned down for it by a posse of tough crime fighters called The Texas Rangers.
I’m not making excuses for Bonnie and Clyde––they deserved to have been
stopped.
I think what I tried
to show is that most of us––Bonnie and Clyde included––are not solidly “all
good” or “all bad.” Many of us make decisions that seem like a good idea at the
time that later turn out to be not-so-great. My main character, a teen girl
named Monroe, has always lived by the motto, “You Only Live Once,” but when she
faces the counterpart to that, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,”
she starts to reconsider.
If she could do it
all over again, she might say, “Yes, you are in charge of your own destiny.
Just make sure it’s the destiny you really want.”
Actual footage taken from Bonnie & Clyde’s death scene
in 1934.
Aside
from telling what I hope is a unique, suspenseful tale, maybe it'll
make someone stop and think before making stupid mistakes that can
follow them their whole lives. Or maybe not––it's their choice. Take it from me––I've made plenty. :)
'Til next time,
KYM
No comments:
Post a Comment