My Favorite Season

I grew up with regularly scheduled seasons. While living in San Francisco, I learned to accept seasonal change by the hour. That might suggest flexibility on the subject, but it doesn’t.

I hate summer, tolerate winter, love autumn and spring, although the latter’s an iffy one because it presages summer.

Summer is hot, dusty, and full of fire danger in California. Sleep is impossible, even with air conditioning. The only saving graces are the farmers’ markets, full of bright strawberries, glistening eggplants, and crisp salad greens. Fortunately for summer, I love to eat or I’d probably petition for a ban on the season.

But this is supposed to be about a favored season, and that does remind me of fiction. Why not have one’s main character view seasons differently? If nothing else, it might even force The Author to reconsider firmly held opinions.

My Prioress Eleanor loves summer and joyfully accepts winter as symbolic of death when the soul is released to God. Spring, of course, is renewal of life. It’s autumn she hates, being neither a time of hope nor a reminder of an escape to the afterlife.

This point of view is hard to write, but I often grind my teeth when my characters think or say things with which I passionately disagree. A difference of opinion on summer is a minor thing, but it is one more way to force me further into the character of Prioress Eleanor and really mull her over. Not that she and I don’t share opinions on certain things, like the concept of justice, but we are not clones and have major shouting matches over a few topics.

Writing from another way of thinking is not just a challenge, it’s fun. Not only do we learn how to make different kinds of characters three-dimensional, but we can tweak ourselves a bit as well. When I saw how strongly Prioress Eleanor felt about autumn, I put a bit of my own summer-hating passion into her and taught myself how any strongly held opinion might look from different but respectable point of view. It was a learning thing as well as a craft technique.

That said, have I changed my opinion of summer as a result?

Nah.

Comments

[Camille Minichino]

SO well said, Priscilla, both on Hateful Summer and on giving our characters different opinions and knowledge.

I learned early on that a character who gets depressed in strong sunlight and uplifted in rain and fog wouldn't have too many sympathizers! I reserve my whining about the heat for people around me. (Why doesn't anyone want to have lunch with me between Memorial Day and Labor Day? I wear white.)

[Priscilla]

Autumn is only 87 days away, Camille, and I am counting...

[Staci]

Great idea about the characters, Priscilla! Giving them opinions that battle your own is a great way to stretch your writing skills and viewpoints. I'll have to keep that in mind for my own writing!

[Mysti Berry]

I've been so glad to have my summer fog back after last year, never thought about how folks just twenty miles away are roasting!

Trying to find more of the differences between me and my protag these days, this is a great help, thanks!