As a writer, I focus on externalizing the internal. I frequently write short screenplays or poems that engage in genre tropes in science fiction and dark fantasy as a way of externalizing internal realities and feelings.
It feels intuitive to represent a war within oneself as an actual war.
Yet, I also think of the older poet ("Homer") in the movie Wings of Desire who says, "No one has so far succeeded in singing an epic of peace… what is it about peace that makes its story so hard to tell?”
This past year has led me down a path of interrogating the need for combat in my fiction. Why do I need to write about fights and violence? The answer feels easy: because my characters have an internal fight - an internal violence that disrupts their lives.
Just like me. Just like so much of my life feels like a war inside. Many of us feel like we have a war inside. Stories with combat and external conflicts compel us into a catharsis from our internal conflicts.
Interrogating myself, I ask why isn't peace compelling? Why do I not write enough about kindness? "What is it about peace that makes its story so hard to tell?"
Using a self-interrogation, I think my attraction to films and stories involved in combat comes from this mental combat. Why am I still at war inside of myself and when will peace happen? What does peace feel like?
Last year led me down this path because I wanted to avoid anything dark. I couldn't bear brutality last year. I wanted peace and stability. I wanted kindness and hope. It felt so far away and it felt like everyone had to deal with lives without mental peace. We all lived in a mental space of seemingly unending brutality and combat
I do not have an answer to Homer's question. And I cannot stop loving or imagining stories without combat. But as a writer I want to imagine and write more stories of peace, connection, and kindness.
