Return, Behind the Scenes

  So as I said yesterday, today’s post is going to be centered around the process I went through writing my piece: Return. So if you want to fully understand everything I say in this post I would recommend you go and read the previous piece(Click here if you are lazy). A quick summary in case 14 pages double spaced is too long for you. Our protagonist Greg, struggles with PTSD from a botched military operation during his time deployed as a soldier. With the help of one of his old military buddies he is able to meet with a therapist and begin the healing process.

I think one thing that drove me to write this was a desire to have something very emotional, but close to the things I normally enjoy writing. I LOVE war stories. I used to spend hours on the weekend reading wikipedia pages on historical battles or watching old history channel documentaries on wars. For one of my middle school reading projects I found a collection of stories told by soldiers as they were fighting through the pacific theater during world war two, something that I probably shouldn’t have read when I was that young, but did it anyway. A lot of the single player games whether they were RTS or FPS had battles as their central conflict. It bled over into my writing as well. I loved writing/doodling tales of heroic soldiers taking desperate actions to win the war. As I grew older, I became much more aware of the mental damage that resulted in people as a result of these wars. PTSD and other related traumas became an additional layer I took into consideration as I wrote my stories. Greg’s story was sorta the latest step in that. What would soldiers be like after they’re back? How do they recover when their actions led them to not be the hero, but to actually cause their squad mates’ terrible demise?

Now, as someone who hasn’t personally experienced war, nor do I know a lot of people who have, I wanted to write something that didn’t disrespect the idea at all. I did a little bit of research and also drew from my own personal experiences with depression and such to get an idea of what Greg’s arc would shape up to be. Obviously he would start at a low point. Fireworks would disturb him and he wouldn’t really accomplish much. He didn’t have a job right out of the army and it had been so long to use his other skills that his confidence would be at an all time low. James, on the other hand, represented someone who Greg silently envied while also aspiring to be like. He never experienced what Greg did and frankly had a very successful military career. As a result of this, he was able to end up reintegrating into society very well. I wanted the vibes of the two to feel very different. Greg of course was very reserved, kept his style very similar to how he was as a soldier with his haircut and nicely maintained clothes. James grew his hair out, wore much more casual clothing and had a very outgoing and warm personality. I think one scene I wanted to add, but couldn’t with the time I had was more time of how they became friends. I had a few tidbits here or there including the flashback scenes, but more would always be nice for what I have.

Telling the story is what I struggled with a little bit. I wanted to keep Greg’s big event a mystery until the very end, but at the same time I wanted to tell that story in the build up. I found the flashbacks interjecting into the present day to be the best way since I could also relate the present events to the relevant flashbacks. The best example of this would be having Greg’s meeting with James correspond to when they met while they were deployed. You get all of the context you need about their friendship without needing the characters to restate it during the present conversation. I think it works really well because I essentially get to tell both stories at once and can time their climaxes to happen when they are both the most relevant to each other.

The final part of this story is the healing process. Greg being able to heal from his past experiences was always the end goal of the story. I hate sad endings and I would be very sad for Greg if I didn’t give him at least a small victory by the end of the story. The idea of a therapist honestly came to me from the sopranos. When I was taking AP Econ in high school my teacher would always show one scene between Tony Soprano and his therapist at the start of every class. The intimate setting would also give the perfect place for Greg to begin to work through his issues. This therapist character was one I also had to write having very limited experience with therapy myself. It was definitely a little easier because of all of the therapy scenes I had watched before, but I definitely wonder if my portrayal is one that could actually be considered authentic.

For the future, the big things for this story would be to expand on Greg and James’s friendship, maybe some more flashbacks or present day interactions as well as expand upon the incident for Greg to give a little more reason as to why he is the way he is in the present. That would all culminate in perhaps a part two where Greg finds himself able to recover and actually attempt to move forward in dealing with normal civilian things once again. Besides that, I thank you for reading this far, talking through my process most certainly offers more clarity than just thinking about it. I’ll be back tomorrow with yet another post!