Embattled Truthseekers: the Persecuted Protagonist: Guest Post by Eliot Pattison

Character over plot is a mantra often heard in writing seminars, emphasizing the point that it is characters, not plot, that drive a novel‘s success. Ray Bradbury even suggested that “Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by.” Engaging novels require engaging characters, but the novelist uses plot to thrust tension onto those characters, developing them by besieging them. Plot should never be considered a gimmick or mere tool. The well-done plot and its backdrop become intrinsic, vital to the metamorphosis of character that lies at the heart of the tale. A plot’s unique tension may derive from micro, intimate dilemmas or range through macro social and ideological forces, driving vastly different takeaways for the reader. Orwell’s 1984 would have been a dramatically different novel if the protagonist Winston Smith had been suffering from being spurned by a lover instead of his resistance to a soulless totalitarian state. Few tension builders are as gripping as this dynamic of a character being persecuted by ruthless, omnipotent adversaries. 

I chose persecuted protagonists for both my fictional series. In the Skull Mantra novels my main character is a disgraced Beijing investigator exiled to Tibet who finds justice for oppressed Tibetans despite being battered by authorities whose job it is to destroy the Tibetan identity. In my Bone Rattler series the lead character is a Scottish doctor exiled to the American colonies for his connections with Jacobite rebels. Burdened by a forced servitude that denies him any rights, he resists his own bondage while seeking justice for native tribesmen, slaves and other orphaned people of the colonies. The ongoing persecution of these characters steadily increases the stakes as they stalk the trails of murderers. Corrupt judges, spiteful army officers, oppressive party commissars, vengeful tribal warriors, ruthless policemen, and sadistic aristocrats ambush these characters as they seek answers that those in power conceal. Importantly, the ordeals that shape them are not simply caused by barriers to their quest. They are targeted with dire personal jeopardy, often being arrested, even tortured, and must defy government to discover the truth. Adding to the tension is the recurring possibility, sometimes a direct suggestion, that the physical and mental cruelty they endure will sap their humanity. That omnipresent threat and the self-doubt it precipitates present new layers of stress, driving both plot and character. How, the novels ask, can these bludgeoned characters preserve their courage and integrity when faced with such suffering? As Nietzsche poignantly reminded us, “whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster.” These protagonists are constantly dancing with monsters. 

A less obvious but potentially profound aspect of the persecuted protagonist novel is the platform it provides for illuminating the persecution itself. Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a well-known example, exposing the horrors of the Soviet gulag system while following a tormented protagonist who has been wrongly sentenced to forced labor. Stephen King’s novel Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption reveals penal system corruption as it tracks a wrongly accused prisoner who overcomes years of adversity inflicted by the authorities to find a makeshift resolution. Readers may be driven by empathy to join the protagonist’s journey but along the way they will learn much about the forces that cause the suffering. My own Skull Mantra series casts a spotlight on the abject human rights abuses underway in western China. No one picks up such a novel in search of a human rights chronicle, but the reader absorbs bitter lessons about those abuses by walking alongside my lead character. More than once I’ve had readers tell me that although they had previously read reports on human rights conditions in Tibet, they had never really understood that oppression until they read these novels. 

Mystery fiction lends itself well to such tales, for it can take the reader inside the head of the oppressed, a perspective seldom available in traditional factual reporting since most victims are silenced by their oppressors. These are the truths that are hard to come by—and often readers don’t otherwise know the questions to ask to reach those truths. Ultimately these characters cannot be separated from their persecution—and that is the real power of these books. The novels set the hook early by describing the protagonist’s suffering then pull their readers into deeper waters, prodding them to think about the human condition in unfamiliar ways. This is what Francis Bacon meant when he told us long ago that “Truth is hard to tell. It sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.” The persecuted protagonist invites the reader to become a truthseeker. 

***

Eliot Pattison’s nineteen novels include the award-winning Skull Mantra series and the Bone Rattler series, which explores the complex people and events leading to the founding of the United States. For more info, visit eliotpattison.com.

Rediscovering Our Selves Through Historical Fiction: Guest Post by Eliot Pattison

Eliot Pattison:
Rediscovering Our Selves Through Historical Fiction 

Historical novels are carving out a special literary niche as readers begin to more fully grasp their unique value in understanding whom we are and where we came from. All novels should present the possibility for the reader to learn and grow in some dimension, but by tapping the fertile landscape of our past this expanding genre offers endless layers of opportunities for learning about ourselves.

I often ask a simple question of readers who express an interest in exploring historical fiction: where was your DNA two hundred fifty years ago? We are all made up of particles of history. That isn’t just a metaphor, it is a scientific fact. The genes that define you were walking around in the 18th century, when my Bone Rattler novels are set, and long before then. Considering where they were—and they may have been on different continents at the same time—becomes a wonderful key for opening the treasure chest of your past, and historical fiction can be a potent guide to understanding what you find there.

We are all players in the great orchestra of humanity, and while the instruments get passed on to new members from time to time, the music doesn’t change nearly as much as we might think. Those who ignore that reality, who decline to turn and face earlier links in our human chain, diminish their lives and their ability to fully grasp who they are and the society they live in. In the words of novelist Michael Crichton, “if you don’t know history, you’re just a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.”

I was fortunate enough to discover that I was part of such a tree at an early age, and I have derived nourishment from those roots ever since. It helped that my ancestors choose paths which easily aroused a youth’s curiosity—Highland Scots who migrated to Virginia highlands and other Scots who fled an English army to take up farming in Maryland, as well as multiple ancestors who fought in the American Revolution and Welsh forebears who survived the bloody attacks on Jamestown in the 1620’s. But whether your DNA resided in a German cobbler, a Scythian warrioress, a Venetian weaver, or an African chieftain, it survived an amazing journey. Understanding that journey, and realizing you are engaged in its current leg, enriches our appreciation of our families, and provides important insights into whom we are, not just physically but.also intellectually and spiritually.

Great novels are about characters, and history is derived from characters. The first important step in embracing historical fiction is the recognition that we are all derived from historical characters. Historical novels breathe life into figures who otherwise have become little more than flat paper cut outs in our textbooks. The skilled novelist enlivens these players from the past by using historically accurate venues, vernacular, fashion, and technology. Such aspects bring important color to characters but as valuable as these external attributes may be, the vital elements in reviving people from the other side of time are the internal ones, the hearts and souls of a novel’s cast. By thrusting us into those hearts and souls, such novels translate distant humans into terms we can relate to, allowing those humans to become part of us.

I didn’t get hooked on Wolf Hall because I yearned to know about Tudor court politics, I was hooked because I could identify with the very human, very conflicted character of Thomas Cromwell. Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose and Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael novels were successful not because of the late Middle Age history lessons implicit in their pages but because of their poignant, internally resonating portraits of two complex figures who had traded in Crusader armor for monks’ robes. Such historical mysteries can be especially effective at this translation process, for they inexorably draw the reader into conundrums that can’t be solved without getting inside the heads of these long ago characters. The reward, and the challenge, of getting through my own Bone Rattler series is that none of its mysteries can be resolved unless the reader has assimilated elements of 18th century Highland and Native American culture.

Historical fiction ultimately lets us walk beside these participants in our past, allowing us to discover that in reasoning, aspiration, curiosity and passion they differ very little from ourselves. They may speak and dress differently but such differences are only minor variations of hue on the great human palette. Glimpsing how human our forebears were doesn’t simply add to a novel’s entertainment value, it helps us grasp the depth of our own humanity. I write two series set in very different times and places but at their core each is about that shared humanity, about values and elements of natural justice that transcend specific times and cultures and therefore become links across the centuries.

Discovering such bonds with the past has immeasurably enriched my life. Knowing that we share traits and experiences with others who came before us adds new texture to our lives and new strength to our spirit. After better understanding the experiences of both my ancestors and my characters I look at certain places and institutions in profoundly different ways. Our forebears are, inevitably, companions in our life’s journey, who shadow us as we confront the trials and celebrate the joys of our lives, just as we will become silent companions in our descendants’ lives.

Too often in today’s instantly connected culture our feelings, and any opportunity for contemplative decisionmaking, are obscured by the constant noise of social media. A well-crafted historical novel isn’t just an oasis where such distracting influences are banished, it can become a refreshing trek of self discovery. Connecting with those whose blood flows in our veins isn’t simply a pleasant distraction, it is empowering. This is our time to rise up out of the great sea of humanity, but knowing its depths and currents allows us to be more effective navigators in our own journey. Discovering that the past isn’t really past, it just has new faces, is the great reward of historical novels. By investing time in a well-crafted historical novel you might learn to find yourself, from before.

***

An international lawyer by training, Joseph Eliot Pattison has spent his career advising and representing U.S. and foreign companies on international investment and trade issues. Described as "a writer of faraway mysteries," Eliot Pattison's travel and interests span a million miles of global trekking, visiting every continent but Antarctica. He received “the Art of Freedom” award along with Ira Glass, Patti Smith and Richard Gere for bringing his social and cultural concerns to his fiction, published on three continents. He is the author of fourteen mystery novels, including the internationally acclaimed Edgar award-winning Inspector Shan Series, set in China and Tibet and the Bone Rattler Series, set in Colonial America. Savage Liberty: A Mystery of Revolutionary America is the fifth in this series. A former resident of Boston and Washington, Pattison resides on an 18th century farm in Pennsylvania with his wife, three children, and an ever-expanding menagerie of animals.

Be sure and check out Eliot Pattison's former posts on Mystery Fanfare. Thanks, Eliot, for contributing!

The Mystery of Human Rights (3/22/17)
Mandarin Gate 12/19/12