Cat Fight In The Kitchen-Wattpad Rant

Gray Areas

My best friend doesn't get stressed. It's sickening, really, but he doesn't. He just goes into "I'm never going to sleep mode" and after a few days the text messages get incredibly fun to read. Like, the texts that say "I think drinking wine counts as sobriety" and "did you know Walker Texas Ranger is on at 4am? Badass." or "I fucking love Cops. That's good TV."

The best part is, he doesn't have a TV, so I have no idea where he's watching all of this...

Hey, let's rant! Let's talk about: Gray Areas

If you've ever asked my advice for something pertaining to one of the rough subjects I've discussed (abuse, rape, drug abuse, alcoholism, etc) then there is no doubt that I have mentioned the gray area to you.

What is this?

To simply state, it's the area in between right and wrong. Because when we deal with these tough subjects, it's not about what's right and what's wrong. It's about challenging readers to form their own opinions and question their own beliefs.

This is incredibly hard to explain, but I'm going to do my best using the email I recently had to send to a girl that was reading Pretty Little Bones (I fucking love when people ask me questions too. It makes me happy, even though I'm stupid and have horrible answers).

Anyway she had a problem, because in the story, the narrator, Carter, confesses that he knew his best friend, Adria, was being molested by her aunt's husband. And yet, he promised her he wouldn't tell anyone so he never did.

And as she grows up, she becomes progressively more self-destructive, but he still never says a word about it, because as he claims, he loves her too much to betray her like that.

The girl reading it couldn't believe that. She told me she really loved and hated Carter after that section, because he should have said something. It didn't matter that they were best friends, he should have spoken up and she wanted to know how I felt about it and why I chose to do that.

And this was my response to that (and usually I'm no so defensive about my work, it's just that I couldn't change the story if I wanted to because it's not fiction. And I like to state what I was going for so people can point me in a more clear direction if they're not getting it):

I'm so sorry you feel that way, but you have to look at it through the character's point of view. Yes, Carter could have very well saved her the trouble. Had she gotten the counseling she needed when she was seven maybe she wouldn't have developed the PTSD.

Maybe her family wouldn't have fallen apart. Maybe she wouldn't have had those personality disorders. Maybe she would have been able to handle all the peer pressure. Maybe she wouldn't have hated herself so much. She definitely wouldn't have had the problem at the church had her aunt's husband been convicted. And maybe she would have never developed that eating disorder. 

Maybe none of the story would have had to happen if he'd spoken up and told someone the truth.