THE GAMEMAKER’S FATHER
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© 2011 John Jonelis – All Rights Reserved
FATHER
This Christmas I want to talk about the concept of “Father.” I don’t know how to do that without getting intensely personal, so that’s what I’m about to do. Some people relate to the word Father with tender feelings of love and warmth. Others find the thought chilling. I hope these few words will have meaning to both groups.
My father grew up poor and tough in the depression, then survived WWII. As a toddler, I watched him swear at other drivers and spit out the window of his old Plymouth. He taught me to sing “The Lady in Red,” and perform it for company, much to my mother’s shame—I didn’t know any better. His passions flared and extinguished rapidly. I later learned that he’d often get drunk. As a child, I couldn’t understand why, one night, Mom locked him out of the house to sleep on the porch. My father seemed perfect to me.
I later learned that my father was a man of integrity who feared nothing. He never responded to an ultimatum. He’d risk his business on a single job, again and again—and win. He hotly negotiated with union leaders and came out the victor. He beat the Mafia when they tried to impose price fixing in his industry.
As I grew, so did my father. He loved life and he loved people, putting them—all of them—ahead of himself. Year-by-year he became more tolerant, more patient, more compassionate, more generous, more loving. He grew into an intensely happy man, beloved by hundreds of friends and the central figure of his extended family. I’ve known him to throw a party and have 300 people show up. I recall one big tough Swede once say, “I love him. I just love him.”
When his business had no work, he’d keep everybody on the payroll anyway. When a foreman was injured, Dad kept him at full salary. I recall running the night shift on a field job when an old boilermaker told me how my father took him and his entire crew to dinner and that he’d never forget it. Without deserving it personally, I was a special person in that man’s eyes, just because I was my father’s son. A lot of people treated me that way because of who Dad was.
The Lord gave us the analogy of Father, Son and Spirit so that we’d understand His complex nature on our own terms. I’m His son. Without deserving it, that makes me a special person. Unfortunately, those who grew up with abusive fathers, absent fathers, those from broken homes and those who have suffered all sorts of humiliation and hurt at the hands of a father have a hard time with the Lord’s beautiful picture. In my novel, I try to address that issue. I hope that my simple story can mend some of that hurt. Merry Christmas!
THE NEGATIVE CHARACTER
Drama encompasses human change. The main character is transformed. As a reader, I’d be disappointed if that change turned out for the worse. By definition, that means the main character must start out seriously flawed. Is this logical, so far? If so, then stay with me:
I’m talking about real character flaws here, not just some guy who needs to take a bath more often. I want to wear his skin for a few days and see what it’s like. He’s not the villain. No, he’s the main guy, the one we’re going to root for at the end. Yes, I’m one of those who always has to do things the hard way. I’ve written a novel through the point of view of a negative character.
In my life, I have yet to meet Mary Poppins—“Practically perfect in every way.” I have met George Banks and I’ve also met Scrooge.
I’ve been privileged to experience all sorts of work with all types of ordinary people. That includes time I treasure with boilermakers, pipe fitters, millwrights, electricians, ironworkers and machinists. We worked in heavy industry—power boilers 200 feet high, everything big and loud and dirty. These guys carried knives and guns on the job. They opened steel gang boxes at night with blow torches and made off with tools for their own garages. They spent their nights in bars. Two offered to do a hit for me—and at a bargain price.
My main character, Zachary, is a machinist foreman. He deals with guys like that every day and commands their respect. He’d naturally advise his son, “Don’t take nothin’ from nobody.”
In a novel, such characters come off as gruff at the beginning. Fortunately for me, most of my readers identify Zachary with somebody in their own lives. Some may recall a hard father or uncle—one they never understood, maybe feared. They want to get into that guy’s head and rummage around. It’s interesting. It’s satisfying to fix something that’s already hopelessly broken.
I like Mary Poppins as much as the next person. It’s a masterpiece and it cheers me. I’m delighted when George Banks flies a kite. But once in a while I want to read about some rough-edged individualist who needs to figure out what human love really means. That’s uplifting to me. It’s all very well for Dick Van Dyke to sweep chimneys and treat everybody with good cheer, dignity and respect, but a lot of people grew up under the thumb of a guy who could knock you out of your chair with the back of a hand and think nothing of it.
Now, admit it. Don’t you want him hit the wall? Don’t you want to see it happen through his own eyes? Don’t you want to feel his struggle when he’s forced to change? Or do you just want a nice sweet story?
“Bah! Humbug!”
PRAISE
All of us are desperate to have someone believe that we are worthwhile. What if a man believes that kind words stifle improvement? What happens to his children when he hands out criticism, but never praise? He learned this mindset from his own father—will he pass it on to his son?
In my novel, I’ve written about a man who carries that burden and I put the reader in his head. It’s intense. Some have a hard time with it. Others respond strongly in the affirmative. Let me quote one that I highly respect:
“You have captured the way it was for me growing up. My dad never complimented me. It seemed to be a rule of thumb that a compliment would immediately breed arrogance and pride. Yet all of us are desperate to have someone believe in us. I’m about 50 pages from the end of the book and feeling sort of sad that it’s almost over.” Robert Page—Senior Pastor and Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist—The Kent State Shootings
Who will provide the force needed to change the trajectory of such thinking? Does it stop with this generation?
WHO READS?
I just completed a video interview with the 13-year-old daughter of a friend. She reads. She enjoys it. She knows what she likes. She knows why she likes it. This girl read my entire novel—a story intended for adults—and told me it was, “awesome.” Incidentally, she gave a terrific interview.
Conventional wisdom inbreeds conventional wisdom. Trends change. The result? Marketing mavens can be wrong. Contrary to popular wisdom, not all men confine themselves exclusively to sports and action movies. Women read suspense, not just romance as some would have it. Our readers may be more widely dispersed than commonly believed. They are not necessarily the people one might expect.
Let me give some personal examples. One of my female readers expressed an intense interest in the father/son interaction going on in my book. She told me, “I’m fascinated with this concept of learning to be a man and just what that means.” That was my first indication that women liked my novel. It was unexpected. I certainly didn’t purposely set out to capture that audience. Another of my female readers loved the action scenes and became angry and frustrated with an important character that used Scripture as a club. She said about a hostage scene, “I wanted him to shoot her.” I took her advice and cut back on that character’s habit of hurling quotes.
Is it really true that women make up 80% of the reading audience? Is it true that kids aren’t learning to read in school? Is it true that men like action exclusively? Or are people simply bored with what publishers offer? There seems to be a disconnect between our broad assumptions and what actually goes on. Every so often a book comes out that goes counter to conventional wisdom. “A fluke,” one might say. “An aberration.” How can that be? If the successful is an aberration, what does that say about the reading public?
I no longer believe that traditional demographics can be trusted. I don’t think genre is the most important criteria. People enjoy reading all kinds of books and like the stock markets, trends are ever-changing, changing ever faster and difficult to predict.
My best guess is that today, one trend dominates and will continue to do so. I believe that a successful novel must include the following elements:
1.) Easy to read.
2.) Well written (by which I mean easy to read).
3.) Fast paced (by which I mean easy to read).
4.) Interesting characters (by which I mean easy to read).
5.) Linear plot structure (by which I mean easy to read).
6.) Emotionally engaging (by which I mean easy to read).
I could continue, but you get the idea. We’re all in a hurry. We’re impatient. We’re restless. We’re conditioned to fast-paced entertainment. We want our needs met right now.
IS FICTION MORE THAN ENTERTAINMENT?
This response from J KIRSCH strikes me as so profound that I am reproducing it here:
This post brings up an interesting conundrum: why does fiction sometimes equal or transcend the ability of nonfiction to touch someone? People see a headline or a paragraph and are able to distance themselves from a real tragedy. On the other hand have that person read their favorite novel in which they lose a major character and they feel real sadness.
The way one looks at the question depends on several assumptions. I’m not sure that it’s fair to say that fiction is entertainment. For example, a certain fiction book depicts imaginary civilizations in expressing a powerful theme of racial tolerance. Is this in some way less meaningful than a book about Apartheid in teaching the same lesson of racial tolerance? Jesus’ parables in the Bible are essentially short stories. Their power is in creating understanding and is in no way restricted by whether events did or did not actually “happen”.
MASTER AND COMMANDER
I recently completed the twenty and a half novels of the Master and Commander series by Patrick O’Brian. (O’Brian died before completing the last.) A pastor’s daughter recommended them and after a few pages, I got hooked. The stories revolve around two primary characters in the service of the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars.
These books are ripe with period atmosphere. I can’t stress enough the hi-resolution picture O’Brian gives us of life in the early nineteenth century. While we “text” each other on iPhones about the oil spill in the Gulf, it’s refreshing to explore sophisticated technology lost in the past. And rich technical detail from the period is intricately described—woven into the plot so as to be essential to the story.
The series has been hailed as the some of the greatest historical fiction ever produced. O’Brian comments that his battle scenes are taken directly from actual accounts and that he couldn’t improve upon the real thing. He interjected his own characters into the action and wrapped it all up into a compelling story of their lives.
A major motion picture came out, combining elements from the series. I restrained myself from watching it until I’d completed several of the novels. It did not disappoint.
The books are written with certain glaring eccentricities in style, but even those somehow work to create the illusion that they were written at the time of the action. They take place in the early 1800s, just prior to the time of my own novel.
TOM CLANCY
I enjoy Tom Clancy’s novels. I broke out my old paperbacks and now find myself in the middle of the second book.
In a previous post, I compared plot-driven to character-driven novels. To me, the character-driven novel is the best place to interject suspense. You care about the character—maybe remember that character for life—and the slightest threat of danger raises the suspense level immediately. So few books are written in this hybrid style. It’s what I try to do.
Clancy’s work is primarily plot-driven. But I still read the books. Who doesn’t get a charge out of a terrific story? I may forget most of the characters, but there’s so much material to enjoy. My favorite is Red October.
GAMES
How can games connect people on a unique level?
Games are a form of interaction, challenge and mental stimulation. People play games to teach, for relationship, or just for fun.
A board game or a card game has structure, but some games do not. Some have no rules. Think about the verbal manipulation a child uses to get his way.
What if a game becomes the primary communication tool between two people? Is that healthy?
In the novel, The Game is a story generator invented by Nate. He’s played it many times before—occasionally set in the future, once in a while in imaginary realms. To draw his father into the game, he picks his dad’s favorite historical period.
The rules are simple.
1.) Once an action is put into the game, it cannot be taken out. The result is a developing story line, which is entirely unpredictable and can spin out of control.
2.) A player functions through the eyes of his character and that character must be present in the scene. As a result, the player identifies strongly with his character and may become lost in the game.
3.) Players take turns and advanced preparation is discouraged. As a result, it’s difficult for one player to control the story line, or bully the other player.
Zachary lacks a way to communicate with his more-intelligent son on a meaningful level. The game solves that problem.
What do you think of a game like this as a way for two people to relate? What about other games?
INTELLIGENT SON
How does a father deal with a more-intelligent son?
Say the boy is twelve, going to a gifted school, with an IQ around 180 and just a touch of autism—but precocious. He’s a nice kid and respectful, but one of his missing pieces is that he thinks everybody knows everything he knows and he doesn’t understand when they don’t. He reads Crime and Punishment and studies Calculus. He skims through a light novel in one evening. He knows what his dad is about to say before the words are formed.
Now, the father is a foreman at a machine shop. He’s good at what he does. He spent his life working himself up to that level in a highly specialized field. He’s respected—feels he can do anything. He’s big and tough and has been known to solve his problems with his fists. He never finished high school. He doesn’t read books. Most of what he knows is his work.
This father knows his son has a huge intellectual edge. Maybe he needs to prove he deserves such an intelligent son. Maybe he’s a little intimidated for the first time in his life. They’re together every day on the trip home from school. How does he engage the boy’s attention? How does he hold his interest? What do they talk about? The father believes he has important life lessons to teach, but how does he go about doing that?
