Thread by @mcjulie

This thread is extremely relevant to my interests

https://twitter.com/la_knight89/status/1385273724442603528

Because I have awkward mid-night insomnia, here I am, thinking about Book 4 in the werewolf series which I decided, a while back, would be self-consciously "gothic" in mood.

The gothic elements of the series are always there -- werewolves, swamps, sins of the past that cannot be escaped & threaten constantly to overwhelm the present, etc. But usually they're not emphasized in a really gothic *way* if that makes sense.

One thing I mostly tried to steer away from, in the main Bayou Galene werewolves, is the "werewolves are like a biker gang" kind of vibe. While I do think "outsider" is a crucial part of werewolf mythology, the Bayou Galene werewolves are a different kind of outsider.

They have their own territory, their own way of life, going back hundreds of years, and as long as they are in their own space, YOU are the outsider.

One of Abby's "themes" as a character, though, is that she feels like an outsider everywhere. Like, she LOVES her found families of Steph's family, her friends, even her biological werewolf kin, BUT --

She's also always conscious of feeling set apart from them. She likes the town, but feels a bit trapped in Bayou Galene, because it doesn't FEEL like home to the wolf. The wolf thinks Seattle FEELS like home, but she's never allowed to be there.

She loves her grandfather Pere Claude & trusts him as a person, but doesn't trust the whole culture he's a part of. She loves Steph & trusts her 100%, but is frequently made to feel uncomfortable & guilty because of the way Steph doesn't trust the violence inherent in werewolfing

And of course there's her Seattle friends, who have started to coalesce into a kind of classic queer-oriented found family, BUT even though they are always 100% supportive of her, she is frequently conscious of her differences from THEM.

That feeling of not ever *really* fitting in anywhere is something that for me is heavily identified with my experiences in the church, which is probably why Abby's story ended up the way it did.

I think -- based on observation -- that some people have a sense of themselves fitting seamlessly into their own environment & so threats, danger, discomfort can only come from the *outside* & I imagine these people end up as conservatives.

The gothic (to steer back to the original topic) is not primarily a political viewpoint, but to me it is NOT compatible with strong political conservatism, which is why I'm always gobsmacked to find politically conservative gothic types.

Like, Flannery O'Connor, queen of the Southern Gothic, was also a devout Catholic & while being Catholic at all is pretty gothic, being *devout* strikes me as pretty un-gothic. Also she was apparently pretty damn racist.
lithub.com/on-flannery-oc…

One thing that occurs to me, though, is that the gothic can be engaged in different ways -- in the quoted thread, one recurring idea that I really like is that the gothic is a subversion of the romantic.

Is the romantic conservative? Not particularly. BUT it does contain ideas like "purity threatened" that can become part of a conservative ideology.

So, you know, people are complicated and all that.
I've just replotted Book 4 & am trying to sit with the replotting, to figure out if it *really* works. But since "gothic" isn't a plot, I still have one issue that I'm struggling with --

Book 4 (as of current plotting) breaks the tradition of the first three books by not having a clear villain who gets defeated by the end & that resolves the story.

I've sometimes described it as the "Empire Strikes Back" of the series & wow --

What if that very PLOT structure is a gothic thing & that's why Empire is still my fave of the Star Wars main canon?

(in case you were wondering it goes Empire > Star Wars > Last Jedi I will not be taking questions at this time)

(The next tier is Return of the Jedi > The Force Awakens
Followed by a bunch of stuff that's all kind of equally "bad, but has these cool scenes/characters/element")

Anyway... the current replot is the result of me removing the plot thread that I originally inserted *in order to give a bad guy who could be defeated at the end* so that's what I'm sitting with. Can that work?

Okay, we know it CAN work, can I (me, yr humble author) make it work?

I dunno, I guess I'll find out. <end>