The 11th Hour Arrival

Becoming Important)

It was an interesting thing getting to know my wife. Of course I didn’t know that she was going to be my wife when I first met her. At first her role in my life was simply that of “intriguing woman.”

But as I said, it was interesting getting to know her, and it was because of how quickly she became integrated into my story. It was only a short time later, just a matter of months, that I came to realize she was now one of the most important individuals in my life. I remember at the time finding that a very strange thing. I realized that some of the conversations I was having with her were already more open and honest than I had ever had with another person. I had spent my whole life around other people, and I had always thought that I was very close to them. But now she came, and in a matter of months, not decades, knew me better than they did.

Many of our bonds in life are formed slowly, over the long march of time. The individual strands are woven together, one or two each day, until a powerful cord is formed. But this is not true for all of our relationships. Some of them come out of the blue and get straight to our roots, and do so almost immediately.

Instant Friend)

I had a similar experience when I started meeting with a therapist and a recovery group. The transition from complete strangers to intimate friends was, if possible, even more jarring here. Literally the same day that I met these people, I was disclosing things that I hadn’t been able to say to anyone else. In some cases, things I wasn’t even yet ready to say to my wife.

Over the next weeks, as each individual shared more and more of their story, I found myself being inserted into their experience. They were inviting me right into the formative years of their childhood, and I was inviting them into mine.

We became fast friends, in fact I consider them to be my best friends. And not because we’re the best of buddies who share so many common interests. In fact, to be frank, most of these people were not the friends that I would have chosen for me under normal circumstances. We all had very different hobbies, demographics, ages, and life philosophies. Under normal circumstances I would have considered them a nice acquaintance, but nothing more.

But these weren’t normal circumstances. These people were part of my story now. I had no choice but to love them.

Closure and Final Acts)

I believe one reason why we are able to grow close to people who have only just arrived in, is because our future is unknown. Since we do not know the exact path of tomorrow, it is entirely possible that this new face is a hinge that we are about to turn on. If something about the situation tells us that this person is significant, we pay attention.

Most of us have years left to live, after all, and that is plenty of time for a new face to start mattering to us very much. At any point of life we might be about to discover a new arc in our story.

But this doesn’t work so well in fictional stories. When new characters introduce themselves in the third act, we’re usually keenly aware that it is the third act, and therefore know that they only are here to help resolve the previous arcs, not to begin any new ones.

And yet…there is a way to introduce a new character at the very end of a story, and still have them be significant to it. The secret is not to have them introduce a new arc that ends before it begins, it is to have them tie directly into an already-existing arc, one that has been running ever since the beginning of the tale.

Roots in the Past)

An example of this would be the introduction of Private Ryan in the Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan. The film goes on for a very long while before the character is revealed, with many twists and turns to get there. Indeed, by the time we meet him all of the characters have already concluded their arcs, or are ready to. The story doesn’t have time to raise any more questions, only to start answering them.

Thus it is that Private Ryan’s arrival ushers in the final act. Given how brief of a presence he has in the story, his own arc is very brief. There is only a small conflict that he must resolve, and the process of doing so is quite straightforward.

And yet, in spite of all this, Private Ryan does not feel like a tacked-on character who is only relevant to the finale. He feels absolutely integral to the entire tale that has transpired, even before he appeared on the screen. For even if his face has not been present, his shadow has been.

Because, you see, the entire film has been all about him, even without him there. The premise of the movie is that a squad is sent to find him and bring him home. Each adversity that they face to carry out that task, every loss they suffer, every companion who dies in the effort…all of it brings them back to the same question, over and over: is this sacrifice worth the saving of one man?

And the fact that he is an enigma through the majority of the film actually increases that tension, because they aren’t making the sacrifice for a friend, but for a complete stranger. So then it becomes a story about principles and morals, and whether those words have any meaning in the heart of a war.

Thus by the time Private Ryan shows up on the scene, we have already been discussing him a great deal, thinking about him a great deal, forming all manner of opinions about him. We feel that we already know him extensively, even though we’re just barely meeting him. He is a central character to the story, even if he graces it with his physical presence but for a moment.

In Raise the Black Sun I want to take this notion one step further. I am about to introduce a brand new character, one who I intend to feel interwoven with everything that has come before. Unlike Private Ryan she has not been spoken about by name, but she has been spoken about.

Because, you see, all throughout the story there has been a strong theme of a doomed fate. It has hung over every scene like a thick cloud about to burst. With the next section of my story, I am going to introduce a young woman who will come to personify that theme to our main character. She will take everything that has been allegory and put her face to it. So even though I have not spoken her name at any point previous, my hope is that it will feel like we were already talking about her the whole time, we just didn’t know it. Come back on Thursday to see if I’m able to pull that off.