The Objective - What Does Webb Want?

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The Wordsmith’s met Wednesday evening. This is my writing group that meets once a month. I share a couple chapters of Cat Skinner with them a week before we meet. The other members do the same and we critique each other’s work. The group: Phebe, Renee, Judy and two new members, Sabrina and Sydney (mother/daughter), has provided me with invaluable feedback.

This week’s suggestions included moving chapters around to better prepare readers for the maturity of my father, Webb, who at the age of 12 in 1923 had a sexual encounter with a teenage girl slightly older than he was. While the scene was written in a humorous way, concerns were expressed by the group about the girl taking advantage of Webb. That’s certainly giving me pause to think about doing some rewriting. As I understand it from the little (very little) my father wrote about it, it was quite innocent.

There were also suggestions that Dorothy, Webb’s wife, be introduced as a more fully developed character earlier in the story.

I’m coupling group feedback with information from James Scott Bell’s book, Revision and Self-Editing for Publication (Second Edition). This has me writing out what I believe was Webb’s objective in life from the time he was first sent away from home to the end of my novel when he was 28 years old. Understanding his objective (what did he want) will help me develop the plot line (what happens to Webb), the structure (where to place incidents along the plot line), and how best to end the story. I also have relatives who may be checking the actual chronology of events!

In the end, I have to figure out:

1.     Did Webb gain his objective (happy ending)

2.     Lose his objective (unhappy ending)

3.     Gain his objective but lose something more valuable (classic tragedy)

4.     Sacrifice his objective for the greater good

5.     Is the ending ambiguous or bittersweet

Regardless of all this, I am gaining more insight into my father’s life than I ever thought possible. He spent a lifetime trying to prove he was worthy and ended up hurting a number of people along the way.

Finding My Father's Voice

Finding my father’s voice took help from friends.

I’ve been part of Wordsmiths, a small writer’s group in Puyallup, for about 18 months and I may not have found Webster Warren Bateman’s voice without them.

Loretta & Webb Bateman 1939 Wedding Photo

Dad died in 1997 at age 86. I knew my dad as a jovial fellow, who liked to play pranks, dance my mom around the kitchen, smoke, joke and drink whiskey. He was always in charge or attempting to be. That came from years of running construction crews, operating heavy equipment and driving long haul trucks. It used to drive me crazy as an adult when he would tell me how to back out of my own driveway - and offer much more in the way of uninvited advice. 

When he retired from his last job as Superintendent of one-third of the Benton County Washington roads – I always got a kick out of the 1/3 part - he became Mayor of Benton City. It’s a map dot in Southeastern Washington on the way to the Tri-Cities. His position as Mayor included late night calls when the storm drains got plugged. He was up for it. He was the big fish in a little pond.

As a child I thought of him as a hero because he built dams, re-routed railroad tracks, and drove trucks carrying bombs for Uncle Sam along the Alcan Highway in Alaska when there were no paved roads. He was in charge – and that also had Mom and me on the move. I attended thirteen grade schools.

I didn’t think about who Webb was, his motivations, thoughts, desires – he was just my dad. The experiences of his youth were stories he told at parties.  

My draft of the first chapter in Cat Skinner was diplomatically, but brutally critiqued. "Would your father have pleaded with his mother for assistance? From what we know of your dad, he was usually giving orders. Who's speaking here? Are you sure that's not your voice instead of your dad's?" Webb was coming across as too nice. 

Getting into Webb’s character – finding his voice – meant setting aside the child-parent relationship and putting on his work shirt and high-water work pants. Must admit, I'm still getting used to work boots, smoking Chesterfields, shootin’ pool, swinging a sledge hammer, and ensuring a familiar spicy warmth - from lips to belly - with a quick backward tip of my head.