Influence: “Atonement” Epic Score (Epic Action & Adventure Vol. 9, 2011)

The day was muggy, I remember that much. The sun was partially hidden behind the clouds and the humidity spiked so high the summer stole your breath away if you stepped foot outside. MTV played in the background as I doled out the cards for a new game of Uno. My sister whined, bored, sick of losing and hot because even the A/C wasn’t enough to cool a body down. 

It was mid afternoon, not quite three. Two hours before open gym started for my freshman year of high school. Excitement fluttered in my stomach all day. My cousin and I had been practicing for this day for years. This was my first tryout for high school ball. The first time I’d step on the court in the raging summer and prove my worth to make the team. All the quiet time I’d spent practicing my dribbling and the relentless amount of developing a free throw technique (catch, deep-breath-ball-on-hip-eye-the-orange-rim-from-under-bangs, spin, bounce, bounce, spin, bounce, bounce, set, eye, shoot). All the times when I’d been knocked down by the older kids and helped back up. The bruises and blistered and triumph and heartache- I was going to pour it into this first open gym. My practice jersey was laid out. I’d washed my practice shorts yesterday. Number 40 gleamed even in the dim light of our tiny shared bedroom. 

I’d show the coach I belonged on the varsity squad. I deserved to play. I wanted the feeling of pride even through the sweat and tears and triumph and heartache. The pulled muscles and bruised skin. The sprains and breaks and dislocations- fight with the will to win and never give up even when you’re down thirty points in the second quarter. Because even when you’re down and you feel like giving up- there is someone who believes in you. Knows you’re not a superhero, you’re just a little girl who loves to play games. And for me, when I was a little girl, I grew up knowing that my grandpa would be in the front row, mid court, eating popcorn and cheering so loud not even the proudest parents could drown out. I grew up knowing even though I was a girl that wouldn’t stop me from doing something I wanted to do or stop me from achieving goals I set for myself. My cousin was a senior. For three years my grandpa sat on the bleachers every home game in the middle of the court, eating popcorn and cheering for my cousin. And every time she stepped to the free throw line she looked back at grandpa and he would beam as if the sun rose and sat on my cousin standing on the free throw line. Then he’d say to me without taking his eyes off the court, “That will be you. Just keep practicing.”

That will be you. Just keep practicing.

But when the phone rang and it was the hospital those are not the words I remembered. And when they asked for my mother and said it was an emergency those were not the words that stuck with me. My hands trembled violently as I turned my back to the living room where my sister turned the TV volume up for a song she liked on MTV’s countdown. Time seemed to slow, my weight seemed unbearable to the bowing of my bones against the partition. No longer was my day about the number 40 and how much playing time would coach actually give me, a freshman. 

“My mother isn’t here. She left for the hospital a half hour ago.”

Because my mother had gone into town to pick up my grandpa from the hospital. He had surgery to remove cancer and they thought he was going to be fine. 

I’ll be at your game. I won’t miss it.

He died before my mother got there. 

As a little girl I couldn’t imagine life without grandpa. I spent a lot of time at his house. And when you’re a child, you feel like staple adult in your life are always going to be there. But you don’t realize that life is not that way because you’re not old enough to understand loss and how it affects you not only in the present but in the future too. These losses shape you and mold you and teach you, but that lesson doesn’t lessen the loss in the moment. He promised he’d be there and then he wasn’t. You float around in this world fixated on a promise, focused solely on these words that hold no meaning now that he was gone. 

Still to this day I think about that; but it’s not so much the promise of his words that taught me the biggest lesson, it was his confidence in those words spoken like a fact: That will be you. Just keep practicing.

I skipped open gym all summer- the kiss of death for a ball player. I broke my foot just a month after grandpa passed and missed all of softball season. And when October rolled around and practices started, my cousin didn’t try out for the basketball team- a devastating blow to the coach. My foot wasn’t up to snuff and practice left me hobbling, limping, crying in the locker room after two brutal hours of drills and running. But when I wanted to give up I looked at the bleachers, the floor level at half court. The sun always beamed in through the ceiling high windows in the gym and on the weekend when we practiced early, the sun bounced off old hardwood and faded lacquer on the bottom bleacher at half court. And I kept going. I put on number 40 and shouldered responsibility as captain all season long. It was the worst season coach had suffered in years. It was the worst season of my life. But if I’d given up, if I’d quit what would that have proved? My cousin couldn’t bear to be on the court knowing when she looked at half court there was no grandpa; at least I’d been spared that memory. 

And I think writing is like that. You strain and strive to create characters that are human with quirks and flaws and so real. All the little moments that build up the background and backstory of your characters, it’s just bundled up inside your character shaping them into who they turned out to be. Sparing yourself the memories by pouring them out onto the page and tweaking a few details to fit the purpose. Teaching lessons others have learned and we have learned along the way. We, as writers, are constantly telling ourselves "someday that will be me" and we keep striving towards that goal and practicing on paper until our character is unique and flawed and full of memories so that they are shaped by their past.

Practice and a writer's appreciation to detail are what makes characters real. Adding in those memories give those experiences that leave us at a loss. And we as people are the same way. We are just the main characters of our own lives. Something that happens today shapes us for how we react in the future.

How do you shape your characters past and how does that influence how they act and behave in the future? What is your favorite past influence to read in a character? For me I think reading about character’s loss is easily identifiable to me as a reader. I can relate to that influence the most. But without being too personal (or you can get personal if you want) what do you relate to the most when you’re thinking up a background and past for a character?