KINDNESS -- by Jane Kelley
Taking care of each other shouldn't be a controversial idea. And yet, according to some, certain people are less worthy than others. This post isn't about politics! My world is fiction. Discounting others happens there too. I'm guilty of treating some of my creations as non-character players. Antagonists who only exist in my story to be defeated.
Collaboration taught me otherwise. For the past few years, I've been working on a musical version of my novel GRACE AND THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT. My background is in the theater, so that world isn't completely foreign to me. But I had gotten out of the habit of collaborating. While I have always appreciated feedback from readers and editors, I usually get the last word.
Now I had two talented partners. Clifford Lee Johnson III and Greg Alexander weighed in on the script and wrote the music. I was thrilled by their catchy and emotionally uplifting tunes. And then I heard a song for a character I hadn't explored because the dad was the antagonist.
Why did the dad have a song? How could he have real emotions? Was Greg trying to make the dad, gasp, human? His sole purpose was to be an obstacle and then acquiesce. The dad still is an obstacle who must acquiesce. But now his change of heart is all the more meaningful because we care about him. We know what he sacrifices for his daughter's sake.
The happy ending is even happier when everybody gets to sing.
JANE KELLEY is the co-writer of the novel GRACE AND THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, and of the new Theatre for Young Audience musical by the same name. The musical will be performed later this year in Sacramento, California and Evanston, Illinois.
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