Effects

Yesterday, I had no idea what to present in my blog. Today someone, maybe more, decided to shoot firearms at people in a parade.

But, like you my loyal readers, I’m tired of reporting about mass shootings of innocent people. I mean, anymore we all have become numb to this madness. Politicians either don’t or can’t do anything about this. Obviously, they are weak old men and women who rather put out press releases and promising something must be down someday.

Anyway, my beta reader, after finishing reading a manuscript, I had written some time ago gave me a critique that gave me pause. The gist of the story is that the protagonist, a woman detective ends up being the victim of an abductor who, along with another character sexually abuses her, culminating in her eventual rescue and the demise of one of the antagonists. 

Her criticism ranged in the idea of how I treated the female detective’s adjustment following her abduction. I went into the internet archives and discovered that though I might have skimmed over the aftermath too generally, the effects as I described and what the article’s author noted were mostly the same.

Like any trauma in our lives, we must cope and learn to adjust, adapt and overcome, as my drill sergeants instilled into me at both basic and advanced training. One thing the author of this article explained was that the victim needed time to adjust to their abduction for full recovery to take place.

My protagonist by every notion and description, is strong and strong-willed who took charge and led the detective agency with a velvet glove. When I first introduced her, she was a young woman who had self-doubt issues stemming from her belief she was obese and unattractive. Her one true ability that gave her confidence was being a sure shot with a handgun. It was something her grandfather taught her, and that ability got her into the FBI and later as a private detective.

I argued that point to my beta reader that her confidence made her overcome the trauma she experienced at the hands of these men. I have since rewritten the parts of the book that she explained didn’t ring true in her mind and resent it back to her to review. Hopefully, I got it right this time.