Terrible Enough

"You’ll wish he’d do something so terrible that you would have to leave him. He’ll do countless things not terrible enough. "

Terrible Enough is my first published story. A fiction class assignment was to write in a style that you’ve never written in before. I attempted a maximum of 500 words and a second person point of view. Second person breaks the “fourth wall,” directly addressing the reader. It also implies that the reader is the protagonist. It brings you in close and, for many, this feels uncomfortable.

The story begins with the narrator traveling across the country with a man who “must leave town.” They settle in stark, cold mountains. He does terrible things, but not yet terrible enough for her to leave. This short, short story (considered “flash fiction”) sparked the idea for my novel, Degrees of Forgiving.

In the story and novel, the inciting incident—what forces the protagonist to act—is the surprise arrival of a young pregnant girl. In both pieces, the narrator was raised by grandparents. Both characters have a strong connection to nature, but the similarities end there.

I wanted to write about a character who allows herself to be uprooted and manipulated by someone whose “love” she needs. What would it take to sever ties? How long might it take to understand the difference between love and need?   

Terrible Enough begins in winter. The narrator struggles under a “hard mountain of grief” when her grandmother dies. She returns to her inherited childhood home and waits for him to come for her. Seasons pass. In the spring she plants vegetables and sunflowers. She takes care of animals. In the fall, she plants bulbs and gets a job. She regrets what it took for her to finally free herself, but my intent was for a hopeful ending. Bright yellow and orange leaves release their hold on the trees. They fall, finding a soft landing.

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I’ve sent and continue to send query letters to literary agents, hoping to find one who’d like to represent and try to sell Degrees of Forgiving. So far, I’ve received several rejections, one request for the full manuscript that turned into a rejection (I think that one stung more) and a whole lot of silence. Despite expecting all of this, it doesn’t encourage motivation to keep researching and sending out letters. But it’s too soon to give up. Writing the first draft of another novel, which—at the moment—keeps me from abandoning this writing thing and getting a real job.

Thanks for coming along.

Heather