A Memory of Writing of Violence

I never got serious about it besides a smattering of classes in high school and college, but growing up I liked to draw. Largely, I believe, in imitation of the stories, books, comics, and role-playing games I enjoyed. My biggest limitation was that I never really learned to be independent enough to create images from my imagination. I needed an assignment from a teacher or a drawing book from the library to prompt me. And I went through a phase where I traced some of my favorite drawings to get a feel for how they worked. The practice did improve my skill and allow me to move on to imitation instead of pure copying, so it wasn’t a bad thing. It was a learning tool.

It must have been that experience that inspired a bit of written plagiarism I once tried. I was in ninth grade, I’m pretty sure. We were assigned to write a piece of short fiction. I’d been a fan of British science fiction series Blake’s 7, whose run had just finished on my local PBS station. I can’t remember if it was an act of inspiration desperation or some other motivation, but I decided I’d “write” the final scene of the series as my story. So I reproduced what I’d watched and claimed it as my own.

I was sure the channel and show were obscure enough the teacher would never know. And she didn’t. I had some panic when the classmate who partnered with me for editing advice immediately recognized it, but I don’t remember him turning me in.

No, what the teacher had a problem with was the ambiguity of “my” ending. Wikipedia describes the series ending: Becoming very suspicious of Blake, Avon kills him. Arlen reveals that she is a Federation officer and Federation guards arrive. Tarrant, Soolin, Vila, and Dayna are shot down by Federation troops, who slowly surround Avon. Avon steps over Blake's body, raises his gun and smiles. My final sentence was nearly identical. She found it a complete cliffhanger. I found it entirely obvious: if someone surrounded by people with guns makes a threatening move, they get shot. The story ends with Avon defiantly getting himself killed. She didn’t see that as a necessary outcome of his raising the gun and wanted me to spell it out. I thought that was pandering, refused to make the change for the final draft, and got graded down for it.

I hadn’t thought about that experience for a long time until last night, when watching another show with a similar scene—though this one didn’t cut away from the suicidal gun raising. And I remembered it in the context of having just read yet another story about police shooting an unarmed black man, believing he had a gun. Yet another. It feels like an almost daily headline lately. And I had to wonder if that teacher still feels my story conclusion is not self-evident. If someone surrounded by people with guns is even perceived—correctly or not—to be threatening, they get shot. It feels like an almost daily occurrence. Are there other people, like my old teacher, who don’t see that?

And, maybe more importantly, can they see the difference between TV shows and reality? When it happens in entertainment fiction, it happens to a bad guy or tragic hero and is a satisfying conclusion. Do they assume, then, that anyone who meets that fate in reality is by definition a bad guy or otherwise deserving? Because that’s not the way unscripted life works.

I feel all this reminiscing and pondering should have a point or conclusion besides unanswerable questions, but I’m not really sure where I'm going with it beyond asking them. So, for now, maybe the asking can be enough.