Perhaps the greatest deterrent for publishers when they gave feedback for their rejections of The Aviary was a lack of connection to the main character, Serenity. Some beta readers had also expressed this, but I wouldn’t decipher why until later. Now that I know, it’s all the more reason I plead with readers to give Serenity and her story a chance.
As a veteran of YA fiction, I have read quite a few main characters I struggled to connect with. I never found many I could relate to or enjoy, Katniss Everdeen withstanding. I discovered a striking parallel across the board: teen females were allowed to be emotional but only on the inside and not hormonal on the outside. As anyone knows, the teen years are a volatile time for an adolescent. Growing up, I prided myself on wearing my heart on my sleeve―something I learned later is not so acceptable in society’s eyes. Women are more accepted when they are compassionate, nurturing, caring, and reserved and this certainly applies to the world of young adult fiction.
Due to this, it was my earnest desire to write the exact opposite-to write a character with fight and feistiness, with the boldness to speak her mind even if it’s not spiced with the mature wit of Elizabeth Bennett. If I could describe Serenity, she would be a cross between naive but well-meaning Catharine of Northanger Abbey and the vicious Cathy from Wuthering Heights…in a teenage body with a teenage mind.
However, there was another reason for Serenity’s lack of connection. And it had more to do with my journey in the anti trafficking movement. A journey that began with pride. For those who read my Sting Was Right article, you know I was raised to believe those in prostitution “freely choose” this environment and can leave if truly compelled. As with all journeys, there is a process. And I am thankful for the survivors I know who extended grace when that process led from pride to pity.
Pity is a cunning trait. While it’s important to have pity and can lead one in the right direction, it can also reflect the inner workings of a pride-tainted heart. Influences in my life often handed down phrases about how I did everything “right” from saving myself for marriage, waiting for children till my husband and I bought a house etc. So, despite the fact that I went from a slut-shaming lens of the prostituted and exploited to a pity one, that lens was still fractured. All I could seem to see were the cracks and brokenness of these lovelies – this is where the Breakables stereotype plays out in The Aviary – and not their true identity: human beings created in the image of God with intrinsic worth and possessing the daily strength to survive their environments and persecutors.
I cannot give a date of when God began to repair this lens. It was a process.
Learning from survivors whether in written form or verbal testimony was the biggest aid. I can only credit them for their patience with anyone who holds that “rescue the broken ones” mentality that I once had. This is why I differentiate between “victim” as those still in a negative situation and “survivor”, the ones who have made it out. Pride will be my lifelong struggle and one reason I try to distance myself from cognitive dissonance and approach situations with diplomacy and a heart ready to listen even if I can never truly understand.
Serenity’s walk within The Aviary is eerily similar to mine. Eerie since I subconsciously injected her with this journey, but it was necessary. One of my favorite quotes by my mentor, Rebecca McDonald-Founder of Women At Risk, Int- is “do not shuffle the ashes around these women; we need to sit down in the ashes with them”.
Like me, Serenity does not come from the ash of a sexually exploitative background. She does not have a horror story prior to entering the Aviary unlike the exploited girls around her. But as she learns to share in their ashes, she embarks on a journey from pride to pity to passion. And that passion, backed by a willpower of lightning, is what carries her through to the end. And Lord willing, it will for me, too.