The most common voice I hear people confess to hearing inside their head is "I'm not good enough." What happens when you must be good enough to save humanity?
In my office, there's a copy of David Mamet's book, On Directing Film, on my bookcase at about shoulder height. There's a saying in there that I am sure has been said in countless contexts about every storytelling medium imaginable, one that I think explains why a lot of modern art gets dismissed as slop at worst, mindless entertainment at best:
"If the scene is about the scene, you are in trouble."
In other words, if the chapter you are writing, the scene you are directing, or the song you are composing is only about what the words themselves literally suggest, you've probably got a very boring or very superficial piece of art on your hands. It is, of course, possible to go too far in the other direction--no matter what anyone tells me, Finnegans Wake will never make sense to me as anything other than too clever for its own good--but as a general concept, it's a very useful concept for giving layers to a work of art.
As I've gotten older, I've gotten better at grasping this concept. When I look at the Kastori Chronicles, my first ever series, I see something I had genuine passion for and still think is a thoroughly enjoyable read... but I recognize it's not a profound commentary on colonialism or the true meaning of family. War of the Magi is a bit better, as different characters face tough decisions that don't have easy answers--over the course of four centuries, no less--which calls to mind interesting real-life conundrums. When I read it now, though, I can see many ways to get deeper.
So when I thought about what I wanted to do next, I wanted to write from the heart about the mental health struggles some of my loved ones go through. But I've already done the memoir, "inspired by true events" path; it's fine, but it's limited. Use the veneer of sci-fi/fantasy, however, and it can go much further.
This is how my newest space fantasy series, Colonist of Kannan, started.
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On a superficial level, the series is a first contact, living planet, colonization sci-fi adventure. There's mysterious aliens, failing technology, deadly encounters, and--because the fantasy influence is never far--dragons. It's got these elements in such droves, in fact, that I was able to reuse cover art for a series I have since taken off publication (it was so rushed and poorly written as to be unsalvageable; maybe someday, I'll take a second stab at a space invasion series, but for now, it lies dormant in my archives).
But I deliberately wrote this series such that scenes about the protagonist encountering an alien predator are not just, in fact, about encountering an alien predator.
Some of my closest loved ones suffer or have suffered from depression, OCD, and ADHD. That doesn't mean that it cripples their lives or that they can't live without medication. But it also doesn't mean they just had the label slapped onto their medical charts out of lazy categorization by the healthcare system. These are real conditions that affect how they live, view the world, and plan their lives. Far too often, for no valid reason but for how their mind operates, they often feel like they're not good enough at anything of importance.
As someone close to their orbit, I have often asked myself "am I doing right by this person? Am I making them feel good enough? If yes, how can I continue to do so? If not, how can I do better?" But oftentimes, I find these questions actually aren't even the right ones. "Doing" implies there's an action I can take or a key phrase I can say that makes everything better. Sometimes, that's true, but more often than not, it's something much simpler.
Presence. Love. Availability.
I know this, and in my daily life, where the most looming threat is uncomfortable humidity and a cloudless sky, I can generally do good enough to just be.
But what if the biggest threat was a planet that responded to my mental psyche? To the mental conditions of my loved ones? What if there were alien species that actively hunted us?
What if I also had to lead not just my family, but a colony of two hundred people that represented the last of humanity?
What if I had to do all this while wondering if my choices would push those I loved away, causing not just their deaths but the death of humanity?
Suddenly, the stakes get much higher and--to an objective observer--much more interesting. What was a common family matter of being empathic to mental health dramatically becomes about saving the entire human race.
That is the story of Colonists of Kannan.
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I know that in writing a story that's borderline literary, one that still has action but is more focused on interpersonal dynamics and thought processes than action, I risk creating a product that either doesn't totally meet genre expectations or throws the unassuming reader off. I can imagine a good segment of readers will read this blog post, think "that's interesting, but it's not for me" and move on.
And that's totally fine. In one sense, it's financially counterproductive to my career. I still have "traditional" fantasy novels going that will appeal to a broader audience, and I thoroughly enjoy writing those, so it's not as if I'm selling any part of me to get money back. But I do understand that in writing a series ostensibly about colonizing a new world, in reality about the struggles of mental health in crises, I might have made this a more divisive book.
That's OK.
At the end of the day, when I finish each book of mine, I have one question that I want to answer myself in the affirmative.
"When my child is old enough to read this, will they find value in it?"
Note that I don't always go for entertainment, although often that is the case. I don't also always go for profound insights or deeper meaning, although as written here today, that can be the case.
Simply put, I want them to finish the book and feel like they got something out of it. That something might be awareness of the need to be empathic; it might be the thrill of an epic battle like Brandon Sanderson can write; or it might be something somewhere in between.
With Colonists of Kannan, I believe they will get something more out of it than just a sci-fi first contact story.
And that, for me, is good enough.