WRITING THE WORLD

Building a Safer World for Women

Can we turn fiction into reality?

In my novella, The Trial of Summary James, there’s a scene where a woman waits for a man she doesn’t know in his hotel room. She does so without fear.

She’s there to help the story’s protagonist recover from an injury.

It was not designed as social commentary. She just happened. The character introduced herself to me. All I did was relay her brief part of the story (as told by the protagonist):

When I entered, a woman was kneeling at my bed with a small roll-up in front of her. When she heard the door, she rolled the device up, set it aside, and looked at me. All I could do was shake my head. I couldn’t even muster the energy to ask who she was. She was a young white woman with red hair and a wild nest of freckles highlighting pink globes on each cheek. “Hi,” she said calmly.

I waved with the hand that didn’t hurt.

“Your friend Trace sent me. He said you might need me.”

Finally, I asked, “Who are you?”

“You can call me Dr. Feelgood.”

I sighed. “That can mean a lot of things. Feelgood can, I mean.”

“Understood. Tell me what hurts.”

“Mostly my ego.”

“Can’t help with that. What else?”

I glanced at my shoulder. “I think it’s separated.”

“Perfect.” She smiled as she sat on the bed. She patted part of the bed and signaled for me to sit next to her. I didn’t move, so she said cheerily, “Come on, I don’t bite and it will only hurt for just a few seconds!”

“Worse day ever,” I groaned as I sat next to her.

“Good Golly Malloy you are a tall one,” she said cheerfully. She stood up. “You’re almost too tall to fix!” she giggled. Then she grabbed my arm viciously and fixed my separated shoulder in less than a second, I thought. I didn’t even have time to let out a whoop.

“Wow,” I said.

“I know, right? I’m good. Anything else?”

“Well, my hand was busted up but somehow it’s better.”

“Let me see.”

I gave it to her and she kissed it. “Better?”

I laughed. “Much.”

“Excellent.” She got up and headed for the door.

“That’s it?”

“Anything else hurt?”

I laughed again. “No, I’m just tired.”

“Can’t help with that. Get some sleep. Bye!” and she opened the door and left.

The weird part about writing this is that I can’t imagine writing something like that based on our world. Not without, at least, adding an element of fear or suspense to the episode.

But the nature of the novella’s world primed the scene to write itself, almost without my input, it seemed. That’s because the novella’s worldbuilding had already been accomplished.

The novella is based on a timeline of my somewhat utopian, and much longer, novel called Restive Souls, which leverages alternative history to comment on our paternalistic, racist society. In the Restive Souls timeline, women maintain pivotal roles in political, religious, and societal leadership.

The influence of First Settler nations helps establish a maternalistic society instead of the kind we live in today. There is also no First Nation ethnic cleansing in Restive Souls, so the indigenous culture of the Americas spreads and blends and influences.

Women become revered leaders and caretakers rather than the second-class citizens they were in Europe at the time of the Revolutionary War.

In Restive Souls, the British win the Revolutionary War and immediately emancipate the slaves. The novel leaves open to debate a key question for would-be fictional historians:

Do the British do this to reward slaves for their help in turning the war around through Lord Dunmore’s proclamation (by which some historians estimate 80,000 to 100,000 colonial slaves fled to the British armed forces in exchange for freedom)?

Or is it a form of punishment to the colonies administered by an angry king?

The novel doesn’t definitively answer that question. Instead, it focuses on a thriving emerging nation that blends African, Native American, and, to a lesser degree, European cultures.

A strongly theological nation emerges. But since one of its leaders is a priestess, the egalitarian nature of Christianity’s original intent is nourished, as proclaimed by Acts 22:44–45 from the Bible:

And all the believers were together and had all things in common; and they would sell their property and possessions and share them with all, to the extent that anyone had need.

In Restive Souls, there is no African colonialism, in large part because the newly formed mostly African-American North American state of the Carolina low country builds a formidable navy. A powerful ally of the new North American nation forms in Africa called The Kinlaza House. It, too, is heavily influenced by a female leader.

A congregational economy develops on both sides of the ocean that sort of shares the egalitarian spirit of Marxism with the competitive spirit of capitalism. Women play key roles, here, too. The Tsărăgĭ Congregational Union, led by a woman named Ahyoka of the Ani’-wa’`ya, becomes one of the richest Christian congregations in the world.

This kind of worldbuilding is easy when you can throw out norms on a whim. That’s the advantage of being a writer. We get to play God.

The imagination runs wild when we ask what might have happened if the vast quantities of kinetic creative energy that so many different groups of people were forced to suppress during the struggle to survive had been unleashed for the good of society instead.

What if American Blacks had been able to learn and teach and create beginning in the late eighteenth century? What if the political influences of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy that were loosely borrowed by the United States’ Founders had instead seeped into the very essence of the body politic and society?

What if women had become spiritual and political leaders during the eighteenth century?

Humans being human, conflicts would arise in any kind of world. The world of Restive Souls is no exception if for no other reason than fiction stories often require a good villain or two to keep the reader interested.

But if there is anything we’ve learned over the eons, you’d think that people could agree that it would be nice to see a feminine response to villainy.

Through Restive Souls, I also addressed my craving for a world where a woman can feel safe, or, at least, safer than she does now.

But the problem remains.

It’s still fiction. What would it take to make it real?

We all have distinct philosophies. Mine says that we are all connected. Maybe if enough of us just wish for it to be so, it will become so. Maybe someday, a woman can knock on a stranger’s door, and not cower at the man behind it.

As the mostly male leaders of Israel ready their nation for a brutal response against atrocities committed by men, I wonder what the world might look like if it was decorated more by a woman’s touch.

NOTES

The scene I quoted in this story can be found in Chapter 8 of the Trial of Summary James, which can be found on Medium starting here:

Restive Souls is in late-stage editing and in a hunt for a literary agent. Hopefully, you’ll see it soon!

Thanks for reading!

This story was written by a human, not by AI or Grammarly GO (More Info).

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