 Drama: September 11, 2024 Issue [#12729] |
This week: The Drama of Terrorism and September 11 Edited by: Joy  
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“What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.”
David Levithan, Love Is the Higher Law
“If you want to debate the morality of war versus terrorism, let’s start with how these conflicts begin.”
Jeffrey S. Stephens, Enemies Among Us
“He had always been so careful, never revealed his true identity. But somehow, they’d fingered him, and his life had changed forever—for the worst. He couldn’t help but think that someone in the Central Intelligence Agency had turned on him. One of his own.”
Chad Boudreaux, Scavenger Hunt
“We disconnected. And I wondered if we had ever truly connected.”
Eric Jerome Dickey, Dying for Revenge
“The next thing I knew, I was falling. I dreamed I was being thrown into an open grave, but jerked awake and landed on a bed.”
Eric Jerome Dickey, Finding Gideon
Hello, Joy here, this week's drama editor. This issue is about fiction and writing about terrorism and 9/11.
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Sometimes, I ask myself, "Is terrorism ever successful?" My answer is usually mixed or a plain "No." I think, however, terrorism may succeed at least to some degree, only if we let it.
Alongside, with that thought, the idea for this newsletter came to me from its publishing date: September 11. Although I like to look at the bright side of things most of the time, where September 11, 2001 is concerned, all my good will and humor leaves me. This is due to that one unbelievably shocking day that ended up with an afterlife inside my mind.
That afterlife contains memories of watching the attacks live on TV and keeping in touch through the phone with our son who used to go to work in downtown Manhattan. Even though he was only on the way to work when attacks took place and he wasn't physically harmed, the emotional toll on my family has been immense, not only for my son but also for our country being attacked for no legitimate reason.
What followed the attacks were the stories by people about where they were on that day. We all talked about it, especially those of us who are or had been NewYorkers. Such conversations were the most upsetting, most uncomfortable, most dreadful, yet quite fascinating. Then, fiction and real life stories followed such conversations in the media.
This is because, when real life happens, literature doesn't fall much behind, as its dramatic response soon complied with Anne Nelson’s play The Guys premiering off-Broadway in December 2001. Even before that play, prose pieces were quickly published independently or collectively, mostly as remembrances. Later on, novels began to make references to those attacks. This is all because we human beings are able to share our humanity in reading and writing fiction.
Now and always, fiction sets out to explore experiences, emotions, and our humanity. Sometimes, however, humanity shows its dark side, and the literary explosions as books on violence and terrorism end up haunting our collective memories.
Surely, when we are creating any dramatic fiction on the subject of terrorism, characters are the most important. As such, terrorists in the past were mostly more conservative. For example, in 1914 the assassination of the Archduke of Austro-Hungarian Empire, the right-wing fascists of the Hitler era, Mussolini's Blackshirts, and Stalin's dictatorship had used murder and intimidation as state-sponsored terrorism for achieving political power. These were followed by other similar acts of terror all over the world, some romanticizing a revolutionary violence. Later on, however, that has evolved into more dynamic actions such as hijacking planes and placing bombs and explosive devices in warehouses and government buildings.
Yet, terrorism is not a direct response to oppression and no evidence suggests that those who commit acts of terror are impoverished, poorly educated, impressionable young people. Indeed, many of the accused World Trade Center attackers were mature, often highly educated and well-trained adults. Still loners here and there can also become involved in terrorism, like the recent assassination attempt on a US presidential candidate.
The focus of our fiction, if we have terrorism as its subject, should be:
 the core reasons behind the violence
the weapons used
the type of attack,
the target type or person or people
the country where the attack happens
Here is a partial list of novels on 9/11, some with vivid details, others about its aftermaths:
* Falling Man by Don DeLillo
* The Good Life by Jay McInerney
* Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran
* The Submission by Amy Waldman
* The Zero by Jess Walter
* Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
* In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman
* The Writing on the Wall by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
* The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
* The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
* Architect of Courage, by Victoria Weisfeld
* Bleeding Edge, by Thomas Pynchon
* The Immensity of the Here and Now by Paul West
* The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
* The Memory of Things by Gae Polisner
* Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story by Nora Raleigh Baskin
* Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes
* The Things They Left Behind by Stephen King
I don't know if anyone ever analyzed how and why terrorists might innovate or if they learn from others' successes or failures. The role most analysts take is identifying the terror organizations and iffy individuals.
If that kind of knowledge can be a deterrent, it is better than nothing. In any case, we writers may wish to have a say on the matter just to encourage further research on such violence, so the rest of our world can possibly gain some comfort and peace.
Until next time! 
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 Enjoy!
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We're not united as we were immediately after the tragedy that touched us all.
#988256 by Kenzie  |
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This Issue's Tip: While referring to the 9/11 attacks and other acts like that, the desire to merge the symbolic and the real or to conflate the spiritual and the physical and to show the terrorists as real human beings can backfire. Writing about terrorism, in my opinion, is one area where a writer should choose sides.
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Feedback for "Crafting Alone and Lonely Characters"
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W.D.Wilcox 
A one character story better have an interesting person to carry the weight of the tale. The film with Tom Hanks comes to mind where he is stranded on an island.
Thanks, Bill. I didn't see that movie, but I heard about it. Surely pulling an interesting story is difficult if only one character carries the plot.
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