Exchange of Realities

In any setting where there are battles to be fought and adventures to be undertaken (and in how many settings is this not the case?), there will be those who once dared. The ones who went out and came back, whether they’ve decided never to go out again or are just waiting for the next time when they are needed. For the story creator, they can be mentors, antagonists, supporters, naysayers, almost anything—even, perhaps, protagonists in their own right. They are an archetype, but with enough internal variation that it may as well comprise a civilization of its own.

There’s no one true way to look at them. Sure, a number of novels fall back on the battle-hardened veteran with the scars and the gruff exterior covering up a heart of gold, who tell the little dunderheads how stupid setting out to be a hero is and teach them to survive first and engage in heroics later, and who suffer from old wounds that twinge when it’s too hot, too cold, undergoing rapid temperature changes, or been too long since the wound itself was mentioned. But that’s not by any stretch of the imagination all of them.

There are the ones who saw battle—but not enough. Or those who saw it pass them by and wished they had been its path. There are those who met battle halfway and changed in the process, and those who thank their gods and their luck each night that “there” was always someplace else. Those who left others on the field, or who were themselves left on the field. For every one who had the luck to return untouched, there is another who actually died out there but has somehow managed to lose her grip little by little rather than all at once, and hundreds in places in between. There are those most wounded by their enemies, but there are also those most wounded by their allies. Those who in good conscience couldn’t continue, and those who in good conscience couldn’t stop (possibly until they were forcibly removed by their superiors.) Some who found purpose when they had come back home, and others who lost theirs on their return.

Best of all, unlike so many of the archetypes that pop up in speculative fiction novels, this is one from which you’ve probably actually met people. We all know people who once dared. Some might even be willing to tell us what it was like. And while we cannot necessarily find people who have been in the exact situations we want to write about, it’s the emotions that count; the rest is extrapolation.

Don’t sell these people short. Everyone has a story, and theirs may well be more interesting than you can imagine.

To my Stateside readers: enjoy your Veteran’s Day.

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