the priest: explanation and analysis

I just finished a story called 'the priest'. It's probably the most personal piece of fiction I've ever written.

Regardless of who reads it, I wanted to explain the story a little bit and how it relates to me. I've never done this-- never analyzed a piece of my own fiction, and it feels silly, but it also feels kind of important? Like talking about myself might deepen any readers' understanding of it. Like writing this will get some things off my chest.

Jake talking about how a fear of death makes his hands shake and his chest feel heavy stems directly from me, and how I feel every time I think too deeply about the ideas of life and death and religion. The rest of his character is all fiction, but everything he says is everything that I've felt.

I was driving one night after a strange conversation and felt all those emotions pounding through me, making my hands shaky at the wheel. I came back home, opened my laptop at about 11 PM, sat on my floor, and started typing out everything that scared me into a conversation between a priest and someone feeling those same fears. Making Jake male helped to put a bit of a boundary up between me and the character-- and to add a bit of dimension, I hope. Men are interesting to write, especially when they feel things.

The story wasn't a cry for help by any means. It was just the result of all the questions I've had pulsing inside of me since fifth grade that I never think too deeply about because I'll go crazy if I do. By the time I'd finished it, my question had been comforted by the priest. I feel better now. I think I have a better understanding of what religion means to me and what I want to believe in. In this sense, this story is nothing but rambling with faint whispers of a plot throughout, my fears and my deepest thoughts bundled up into a piece about confession. Ironic, isn't it?

The priest ended up being a somewhat eerie character for me. I don't think I've ever had a character feel so real to me. Writing him genuinely felt like having a conversation with a real priest at a real church, on a day when I really had needed something to believe in. It was as unsettling as it was powerful.

The romance between the two of them was left open-ended on purpose, as questioning as the rest of the story is. I didn't have a clear solution for it. I think the priest, being a byproduct of me, didn't either. But the idea of confessions in a confession box was very romantic to me, and very delightfully complicated, which is my favorite thing to write.

I don't like angst; I like pain, and wondering, and internalized doubts. Religion means different things for different people, and for all I know, the priest could discover that falling in love is worth a new kind of prayer.

And why did I make them both male? Layers, I suppose. I like writing gay love stories because it's never so obvious right away (if it's done well). Gay love stories are somehow more complicated even in their most basic forms. Straight love I have to work at to keep it interesting to me as the writer since it always feels so obvious to me-- yes, you'll end up together, yeah, yeah, now kiss.

But you can have two girls brush hands in a hallway and there's a thousand thousand directions the story can go. You can have two boys on the football team look at each other instead of their cheerleaders and you've got a plot that can span decades.

This preference might also just be a result of my hatred of angst and of people making things too complicated. Miscommunication, love triangles, abuse, toxicity, 'hating' each other, pregnancies... blech. I'll pass on all of it.

Anyway, I dunno. I feel better having written this story. I feel better having written this analysis as well. I also feel kind of vulnerable, though. I also feel like I might be too stressed right now. The future is a vast and frightening place and it doesn't bear thinking about and it's always on my mind. But this brought me a little bit of peace. Hopefully, if anyone reads it, it brings you a little bit of peace too.

One last thing: I named the characters after people in Top Gun Maverick and even based their appearances off of them. It just seemed like a fun thing to do. Maybe you caught that. If not, I recommend watching the movie for sure. :)