This weekend we'll be shooting a video for Captive (thank you Amy Sommer). My kids will be there; helpers, not "extras". We mulled over the video strategy: why I wrote the book, what I hoped to accomplish and how I felt about the related issues.
Terrorism is a heated topic. I took UCLA extension classes while writing this novel to learn how to write it better. At the beginning of each new session at least one fellow class mate would take offense at the topic and my "politics". What are my politics? Pretty quickly that person would realize that they had judged too soon and the book itself wasn't nearly as polarizing as they'd assumed.
Writing about terrorism allows for the posibility of controversy. Related attention can help sell books. But that isn't the point of the novel. People grow up in vastly different societies and make decisions (at an early age) based on what opportunities are available to them.
I had a conversation last night with someone who had volunteered as a criminal defense attorney during law school. One of his clients got the death penalty. Yet that client was a broken and brutalized man. How much choice and free will is due to circumstance? Read Captive to see how I address that question.
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