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TIJUANA IS A FASCINATING city on the Mexico/United States border. I’ve been there numerous times, volunteering with a non-profit organization that builds houses for the less-fortunate in the colonias. The people we met were warm and welcoming. Mexican culture is hospitable to the core and they were gracious about my fumbling attempts at speaking español.
“You’re trying, and we appreciate that,” one friend said. “But yeah, you need to work on your pronunciación.”
I had no difficulty crossing the US border back into California. The lineups were long, and the Customs and Border Patrol guards were gruff but professional. The same was true of their Mexican Army counterparts.
As an outsider, I was intrigued by the border city culture. The economic disparity was obvious. But it was the casual assumptions people carried—on both sides of the wall—that got me thinking.
Every country is filled with amazing, good-hearted people. Every country also produces its own share of self-absorbed idiots. I’ve learned, as a general rule, to never judge a country by either (a) its politicians, or (b) its tourists.
When I began writing Dissident, I knew that by the end of the book, the Runners needed a way inside the Enclave’s walls. I was also aware that if the only viewpoints were those of Amos, Aubrey, and their colleagues, we would see the Enclave through the lens of—as Don likes to call it—Hoarderville. And so, Connor Sinclair became a new POV (point of view) character, showing us the culture inside the Enclave from a Citizen’s perspective, with his own unique set of prejudices and stereotypes.
If there’s a metaphor at work in Dissident, it’s simply that we need to learn how to work together for the common good. Or, to put it backward: Our prejudices, stereotypes, and partisan divides are as much the enemy as any crisis our nations have faced or will face in the future.
If we can learn anything from the precarious alliance between Hoarders and Runners, it’s to recover our ability to listen outside our cultural echo chambers.
Of course, in the case of a character like Darcy Peterson, all bets are off. Some people are so blinded by . . . Wait a minute. That part of the story will have to wait until Scorpion.
On a side note, Megan was never supposed to live past chapter one or two. For the first draft, I had written—in bold letters at the top of an outline—“Don’t do the ‘recovering her humanity’ schtick.” I was afraid it was an overused plot device and I didn’t want to fall into that trap.
Megan didn’t agree. We arm-wrestled, and she won.
Likewise, Mateo Reyes was only intended as a one-off character whose main (only?) purpose was to take Amos and Don on his “guided tour.” I didn’t realize Mateo was also a Tracker until the final paragraph in the opening scene of the first draft. Characters are like that—they have minds of their own and aren’t above arguing with the author attempting to tell their story.
Mateo wreaked havoc on my outline, but I’ve forgiven him. One of my beta readers even named her cat after him.
Thanks for reading. I’ll see you in Scorpion.
Drive friendly,
Deven