Sorry Mr.Carpenter

The story I'm writing now is about a woman who lost her husband. He was a carpenter and died in an accident at his work (meaning, falling off the scaffold).

To confess, I hardly knew anything about what it is like to be a carpenter, or to have a husband who is a carpenter. I did some research, but as I wrote there were more things I needed to learn to write about. I had some of such questions the other night and wandering on the internet to find answers. The internet is the only place I can get resources on Japan, in Japanese (They hardly have any Japanese book at our university library--not even Murakami in Japanese!).

Finally I found a good website run by a man who says he's been a carpenter for more than twenty years. I got most of the information I needed there, but I needed a few more questions answered, small things like what they wear, what they bring to work and such. The webpage owner seemed to be a nice man, so I thought I would ask him if he could give me answers to my questions.

I was very happy, because he e-mailed me back quickly with more information than I expected. But he said in his message, "What kind of a character would he be? A drunk guy or something? I can't really imagine any good image of a carpenter in stories..."

I wanted to tell him it was not the case. I wasn't going to make the carpenter a drunk or anything negative. I wrote back telling him so and with a short synopsis of my story.

He wrote back to me and said,

"Oh. He dies..."


Well. Yes, he does.

I replied to him, "Yes, I'm sorry..."

I felt bad. But I promise you, Mr.Carpenter, that I won't make my character a drunk; and next time I have a character who's a carpenter, I promise I'll let him/her live long.