Writing Humanity Worth Saving

If Death tasked you with finding evidence of humanity’s goodness, what would you offer as proof? That question sits at the heart of my debut novel, The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter—and it weighed on me for three years as I worked through the writing and publishing process. 

(The Power of Hopeful Fiction in Difficult Times.)

From the beginning, I grappled with the immensity of the task. The story spans nearly 300 years of human history across 400 pages. Where would I even start? What could I possibly find that proved humanity deserved redemption?

The deeper I dove into research, the worse it got, delving through some of humanity’s darkest moments—human chattel slavery, genocide, wars, sexual violence, torture, and mutilation—so many gaspingly depraved acts of cruelty that boggle the mind. Each discovery forced me to confront how far we’ve fallen and how often we repeat the same mistakes.

The further I went into the research, the more I identified with the character of Death—the enigmatic, jaded, eternal being—burdened by his purpose and resolute in his belief in the irremediability of humans. When Death appeared on the page in June 2023, I understood him right away. He is haunted not by the act of taking souls, for that is natural and the way of life, but by what humans do to each other long before he arrives, squandering the gift of life, for no good reason.

On top of contending with the horrors of the past as I wrote, I often felt caught in the present, amid ever-expanding examples of human depravity. I know every generation says that things have never been this bad, but with the constant barrage of breaking news, texts, snaps, TikToks, and newsfeeds, like Nella, I often felt overwhelmed by the weight of it all.

It would’ve been easy to stop there—to write a book mired in misery, and numb to the devastation of it all. But I didn’t want to write another story steeped in despair, absent of hope, because the darkness means nothing without the light. In this instance, knowledge of my own family history—of sharecroppers becoming college professors, of immigrants becoming doctors—of people who endured despite the challenges. Like Pandora, holding that near-empty box, I had to believe, if only for the sake of meeting my deadline, that there was hope enough, and proof enough for us all. 

That belief became my compass. A simple reminder from my childhood came back to me—Mr. Rogers’ advice to “look for the helpers. There are always people who are helping.” 

So, I did. I searched for moments when people chose kindness and worked to make the world better, even at the cost of their life, liberty, and freedom. 

Once I started looking, they began to crop up everywhere, in the millions of small acts, all testament to the search for human connection, kindness, and consideration. From the overflowing GoFundMes for families who’d lost everything; worldwide protests demanding a better world; free haircuts for the homeless, and fostering dogs and emptying shelters during the pandemic to collecting thousands of birthday letters for a 100-year-old veteran; raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from strangers for a mother and her sons living on the street, all these acts demonstrate that the capacity for human kindness continues, and the potential for human progress persists. For every livestream of devastation, there’s another showing people rebuilding after storms, feeding neighbors, or offering comfort to strangers. The helpers are still here—the ones who see the dignity of every human life, soul, and spirit—proving the capacity for human kindness persists.

Writing this book taught me to see those small moments for what they are: evidence. The older woman who spent an hour teaching my five-year-old to play ping pong at a hotel pool. The neighbor who keeps the food pantry stocked. The hundreds of people who helped me in small ways have become the person I am today. Each act, however small, is part of something larger—the ongoing effort to make life a little better for someone else. Time is measured in those moments—the glimpses when we see one another clearly, without labels or noise. 

All of this shaped the character of Nella, as she existed in the shadow of history, moving through the rise and fall of empires, always in the background, helping in whatever capacity, making a difference for others, creating space for the beauty she believed to be true in the world. For Nella, enslavement was only one part of her story—not her whole identity. I wanted to explore what she’d do with her freedom and how she’d use it to help others.

Like Nella, I write to connect. Early in my career, I thought writing was about cracking some secret code—finding the formula that would make everything click. What I’ve learned instead is that the real key is truth. Vulnerability. The courage to say, This is what I’ve seen. This is what I’ve felt.

Writing is how I make sense of being alive. It’s how I gather the tiny, true pieces of the human experience before they disappear. Reading does the same thing—it lets me borrow bits of other people’s lives and carry them forward. We are here, not because of the great acts of a few, but millions of small acts by the many. 

That’s all any of us are doing, really: recording proof that we were here, and that it mattered.

When I think about Nella’s story—a woman who begins as abandoned and enslaved, and still finds her way to love, joy, and freedom—I see her as a reflection of what’s possible for all of us. She witnesses the worst of humanity, and yet she keeps searching for reasons to believe. For every atrocity she sees, Death can point to another one. But still, she looks for the helpers. Still, she chooses to love.

That’s what I wanted this book to be: not a story about suffering, but a story about endurance. About finding the small lights that make it possible to keep going. Just because a thing is small, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

Writing The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter changed me. It reminded me that the world will always offer reasons to give up—and yet, there will always be more reasons not to. The proof of our goodness is everywhere. You just have to keep looking.

Because even in all that pain, I still believe in us. I see humanity in the people who show up, who care, who demand better. We forget that we don’t have to wait for someone else to fix things. We already have the power to make the world we want—right now.

And maybe that’s what writing is for—to remind us, again and again, that even in darkness, humanity is still worth saving.

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