 |
| Photo credit: Katie Tegtmeyer on Flickr |
If you're one of those struggling writers, have no fear.
You'll be embracing your inner sadist in no time.
It starts by taking a look at what you've written (or
plotted) thus far. Let's say your main character is a high school student who
is more than a little familiar with the principal and pink detention slips. Her
problem is that if she gets written up one more time, her parents won't allow
her to go out with her friends for the rest of the month. As it's her best
friend's birthday this weekend, she has to behave herself.
When facing your main character's current problem, the best
thing you can do as a writer is ask yourself how you can make this as difficult
as possible for your protagonist at every turn.
Let's take a look at a couple of things that could
complicate matters for our protagonist:
- She has a hot temper.
- She forgot to set her alarm so she wakes up late.
- She runs to the bus stop and misses the bus.
- She runs to her first period class and is not only late, but slips and falls on another student when she enters the classroom.
- The student she fell on is her ex-boyfriend— who is now dating a girl that hates her.
- In her rush to get out the door, she forgot her homework on the kitchen table— but her teacher doesn't believe her and thinks she didn't do it again.
- The ex's girlfriend sees her fall on him, thinks it was done on purpose and starts an argument with her.
The list goes on.
The point is, it's your job as a writer to chase your
characters up a tree infested with rabid squirrels, throw rocks at them, then
set the tree on fire and make it rain acid. There shouldn't be any easy escape
routes for your characters, or anything easily achieved for that matter, even
if it's something as menial as getting to school on time.
In short, you need to be mean to your characters all the time. Make them fight for everything—even
at rest their thoughts should be conflicted. Then, when they finally get what
they want, make the next goal even more difficult.
When editing, go through your manuscript and take a look at
your scenes. Have you been too nice to your characters? Is there any way you
could make it even worse for your protagonist than you already have? If the
answer is yes, it’s time for you to get to work. You know what to do.
What books can you think of that have successfully employed this
technique?
22 comments:
Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series is a great example of an author who's cruel to his main character all the time. In interviews, Butcher often says that if he and Harry Dresden ever met, Dresden would punch him in the face.
Ha! That's fantastic. I've heard of the Dresden files before--pretty funny to think of an author getting punched in the face by his character, though. I'd say that's a pretty good sign that he's being sufficiently mean enough to Harry Dresden. :D
The Hunger Games. All the characters get screwed over and over again. Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Prim... etc. It is endless. And even in the end, both Katniss and Peeta are left with their nightmares. But then again, it's hard to think of a good book where the author doesn't mess with their character(s).
The Hunger Games is a fantastic example--throughout the trilogy things get increasingly worse for the characters until the final showdown in Mockingjay. It's certainly a large part of the reason the books are such fantastic reads--the suspense kept throughout the trilogy is brilliant on Collins' part.
You're so mean! How are you, Ava? It's been too long.
You are so right about this subject. We should have T-shirts printed: Sadist and proud of it!
Hope to be around more often in the new year.
Take care.
-Jimmy
I'm currently editing my manuscript. I plan on checking to see if I been to nice. Great post!
I've been doing wonderfully, thanks for asking! And yourself? How have you been?
I'm happy to see you enjoyed the post! Thanks so much for stopping by! :)
I've really learned to love editing--it's excited to sculpt a much better manuscript out of your original drafts. Good luck obliterating the niceness! >:D
This is great advice, likely the best and most critical for writing. Whenever your protagonist does something good, don't have her thanked or rewarded. Have her ridiculed and shamed. When she continues to be good in spite of a hateful omnipotent author, she becomes sympathetic.
When I design plots, I typically look at the protagonist and envision what's the worst thing that could possibly happen to her, given her personality. Then I make that happen. It works great. Strictly speaking, the maniacal laughter isn't necessary, but I wouldn't do without it.
Wait...the maniacal laughter isn't necessary?
In all seriousness, that's a great plotting method and one that could most certainly save you the headache of having to go through afterwards to add extra sadism.
I agree with Marling - using the "what's the worst that could happen here?" technique is hugely helpful to me. Just yesterday, I was rewriting my first chapter, looking for a bang of an ending, and thought, wait, THAT's not the worst that could happen ... THIS is. *insert maniacal laugh* Then I received an email from a friend who read the first book in the series saying, "I can't believe you did that!!" referring to a particularly awful turn. I reminded her that I'm evil. :)
You know you're doing your job correctly when you can answer a question with "I'm evil." :D
I definitely need to be meaner to the protagonist of one of my stories. She gets her way too often. Time to off her only remaining family member when she needs him most.
Killing off characters is certainly one way to unleash your inner sadist. Best of luck with your writing!
And if all fails, just kill them:D
Pssshhh, that's letting them off EASY.
I don't know if I'm being mean enough to my protagonist. Dawn was constantly possessed by a demon and went to a mental institution for 2 years when she was twelve. Then she gets kidnapped (but it turns out that they're trying to help her and they become friends) [skip ahead skip ahead] And in the climax, her first friend that she'd ever had in years was killed brutally. I have the worst feeling that I'm just letting this girl off way to easily!!
Is that sarcasm? *squints* Hard to tell. Judging from what you've told me, I'd say it sounds like you've been pretty hard on your protagonist...however, it's really hard to say without actually reading your work. Yes, you have the major things in place, but what many writers often forget is the in-between stuff. The little things that their protagonist gets too easily.
There was a bit of sarcasm at the end. Then again, in the in-betweens of the plot are where I'm being the nicest to her. She gets the meanest but best trainer in The Academy and is friends with the smartest student there but her squad is considered the most useless. And most of the time, she wins her fights in the easiest of ways and very quickly which kind of irks me. The main storyline is brutal on her but in the middle, I'm afraid that it's just too easy.
The only thing I can see from what you've told me that maybe hints at easiness is that she wins her fights quickly and easily. Sounds like you might have some potential for extra conflict and tension in there if she doesn't always win her fights. Just a thought. :)
The main character of a book I'm writing got involved in a cruel game made by s sadistic god-like entity and is killed once but brought back as a Phoenix like humaniod she learns that she is going to win the game, towards the end she ants to die but bring kind of Phoenix she can't die permenately and the last player besides Dr dies and she goes back to earth knowing that her child will have to play the game
Sounds like you've got the inner-sadist thing down pat. :)
Post a Comment