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| Photo credit: Anders Adermark on Flickr |
There are few things I enjoy more than taking my characters’ perfectly peaceful lives and ripping them to shreds, then setting the shreds on fire and throwing the ashes into Mount Vesuvius. I love taking terrible situations and making them worse, and making my characters feel entirely hopeless before they rise above and overcome their difficulties.
I love scarred, conflicted characters—whether it’s emotional, physical or mental scars. Sometimes they start off scarred at the beginning, sometimes I inflict the damage within the plot, but in the end, I find those kinds of characters much more fun to write and read about, and so I’m rather cruel to my characters.
But the thing is, I truly believe it’s necessary to bring out your inner sadist, at least to some extent, while writing.
Every story requires conflict. The magnitude of that conflict will from genre to genre (and even within your book), but without conflict, there isn’t a story. The ability to take an initial conflict and make it worse (then worse than that) can take story from good to amazing. It can lead to essential urgency to keep reading, and at the end, when your characters overcome the insurmountable odds you set them against, their victories are that much more memorable.
I don’t hesitate to admit that I’m a jerk to my characters. I’m proud of it, even.
But now I want to hear from you: are you a jerk to your characters?
Twitter-sized bites:
Are you a jerk to your characters? Why or why not? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog! (Click to tweet)
Do you bring out your inner sadist while writing? Here's why you may want to. (Click to tweet)
One of my favourite writing tips is definitely "Murder your darlings"
ReplyDeleteI think there are times I could stand to be meaner to them, honestly. Other times, I feel like I've been just mean enough.
ReplyDeleteA tip with many applications. :)
ReplyDeleteIn the situations where you feel you could be meaner...revision! :) But like many things, it does require some balance. (Although I can't say I've ever read something where I thought the author went overboard...but hey! It's probably out there).
ReplyDeleteI think I've seen "overboard" happen most often in television shows, or in the type of comedies that Ben Stiller is in, wherein the comedy or main conflict is drawn from the character being kicked as hard as one can, over and over again. It reminds me of that trope of boys pulling the wings off of flies.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point, I wasn't really thinking about TV shows or movies. I think in action the super terrible events tend to usually work, but in comedies it can sometimes border on ridiculous if you go too far. It depends.
ReplyDeleteIt really does depend. And I'm really trying to think of a book in which I thought the author went too far with regards to meanness, and nothing is coming to mind just yet. Or, it slips into the ridiculous, as tends to happen (to my eyes) in the Dresden Files books.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I haven't thought of any examples either, but if I do I'll let you know. And I haven't read the Dresden Files books, but slipping into ridiculousness is a definite danger. Hmm...
ReplyDeleteThere tends to be a point near climactic battles in which the main character is, say, in Rubber Duckie boxers and cowboy boots to face down the Big Bad. The way he got there makes sense, but I find myself eyerolling. I only read the first...3? 4? Then I stopped. They're fun, but not as serious as I'd like.
ReplyDeleteAhh, ok I could see that. Do they have a more comedic tone?
ReplyDeleteYes and no. Things are still very much Life or Death, and the main character(s) are understood to be in real danger with crucial consequences. But there is a good deal of goofiness. It could just be the author's sense of humor, or he could feel they would be too dark otherwise, I'm unsure. I think they would be fabulously dark, myself.
ReplyDeleteI tend to like dark novels myself, but hints of humor are fun, too. I can see how the combination however, may sometimes feel a little strange in cases of going a little overboard like what you mentioned above. Balance is one of the hardest aspects to achieve.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it is. Dark humor, sarcasm, dryness, whatever would be fine, I think. It's slapstick and when the duckies come into play that I feel the balance as been lost.
ReplyDeleteCompletely understandable.
ReplyDelete...I don't think so? It's pretty subjective if you think about it.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of emotional scars, I usually don't overload my characters with lists of terrible traumas. So there's no dead parents followed by rape followed by destroyed village followed by crippling depression followed by suicidal thoughts, etc.
But they've got *plenty* of physical scars to a ridiculous extent. I think it's because I'm always putting them in fights or they're just in dangerous environments. Granted, with my more action oriented protagonists, it makes sense. But then I had my thirteen year old heroine in a novella be slashed, bruised up, hit on the chest by a dragon, bits of fire burn the back of her legs, acidic substances boil on patches of her skin, etc. It got to the point where--in rewrites--I was reading back and going "HOW IS THIS GIRL STILL MOVING?"
Mental scars are there, but they're usually not to all characters. I'll give them to one or two and try and develop them.
I guess I could be meaner, in a way. I'm sure the older I become, my writing will go down darker routes. Y'know never.
Oh yes, I definitely didn't mean that mental or emotional (or even physical) scars are by any means necessary (that's just something I personally enjoy writing). I suppose when I talk about being mean to your characters, I'm referring to not letting them off too easy (as in overcoming their obstacles too easily, or things going right for them all the time). Judging by what you've told me, I'm guessing that you probably don't. :)
ReplyDeleteProbably not as much as I should be. :)
ReplyDeleteHaha, I certainly hope I don't! And I was reading the other comments here and you were talking about a balance. Sometimes I wonder how to achieve that. I think about some friends who just downright stopped reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series because they feel like Martin just crams in the tragedy to a breaking point. It has yet to put me off, though, because I figured it fits with the epic, brutal war that's taking place. I feel like that's the way to be a true sadist to your character--go full out.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, balance is important xD As important as not letting them go easy >D
Same here. I could be much more of a jerk in this case! ;)
ReplyDeleteI've heard about the tragedy overdose in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, but I haven't actually read or watched it myself. From what I've heard, though, I could understand maybe it being a little too much for some people.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, balance definitely helps.
Practice makes perfect. :)
ReplyDeletePractice makes perfect! :)
ReplyDeleteI am a little. I mean, things definitely happen to them, like friends die, they get tortured...Okay, yeah, maybe they would hate me for putting them through all of that. :)
ReplyDeleteHa ha maybe. :) (But that's a good thing, IMO).
ReplyDelete