On October 19, 2010, Mysterygirl123 wrote, I’ve started to love and protect my character so, so, so much, but I know something (else) bad needs to happen for the story to work. How do I get over that?<\/i><\/p>\n
We create a lovable main character – let\u2019s call him Sammy – so our readers will love him, and then we fall in love, too. The love we bring into being is a kind of self-love, not only for us but also for the reader, who lives inside that character. When I even think about making something bad happen to my main, I don\u2019t want to do it, although I know I have to. When I\u2019m reading a novel by someone else and a terrible event occurs, sometimes I have to close the book for a few minutes, or I may go forward very slowly.<\/p>\n
Many years ago I read and adored a book for adults called Happy All the Time<\/i>. As I recall, the author, Laurie Colwin, managed to write an amiable novel, catastrophe-free, that was riveting. So here\u2019s a prompt, right at the beginning of the post: Write a short story, an interesting one, that\u2019s upbeat from start to finish. There has to be conflict, because I don\u2019t think you can have a story without conflict, but make it small; keep the stakes low. Picture books for very young children achieve this regularly, because their audience isn\u2019t ready for Sturm and Drang. But your story needn\u2019t be a picture book. If you try the prompt, I think it will be hard, but it\u2019s just an exercise, so how the story turns out doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
Generally, the size of the bad events you subject Sammy to depends on the genre you\u2019re working in. If you\u2019re writing romantic comedy, the problem may be rejection by the love interest. His life in other respects can be fine. One might even want to tell him to Get Over It, but in this kind of story the scale is just right. In a middle-grade contemporary novel, there may be a bunch of problems – not being popular, flunking social studies, arguing with a younger sister – not serious, but serious in this world.<\/p>\n
However, the heroine of a thriller would howl with laughter if she heard that Sammy was worried about popularity. In Jill\u2019s story from last week she just lost her whole family in a civil war!<\/p>\n
I hesitate to read a tragic book or a horror story. I’m a wimp. I\u2019ve never read anything by Stephen King, for example, although millions can\u2019t get enough of his books. But I\u2019d have an easier time writing horror than reading it, and the reason is that when I write I have control. I may squirm but I recover. Hmm, should I make Sammy\u2019s best friend die by poison, or should someone push her out a window? At this point I may pause in my typing to cackle gleefully. Whether I choose poison or defenestration should have nothing to do with which is an easier death or which will cause Sammy less pain. The decision should depend on what the plot consequences will be for each option and which is likely to better serve the story.<\/p>\n
There are ways to comfort yourself, though. You can tell yourself that Sammy is going to prove himself through his suffering. He\u2019ll learn from it and be better prepared for whatever comes next. You can point out that if nothing bad ever befalls him he\u2019ll wind up a shallow person.<\/p>\n
I read an article along these lines last week in The New York Times<\/i> health and science section. Research was done on the happiness and satisfaction levels of people who\u2019d survived a few terrible situations or many or none at all. The finding as I understood it was that the people who\u2019d gone through a few serious difficulties were the happiest, the most satisfied, the most at peace. The ones who\u2019d undergone the most misery and those who\u2019d endured the least were the unhappiest. The theory was that people who\u2019d been relentlessly traumatized became exhausted and lost hope. I don\u2019t remember why the people who\u2019d endured nothing were dissatisfied, but I do remember why those in the middle group were in such good shape. They\u2019d been tested and discovered they could cope; they\u2019d found out whom they could count on and strategies they could use to pull themselves through – valuable lessons for them and for Sammy, too. Your characters need the trouble you send them, but don\u2019t overdo, because you don\u2019t want to wear them or the reader out.<\/p>\n
You may be writing a tragedy. If so, there will be no strengthening or happy ending for Sammy. But readers who like tragedy, who enjoy a good cry, will thank you. And secondary characters may be strengthened.<\/p>\n
Writing Magic<\/i> has a chapter on this topic called \u201cSuffer!\u201d, which got the entire book banned from a middle school district in Illinois. Here\u2019s the paragraph that caused the trouble:<\/p>\n
“Intensify your brutality. Make sure that we, your readers, know exactly how much your hero is suffering. Plunge us into his mind and heart. Tell us what Robin Hood is thinking and feeling when dire things are happening – and even when dire things aren’t happening. When we read the hero’s thoughts and feelings we are lifted out of ourselves and plunked down inside his skin. We breathe with him. We sigh with him. We see through his eyes, hear through his ears, think his thoughts, feel his emotions. We are in the story, exactly where you want us to be. No way we’re going to stop reading then.”<\/p>\n
The banning came not long after the shooting at Virginia Tech University that killed thirty-two people. The Illinois school district administration worried that I was inciting children to violent behavior, not merely to – possibly – violent writing. There may be ill effects from violence in books and movies and on television – I\u2019m not an authority – but I\u2019m pretty sure that writing about writing powerful stories never hurt anyone and that bland writing never prevented carnage.<\/p>\n
Mystery Girl123’s question came up on my list today, so soon after the shooting in Tucson, a sad time but an opportune one for this topic. Why is it hard to write a good story without suffering, humorous suffering or serious suffering? Why do we seek out entertainment in which people die, in cop shows or medical shows or dramas or even in comedy? I\u2019m not sure, but maybe because we\u2019re preparing for the worst that life can throw at us. When we make Sammy suffer we\u2019re helping our readers, which should stiffen us to do it. We may hurt him, but we\u2019re helping them.<\/p>\n
In addition to feeling sad over the recent events, I\u2019ve thought about them fictionally. What world could I put what happened in? How could I reimagine it? Who would my heroine be? Could she at least save the nine-year-old girl who was there?<\/p>\n
We\u2019re lucky to be writers and to come to grips with these elemental subjects. Maybe I\u2019m being grandiose, but I believe we work with the nightmares of the world and shape them, even make them beautiful, so that we all become stronger and grow in understanding of – eek, a cliche! – the human condition.<\/p>\n
So the prompt is to use what happened in Tucson or any other real-life tragedy in a new story. You can pick a news event or a personal one that hardly anyone knows about. The bad thing that happens to your main character is handed to you by the event you choose. You can soften it a little to make it bearable or to serve the story. Don\u2019t feel you have to stick to the facts. Your characters can be elves or jinns or barnyard animals. You\u2019re looking for the essence. Shape your story so that it reaches an ending that pleases you, not necessarily a happy ending but a satisfying one. If the writing makes you sad, that\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n
Still, have fun and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On October 19, 2010, Mysterygirl123 wrote, I’ve started to love and protect my character so, so, so much, but I know something (else) bad needs to happen for the story to work. How do I get over that? We create a lovable main character – let\u2019s call him Sammy – so our readers will love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":469,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}