Things your characters say that stab at your moral compass?

KTC · Jun 17, 2009

I'm doing an edit on one of my manuscripts and every time I read a certain line I shudder just a little bit. It's not a big thing, but something that leaves a bad taste in my mouth every time I read it. Do you ever come across things like this in your WIP?

Now there are some pretty bad things that this character does throughout the novel, but the thing that always shocks me is just a tiny little passing observation she says. 'I always imagined I would have pretty children.' As a father, it just squelches my bones every time I read it. (I know...it's not a big one...not at all. Just the implications it conjures to me are so upsetting.)

What boundaries do your characters pass through without your consent?

Now I am definitely keeping this in my novel...I'm not asking about things you see and think, 'oh, I have to delete this!'

Cyia · Jun 17, 2009

It seems to me that your character's done his job then. If he makes you uncomfortable, and you wrote him, then you're not coloring your characters with your own attitudes and opinions.

I tend to write dark things and use morally ambiguous characters, so they say a lot of things I'd cringe at if I heard in real life. My characters can shrug off a life without a thought, but I can't.

KTC · Jun 17, 2009

Cyia said:
My characters can shrug off a life without a thought, but I can't.

Good point. I guess I didn't think this thread through. I'm sure a lot of people here have had characters murder other characters. (-; Oops. Carry on.

scarletpeaches · Jun 17, 2009

You know what's funny...I had second thoughts about writing a pretty graphic man/man scene in this WIP...None about a murder and dismembering of the body, though.

Quite what this says about me, I don't know.

I'd kill a man but not make love to him? Hmm...

Swordswoman · Jun 17, 2009

KTC said:
'I always imagined I would have pretty children.'

KTC, this is an absolutely brilliant line. It made me shiver.

It seems to me that to write lines that stab at your own (and hopefully your reader's) moral compass is something actually to aspire to. I've got a few in my latest WIP but they're all too obviously big and villainous for anyone really to feel threatened by, and I have to do better. Yours is real, nasty, and brrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Louise

KTC · Jun 17, 2009

Swordswoman said:
KTC, this is an absolutely brilliant line. It made me shiver.

It seems to me that to write lines that stab at your own (and hopefully your reader's) moral compass is something actually to aspire to. I've got a few in my latest WIP but they're all too obviously big and villainous for anyone really to feel threatened by, and I have to do better. Yours is real, nasty, and brrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Louise

Thank you very much, Louise. I'm glad it had that reaction from you. (-;

Stunted · Jun 17, 2009

Yeah, that line is pretty legit.

I have a character who hasn't really been around the block who is of the opinion that 9 out of 10 relationships go without a hitch and that anyone who can't make a marriage work is a maladjusted loser. Not really a moral thing, but it's just like...oh jesus are you going to learn.

KTC · Jun 17, 2009

Stunted said:
Yeah, that line is pretty legit.

I have a character who hasn't really been around the block who is of the opinion that 9 out of 10 relationships go without a hitch and that anyone who can't make a marriage work is a maladjusted loser. Not really a moral thing, but it's just like...oh jesus are you going to learn.

Yes...exactly. You think about the choices your characters are making as you re-read it and think, "Come on, man! Really?"

Jerry B. Flory · Jun 17, 2009

The whole point of the novel I'm writing is to keep the things I say that, normally, I would write then go, oh I can't say that.

If it scares the hell out of you, if it feels like a broken barrier and it fits, enhances or nails your story down, keep it.
It is that kind of fearful, on the edge writing that keeps people reading to the next line.

NeuroFizz · Jun 17, 2009

Sometimes a single line said internally or externally can add an interesting exclamation point to the three-dimensionality of a character, and it seems some of those lines hang on us through our drafts as we hover a should-I-or-shouldn't-I red pen. In most cases, we should cap the pen. This seems to be a clear example of one of those cases. The danger signal is if the line seems forced or concocted, or if the author doesn't leave it alone afterward--trying to make sure the reader caught it by bringing it up again.

KTC · Jun 18, 2009

That's a great point, Rich. I do tend to do just that sometimes...as I'm sure you know. I write something that says it all...and I guess maybe because it resonates so much with me, I'll say the very same thing in the next line or the next one...overkilling the idea by saying it twice.

Wark · Jun 18, 2009

In an argument, a MC soldier tells his wife, who's body is 94% prothetic, that he has weathered the ups and downs, and all the problems she has brought to the marriage.

In RL, I desperately hoped my daughter would be attractive. She is, but was pretty jar-headed the first year. And it's not just me, others comment on her being pretty. Though, I do think everyone else's kid is a troll. And frankly wish my 5 year old would get some maturity going. Yes, I'm horrible.

CaroGirl · Jun 18, 2009

I have a character who BURNS another character's borrowed BOOKS (among other truly nasty things)!

Holy crap, I hate him.

Maryn · Jun 18, 2009

I have a character who seems like a bad person, then seems like that was a fluke and he's really a pretty decent guy, then some time later, when trust has been established, refers to someone as a nigger. It makes me cringe to even type the word, it's so patently offensive.

Of course, later I kill him in a vivid and horrific way. Just deserts and all.

Maryn, happy murderer

Rushie · Jun 18, 2009

Ok I guess I have no moral compass because I'm having trouble figuring out what's wrong with that statement. Are we supposed to imagine we're going to have ugly children? Unless he said it aloud to his child, that would be bad.

ShebaJones · Jun 18, 2009

Just about everything my characters say/do. They're a bunch of assholes, but I love them anyway.

ccv707 · Jun 18, 2009

I try to keep most of my characters in the proverbial gray area--they struggle with doing things some people think are right and other think are wrong. I tend to remain completely objective in my storytelling, even if I am entirely on one side of the fence of something. As a result, many of my characters do things that I don't support, and some do things I absolutely abhor.

The MC from my last completed ms is a prime mover in an entirely new political movement to unite humanity under an "ideal" government. He slowly realizes that what is being done is not for the collective good of the people, and after unknowingly contributing to a number of social horrors, instigates a civil war within his own government to overthrow it and remove the political leaders from power, but must also try to play both sides against one another in order to prevent bloodshed. In the end, he's questioning both what he's done in the past that led to this point and what he did to atone for his mistakes, asking if what he resorted to was a "good thing." I really started to hate him as I neared the ending, even as he fought to atone for his mistakes. I suppose I've mellowed toward him now, but I still can't shake the fact that he put billions of people through a horrific experience and used them, in the end, to achieve hope for a peaceful future, but what cost is too much...then again, that's the point of the entire ordeal.

KTC · Jun 18, 2009

Rushie said:
Ok I guess I have no moral compass because I'm having trouble figuring out what's wrong with that statement. Are we supposed to imagine we're going to have ugly children? Unless he said it aloud to his child, that would be bad.

Rushie...yes. As I said it was a fairly mild statement...especially out of context and alone. She did say it within earshot of her children...to somebody else. For me, even if her children were not within earshot, it really feels like a reprehensible thing to say. It jars me when I read it coming from a mother.

scarletpeaches · Jun 18, 2009

Would it be moral to stab KTC with a set of compasses?

KTC · Jun 18, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
Would it be moral to stab KTC with a set of compasses?

It would certainly boost morale.

Epiphany · Jun 18, 2009

One of my favorite characters in my series used to sleep with women to lure them in and then hand them over to his father who would rip their soul out.

I haven't written the part where he admits this to his love interest... it gives me chills every time I think about it but I'm still eager to write it.

maestrowork · Jun 18, 2009

After mentioning the fact that he just amputated another character's legs:

"It is not like he has anywhere to go." He laughed.

bettielee · Jun 18, 2009

I'm about to have a hero character get his nookie on with one of my villains, just so he can get out her bedroom window and plant a device in her room. I'm waffling, even though I think I have the go ahead from his dragon...

I just gotta write it...right... so he doesn't come off like a schmuck, and this already unstable woman doesn't go all ((kersplackity)) before the end of the series...

scarletpeaches · Jun 18, 2009

Hahahahhaha "get his nookie on". :ROFL:

*steals phrase*

bettielee · Jun 18, 2009

Coming from sparklepeaches, that's like a Nobel Prize for smut phrases...

I'm all fluttery now

Things your characters say that stab at your moral compass?

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Rewriting My Destiny

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Resilient and kind

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Ich heiße Superphantastisch!

Stand in the Place Where You Live

under the Milky Way

The grad students did it

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Mark Brockman

Living the dream

I Tried

I post in the nude.

He who asks, "Why?"

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Don't kill the bar, Dude.

Fear the Death Ray

I'm a sparkly fairy princess!

I'm a sparkly fairy princess!