Do you ever feel bad about taking your characters through hardships?

JBVam

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Hi, okay so in my book series I have five female protagonists and the series follows their journey as they go through their four years of college.

I have been writing for these characters for years and I actually feel bad when I have to put them through bad situations. It's good for the story and their character growth but it's still hurts, lol :cry::Headbang:

Do any of you have the same feeling? If so, what hardship did you put your character through that made you cringe?
 

Corsairs

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A little bit, yes. It's natural that we grow close to these people we've been observing for so long, so closely. But at the same time, their hardships make them resonate more. People without hardships aren't people like those I know. They're plastic people, and I don't know how to empathize with plastic. I see the scars left on my wounded characters, though, and I feel a little closer to them.

Besides, scars can be sexy. :evil
 

JBVam

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A little bit, yes. It's natural that we grow close to these people we've been observing for so long, so closely. But at the same time, their hardships make them resonate more. People without hardships aren't people like those I know. They're plastic people, and I don't know how to empathize with plastic. I see the scars left on my wounded characters, though, and I feel a little closer to them.

Besides, scars can be sexy. :evil


Very well put and I agree with you 100%. Hardships make characters relate-able.
 

ErezMA

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It's hard, but it needs to happen. The best way for our guys to grow is by making life as difficult as possible. Unfortunately, we're human so it's difficult. Jeffery Dahmer could have been an excellent writer.
 

Roxxsmom

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I don't particularly, since that's what they're there for. A story with no hardship would be pretty dull. For me, stories often start as a nuclear idea about a person in a mess of some kind. Besides, it makes it more fun when they pick up the pieces and recover from them.

I do hate having to kill a character, especially if they're one I really enjoyed writing and had some ideas about for future stories or arcs. But sometimes just becomes clear that things will work better if that character dies.
 

jaus tail

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I give them redeeming qualities. Give them some reasons to be happy once in a while.
 

TheWordFairy

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I've never had any problem putting my characters through hell, but I did find it a bit emotional/triggery to write a scene where a character was assaulted by her boyfriend, not because I felt bad about it, but because I was really trying to dig in to her headspace to make the scene powerful and imagining something that awful that hard can be... almost traumatic.
 

Matera the Mad

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I commiserate with my characters. It's probably better to feel sorry for your characters than to put your readers through the torment of supending disbelief. I've seen character-suffering that went on nearly to the point of boredom.
 

Wind Ann Wise

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Yes, I feel bad if I put them through hardships. But I also understand that it's necessary. No one can have a perfect life. Characters that have too perfect lives are boring.
 

Barbara R.

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It's great that you feel bad for the characters; it means they're real to you. If they weren't, there's no chance they'll feel real to anyone else. I've killed off characters that I came to love, and while I didn't sit shiva for them, I actually went through periods of mourning and acute sadness.

Someone whose name I can't recall wrote: "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader."

On the other hand, your characters exist for a purpose, and if you indulge yourself by feeling sorry for them and easing their way, you'll ruin your story. Characters can't rise to a challenge that never comes. I wrote a post that goes into great detail about this very question, if you're interested.
 

DeleyanLee

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I don't because that's what the Story is about. I also take heart from a Neil Gaiman quote I have as wallpaper:

"I think that pretty much every form of fiction (I'd include fantasy, obviously) can actually be a real escape from places where you feel bad, and from bad places. It can be a safe place you go, like going on holiday, and it can be somewhere that, while you've escaped, actually teaches you things you need to know when you go back, that gives you knowledge and armour and tools to change the bad place you were in.

"So no they're not escapist. They're escape."

I use that reminder to be as emotionally honest as I can about the hardships I put characters through, and what it takes them to get through it. So, no, I don't feel bad for the hardships. Who knows who I might be helping through real life hardships if they read my work someday.
 
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Cobalt Jade

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I think of my characters as actors playing a role. They're not "really" hurt.
 

DeleyanLee

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I talked to a writer friend about this at lunch. I found her comments worth sharing.

While she agreed with the Gaiman quote, she also disagreed with it. Regardless of what place the reader is in, fiction allows the reader to experience danger and risk in complete safety because they, themselves, are completely safe. So they can completely emotionally invest in the characters and fully get into all their hardships and experience them through the characters. It has the opportunity for the reader to see lives they'd never live for themselves, if the writer is emotionally honest. For example, if someone reads a book where the hero is going through drug addiction and recovery, when they meet someone in RL going through it the reader might be more understanding of what's going on.

The other thing she said was, from the writer's POV, she doesn't feel bad for what she does to the characters. In the world of her book, she is a god and they are her creations. They don't know the ending of their story. She does. She knows what they're going through is going to be worth it for them in the end.
 

Enlightened

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The characters would not exist if I did not ideate things for them to do. Cost of admission for the characters, I suppose. They are not real, and I do not see them as real. This does not mean I do not try to make them real, for others.
 

talktidy

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My original outline called for knocking off two of my characters. I have reconsidered on one, and I have now blown past the section where the other character was supposed to get knocked off. I tell myself I need him to stick around for another couple of scenes, which seems to make sense, but I am suspicious I am kidding myself, and I am simply unable to be beastly to my characters.
 

Kjbartolotta

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This continues to be the only measure of if I'm doing a good job or not. I think a lot of my best writing is when I'm in conversation with the characters about how unhappy they are.
 

bellsmuir

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I do and I don't. Inflicting hardships on them makes me understand them better, because of the way they end up reacting to those hardships. That ends up making me connect to them more, which makes them easier to write. But if I've already emotionally connected to one of my characters, then I sometimes do feel bad, because I'm just piling on the stressors in order to watch them grow, which seems like quite a mean thing to do -- even if they are fictional.