I've often been accused of being quite cruel to my characters, most notably while writing Locked Within. It's fair; I do tend to put my heroes trough some real baptisms by fire. I like seeing the hero triumph through supreme adversity, getting their backs to the wall with no easy way out and so much to lose if they fail.
But as a reader I've also had more than one occassion where I feel like I want to scream at the author for putting my beloved heroes through hardship. I think all of us who love reading have a tendency to adopt characters as part of themselves to some degree or another.
What this brings me to wonder is, how many of us have felt like an author was treating one of their characters unfairly? Did the hero just miss out on his chance to be with the woman he loves? Did a side character get blamed for something that wasn't their fault? Did you ever feel that a particular villain should have been defeated by a different character than the hero?
And how easy is it for us to accept that bad things happen to good characters when we've invested so much emotional energy into their journey?
Mar 14, 2011
Cruelty to Readers
Paul Anthony Shortt believes in magic and monsters. In ghosts and fairies. The creatures that lurk under the bed and inside the closet. The things that live in the dark, and the heroes who stand against them. Above all, he believes that stories have the power to change the world, and the most important stories are the ones which show that monsters can be beaten.
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I suspect my text may have played a part in this blog post. I feel all proud.
ReplyDeleteI have read books where I feel an author is just pummeling their characters for the sake of it - but not very many. Plots are about challenges, and I don't read books because I want to hear about the characters taking tea on the lawn.
A friend of mine wrote a book which had one death in it that affected me terribly - even though I knew the author personally and disliked the character, I cried reading it. But it made perfect sense, both thematically and narratively, so I didn't have a leg to stand on being upset about it :)
Yep, I figure any time a reader is hit hard by the troubles a character suffers, the author's done something right. But there's got to be a line between challenging the protagonist and just beating on them.
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