Character Suffering?

[Mindfire]

So, as writers we're often encouraged to impose suffering on our characters. It's a chestnut nearly on par with "show, don't tell." But I've recently realized that I'm not very comfortable with this idea as a writer. In fact, I tend to shy away from it.

Recently I presented a short story of mine at a small local writers group and one of the criticisms given was that my character felt invincible and seemed to win too easily. Upon reflection, this could apply to many of my characters. Their victories, while not effortless, are often won without much personal loss (some notable exceptions aside). And I've further come to realize this applies to me not only as a creator, but also as a consumer. I hate it when characters make mistakes or what seem like poor decisions- for any reason. It makes them look stupid to me and actually diminishes my ability to connect with them. Where others see moving, tragic events I see annoying- or even infuriating- setbacks.

Case in point: in a book I was recently reading I reached a point about halfway through where all the progress the protagonists have made is severely undercut in a very personal way. And while I know that it's something they will eventually overcome, the event in question angered me so much that I have put the book down and refused to continue the series. And while this is the first time something like this has caused me enough displeasure to stop reading, I have been similarly irritated by tragic moments in other stories. Perhaps as a result of this negative reaction, when I write my own characters they're clever, powerful, and never (or hardly ever) fail at anything. I don't mean to say that they never lose, only that when they do lose it's because of factors beyond their control rather than flaws or poor choices and the loss is almost always something they can quickly bounce back from. It has not occurred to me until recently that this might be a problem.

I'm looking for some outside perspective here. Is this a flaw? If so, how serious? Is it necessary for a character to fail or be personally wounded in some way during the story? If so, how much is enough? What does my unease with this kind of writing say about me as a writer?

 

[Jabrosky]

I believe the idea that characters should suffer is rooted in the need to escalate the story's conflict. The greater the obstacles the characters have to overcome, the more tension is built up and the more heroic their achievements appear in the end.

Nonetheless, it's interesting to see you as a reader have a different attitude towards this conventional wisdom than most. Maybe the problem is that the characters you're reading about seem unlikeable or excessively incompetent?

 

[Mindfire]

Also, quick rundown of the exceptions to this pattern in my writing, though YMMV on how much they count.

1. My main character is captured and tortured on one occasion, however he escapes, heals relatively quickly, and immediately deals out retribution to his captor.
2. My main character's son is crippled during an adventure, but this isn't due to any particular failure on either of their parts so much as simply being a result of the dangerous environment they find themselves in. Also, the boy later gets on quite well with his disability becomes not so much an obstacle as an inconvenience.
3. My main character makes a rash decision motivated by anger and hatred that causes him to be exiled, provokes a war, estranges him from his best friend, and ultimately leads to that friend's death. However, the character returns from exile, wins back the trust of his people, and reconciles with his friend before he dies.

Can't think of any others off the top of my head. These three exceptions occur over the course of roughly seven and a half stories. I say half because #2 occurs in a planned short story that takes place between two books, and roughly because this is all still in development and stories may be merged or divided as necessary later on.

 

[Mindfire]

Nonetheless, it's interesting to see you as a reader have a different attitude towards this conventional wisdom than most. Maybe the problem is that the characters you're reading about seem unlikeable or excessively incompetent?

That is true in some cases, but not all. In the example I gave where the protagonists' progress was deeply undercut, the characters were very likeable and competent. The setback was less due to poor decisions (though that did play a significant part) and more to a personal betrayal. In fact, I'd say the fact that I liked the characters so much is part of what made me so angry. I hated to see their victory come so close only to be snatched away. I felt cheated.

 

[Tom]

There's a lot of character suffering in my writing, mostly because I'm interested in exploring the psychological consequences of it. Sometimes you need suffering to advance the plot and spur character growth. It's also a matter of your writing personality--some people just can't willingly put their characters through painful experiences. As I've written more I've found I'm less likely to shield my characters from suffering, or bend consequences to make it easier for a character to recover from suffering than it should be.

A few instances of character suffering in my stuff:

A mage gets turned to stone, another is stripped of her magic, a general loses her hand, an artist loses his sight and develops a gift for prophecy that forces him to tell someone their future even if it's horrible, an evil sorcerer is redeemed just in time to die, my hero has horrible night terrors and is plagued by spirits, a dragon is turned into a human soldier and forced to fight in a vicious, bloody war, a prince is turned into an animal and forced to fight in gladiator-style death games...

I just realized how cruel I am to my characters.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I'm not sure it's necessarily about the suffering as such, but about the perceived risks, or consequences of failure.
Showing the suffering of the character means the reader gets to identify with their situation and understand it better from the character's view. This would make getting out of the suffering more of a big deal, and the reader more invested in it.

I think a character's suffering may be a good and relatively easy way to achieve this, but it's not necessarily the only way. I'm not sure it's as much about the suffering as making the character overcome the challenge it implies.

...or I could be riding the completely wrong train of thought.

 

[Mythopoet]

I can't read the Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher. It's not because they're bad books. They're great books. I think Harry Dresden is a brilliant character and the worldbuilding is fascinating. But in the 4 or 5 books I did manage to get through in the series Harry suffered constantly. Every chapter escalated his suffering. It was relentless right until the end of the book. After going through such suffering intense stories with Harry several times, I couldn't take it anymore. Because I get really involved in the books I enjoy, I would begin to feel the suffering as well. I would read for an hour and feel like I'd just been beat up. Reading the books made me feel terrible even though I thought they were brilliant books. So I stopped reading them. My husband, on the other hand, loves those books and has read every single one. They work for him, they don't work for me.

There are readers who enjoy books where the conflict is constantly escalating and the characters are always suffering. Lots of them. But just because that kind of thing is popular now doesn't mean that every reader wants it. I don't. My favorite books tend to have times of intense conflict and times of relief in between storms. And I tend to prefer intellectual, emotional, and spiritual conflicts more than physical conflict.

What rules and/or guidelines like "make your characters suffer" fail to address is that readers aren't all the same. Almost all of the advice given out within the writing industry seems as though it is given from the point of view whatever kind of story is the "most popular" is the best way to write every story. But there are many, many, many readers out there who don't fit into the audience of whatever is "most popular" at any given time. Readers with a huge variety of likes and dislikes that get overlooked by the industry because they aren't the largest group of book consumers. But we exist and we're constantly on the lookout for those books that don't toe the industry line and actually give us what we want from our reading experience.

Don't be afraid to write books for people who don't like today's standard story style. But also maybe don't look for feedback from readers who don't like the kinds of stories you write.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

What you're rebelling against, from what I can tell, is standard story structure...specifically the most common one, the Three Act Structure.

It's most common because, at some level the Three Act Structure has become instinctual, or at least trained in media consumers. Almost all movies, and the majority of written stories follow this pattern where we have an inciting event and three distinct plot points, each of which are designed to showcase the power of the antagonist at the expense of the protagonist. This always leads to the suffering of the main character, either physically emotionally, or both. The final, third plot point typically takes the protagonist on a massive up-down swing where they almost achieve their goal only to have their hopes dashed. Events here bring the character to their lowest point. From this point they must pick themselves up and carry on the fight, typically as a result of some personal revelation or epiphany which arms them for the final conflict. The character arc in this case is always born of blood and pain.

I don't have a ton of experience with other types of story structure, but I suggest if the Three Act form doesn't appeal to you, look at some others. There are several different types, though less popular. Maybe a more gradual change would appeal to your senses (7 Act Structure). Or maybe another type like Scene-Sequel Structure.

I could be way off base here too, but it's my best guess, considering the information supplied, that it's the way the suffering/conflict is being delivered which feels unnatural or unappealing. Your instincts are probably correct, for your writing. Search for something that suits.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I like to see a hero who is fallible and flawed, but not incompetent or cowardly. Protagonists who do nothing are frustrating.

I think you can have a hero succeed consistently, but it should look like the victory took effort or the antagonist was the more powerful opponent or at least had reason to believe he had an advantage of some kind. When it comes to hero vs. villain, one should not outclass the other.

I agree the hero should suffer a bit, or be challenged, but the suffering shouldn't be overdone to the point that the victory becomes so hollow from all the loss that the reader can't even feel good about the eventual victory. It can also be overdone when the reader knows that whatever suffering the hero goes through, meh... he'll bounce back. Again.

My big pet peeve is when the hero is too competent and those the hero cares about are a bunch of dolts. This is the typical action movie guy who not only does everything right; he barks the right orders. Then when someone doesn't listen, that someone is doomed.

 

[Ryan_Crown]

I think I have a very similar viewpoint as you do, Mindfire -- I'm not a fan of seeing characters suffering, especially if they're suffering just for the sake of adding conflict/drama to the story. I accept that it is to an extent necessary, because clearly a story that is essentially "happily ever after" all the way through isn't likely to be an interesting read. But that doesn't mean that tragic events need to happen to the characters for the story to be interesting, either.

The concept that bugs me much, much more than that, however, is the idea you so often hear that you must be willing to "kill your darlings" to build up the tension of your story. This is the issue I have with George R. R. Martin's stories -- why am I bothering to develop a connection to these characters when odds are they're just going to be casually killed off at some point? Give me characters I can root for and watch as they overcome obstacles and achieve success.

Personally, I don't need to see a character "suffer". I would much rather just see that character "struggle"; sure they have setbacks, and bad things happen, but I'd rather focus on the character dealing with these things and then triumphing.

 

[Ryan_Crown]

What you're rebelling against, from what I can tell, is standard story structure...specifically the most common one, the Three Act Structure.

I don't know about that -- I think you can do a standard three act story that doesn't necessarily involve your MC suffering. I think too many people focus on the idea that the key plot points in this structure have to be "disasters"; something terrible happens to the hero and he must suffer as a result, slowing building himself back up only to get knocked down again by the next "disaster".

With the right narrative, though, I think you could setup those plot points to be simply major obstacles instead of disasters. For example, maybe at our midway point the hero finds the mystic amulet he's questing for, only to have the antagonist steal it out from under him. Now the chase is on to get it back. While this setback causes the hero to struggle, I wouldn't necessarily say that he has to "suffer" as a result.

I guess a lot of it depends on how you want to define "suffering".

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

For me the suffering is part of the struggle, and a victory won through struggle is far sweeter than one won without it. It gives you a sense of achievement. Of having done something. And I think most authors want their readers to feel that in their characters.

Now the suffering can be internal or external, or usually both. For example in Maverick my MC was tortured by guilt for a wrongful death he had caused as a child, and by shame for having been thrown out of the Guild. He suffered from doubt as well about his own skill. But he also had real enemies to face. And the interplay between these features was an important part of the work.

But I don't think that's what you're really asking. I think your question is more about how real the suffering is to the reader. Whether it's believable. And how it adds to the story line. And as an aside, that you hate self imposed suffering such as that caused by mistakes. And that's going to vary from story to story and character to character.

It's also going to vary from reader to reader. For example I had a review of Wildling in which the man complained that my character felt too much guilt for having killed another man by sticking arrows in him and then letting him fall into a fire and burn to death in screaming agony. I personally felt a little bit of guilt was appropriate for that, but obviously my opinion is not the only one out there.

As to how you decide how much is too much and how much isn't enough, that's about experience and personal taste. I'm guessing that my reviewer - assuming that he wasn't an out and out sociopath - was more into the more black and white comic book superheroe type genre - or action war genre - where moral decisions often don't seem to factor. Where the hero is happy to simply wipe out bad guys without a qualm. And where when ethical qualms arise people like me often have to suspend our disbelief that said person could kill forty henchmen but worry about the morality of killing the big bad instead of bringing him to justice.

So my advice would be to look to what you like to read and then go with that. Write what you know as they say. And remember that you'll never please everyone, but if you please yourself at least you've got one satisfied customer.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

The concept that bugs me much, much more than that, however, is the idea you so often hear that you must be willing to "kill your darlings" to build up the tension of your story.

This quote is intended to mean a writer should cut the bits of writing they love most if that revision improves the story. The idea is that if we love a bit of writing too much, say for instance, the way a certain bit of imagery sounds, we may be resistant to deleting that description. In this case, the "darlings" are the favorite words, sentences, paragraphs, and turns of phrase.

Although the idea could extend to cutting a character from a story, it doesn't directly refer to characters dying within the story plot.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I don't know about that -- I think you can do a standard three act story that doesn't necessarily involve your MC suffering. I think too many people focus on the idea that the key plot points in this structure have to be "disasters"; something terrible happens to the hero and he must suffer as a result, slowing building himself back up only to get knocked down again by the next "disaster".

With the right narrative, though, I think you could setup those plot points to be simply major obstacles instead of disasters. For example, maybe at our midway point the hero finds the mystic amulet he's questing for, only to have the antagonist steal it out from under him. Now the chase is on to get it back. While this setback causes the hero to struggle, I wouldn't necessarily say that he has to "suffer" as a result.

I guess a lot of it depends on how you want to define "suffering".

I don't think I used the word "disaster", but my main point was a discussion of the typical escalation of suffering/conflict/struggle...whatever you want to call it.

But, yes...I don't disagree with anything you said here, except that in the Third Plot Point, the one that acts as a catharsis for major character change, the one that prepares the protagonist for the climactic event, needs be one that brings him/her to their lowest point. In my opinion, that's a necessity in the Three Act structure. I suppose that'd be one I'd say should be a "disaster".

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

The key thing to note here is there needs to be payoff.

Two extremes lack payoff.

Extreme #1: the hero wins easily, and at the end, just as he's about to win... he wins. Yay! There should be something surprising. Not like he has to lose, but I mean there should be some sort of revelation or emotional impact. If there hero's all that and a bag of chips, he doesn't need me to root for him.

Extreme #2: the hero suffers, the world suffers, the girlfriend who was only included to show tits is crushed horribly and just when you're wondering how this boy-turned-giga-demon can ever be stopped... he isn't. He just spares the useless protagonist. That's Akira by the way, and I absolutely hated it! The unstoppable demon doesn't get stopped. He kills Neo Tokyo and two hours of my life. If you're gonna make evil win and win and win, here's your ending: evil loses.

 

[Ryan_Crown]

This quote is intended to mean a writer should cut the bits of writing they love most if that revision improves the story. The idea is that if we love a bit of writing too much, say for instance, the way a certain bit of imagery sounds, we may be resistant to deleting that description. In this case, the "darlings" are the favorite words, sentences, paragraphs, and turns of phrase.

Although the idea could extend to cutting a character from a story, it doesn't directly refer to characters dying within the story plot.

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Never really thought of it like that. Thanks!!

 

[glutton]

It depends on the character. For my current WIP the male MC loses a few fights and gets captured more than once, but hasn't suffered any huge losses. Other than his friend getting hurt, his biggest setbacks so far have probably been having to hide in the mountains for several months and having a villain destroy an item he would rather keep. He's basically the main narrator/POV character of the story so I don't want to be writing from an overly despondent viewpoint for long when the tone of the story is supposed to be light and fun.

The male MC's friend/sidekick suffers more. He loses more in fights than the MC, gets captured in one of the two instances with the MC, and escapes but loses his arm in the other instance. It's sadly portrayed when it happens and continues to affect him throughout the story, but at some points is played for laughs eg. when he momentarily joins the bad guys so they can give him a cyborg gun arm only to get it sliced right off again. He also has a big loss in his background where his sister was drowned by her supposed comrade while he was there (or at least nearby).

The female MC has never been beaten in a fight yet and the only major losses she's suffered are in her background. She mows through giant monsters and highly skilled warriors like nothing, kills the previously-thought strongest warrior on the continent after he gets a major magical powerup, and tanks being impaled with a giant glaive then shot by the friend's cyborg arm's gatling gun, rocket launcher, and shotgun forms with her reaction being 'Annoyed!' Of course being an overly invincible child-in-a-woman's body is her gimmick... actually at one point she'll 'lose' her strength due to realizing she isn't logically supposed to be that strong and not even seem able to open a jar anymore, but then turns out to be faking so it doesn't really count lol.

 

[Mindfire]

Thanks for all the opinions!

And I don't think my problem is with the three-act structure itself. My WIP uses that structure, more or less. I think my problem is with just how much the setbacks a character encounters actually damage that character. I rarely take anything away from my characters, and when I do it's because I'm planning to give them something even better afterwards to make up for it. My plots are largely very "clean" for lack of a better word. Moves from neatly from one point to the next and no one gets bloodied too badly. But the prevailing wisdom seems to be that this is weak writing and things ought to be messier for the protagonists.

To give a quick what-if example: If I had written Legend of Korra (not sure how many people here watch that), in my version Korra would not have lost her connection to her past lives.

 

[Mythopoet]

What kind of obstacles do your characters have to overcome?

 

[BronzeOracle]

I think the suffering of characters makes for a good read when you can see their character developing because of it and their virtues shining through it - if they weren't put to the test then how would we know what they are made of? And seeing people being heroic, selfless, forgiving, courageous, clever etc is I think at the core of storytelling. We all go through suffering and obstacles in our own lives and we all have personal flaws and I for one find it very rewarding in reading a character overcoming these. Yes Lord of the Rings has a grand saga as the backdrop, but its really about people going on when there is no hope left and overcoming their desire to just run and hide in a safe place.

I think the degree of suffering varies hugely between stories and different audiences want different things. I remember loving the Belgariad by David Eddings when a teenager but the challenges are very mild as its for a YA audience. By contrast George RR Martin's work is for a more adult and contemporary audience that expects more severe challenges and consequences for its characters. I think it depends on how you view the world, some see it as nastier others as kinder. GRRM's sacrifice of characters only works because he has such a large ensemble and so individuals are part of a larger story than just their own arcs. It looks gruesome but if its a three act structure with GOT then we're still only in Act 2 which is not pleasant for characters.