How much are you affected by your own stories?

[Feo Takahari]

I'm writing a very unpleasant scene right now (something horrible happens to a child), and I keep having to stop and take breaks. Even though it's a cold day, I'm sweating a lot, and the room around me seems darker. I suppose it's natural to suffer for your art, but I wasn't expecting to be hit quite so hard.

How much do your stories stir up your emotions? Are you largely unaffected by them, or do you care even more about the characters you've helped to create?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I get hit hard, and hit often. We write very character driven stories, and the characters drive me just as much as they drive the plot. I've cried while writing, sometimes to the point where I couldn't see to type and had to keep stopping to clean myself up - and then I kept going because I had to get the scene out. If I don't it will ride me, and I'll be stuck in that emotional place until I finish.

So, yes, they effect me deeply.

 

[Jabrosky]

I don't believe I've ever suffered that kind of emotional distress in the process of writing anything. But then I haven't written too many instances of horrible things happening to children yet.

Actually, there are certain subjects I hesitate to use for fiction because they're such hot-button issues for me. It's not so much the prospect of emotional discomfort that bothers me though. It's that I have such strong views on these issues that I have little to no sympathy for the opposite viewpoint whatsoever. My gut instinct is to see them as the scum of the universe. It should be needless to say that today's politically correct culture doesn't endorse the buckets of vilification I would pour upon my opponents.

I really wish I could use writing as an outlet for my anger and frustration with the world and the douches who make it worse, but no one really appreciates that.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I've creeped myself out before when it's dark, all is quiet, & I'm writing something nefarious. That happens a decent amount of time.

Otherwise the emotional reactions come more from idea conception. If I have a strong emotional reaction to an idea, it assures me I can write with emotion. If I feel the emotion, I have a good idea what the character will feel, then I just make the situation a hundred times worse for them.

 

[Nagash]

I remember crying when I killed off the MC of a short novel about the journey of faith, as a closing scene when the pagans were hunted down by the soldiers of the northern crusade. Somehow, along the process of writing and imagining, we create thick ties with our characters, diving within their train of thought and psychologism, and they become a part of ourselves - moreover, I get the feeling that our characters - or at least the MC's - are systematically a reflection of our inner self. Therefore, putting them through great pain, is like emotional self-abuse. The character I envisioned as a pagan, Erak, was nothing less that my own fascination for faith, exalted by the simple idea of self sacrifice for the divine values and earthly treasures.

While some betray their faith, and convert to christianity through baptism, others flee in the forest, desperately trying to escape the crusaders. Erak stands alone and dies in the snow, his last thoughts being "Valkyrie should come any time soon now... Any time...soon."

It felt like a stab at my very heart...

 

[Noma Galway]

I have scenes where I cry in my WIP, but nothing has hit me as hard as a realistic fiction short story for my class, where I had to portray suicide from the first person POV. That story took me a week to draft (which is a lot for me), and I put off rewriting just so I wouldn't have to go through that again. She survives, and the scene with her parents in the hospital broke me down.

 

[Devor]

Mostly I get excited about my stories, instead of brought down by them. But it's happened. I started a story for a challenge here once that had me sad pretty much half the day. Then I was too embarrassed to finish it. But it hit pretty close to home, so I'm not likely to repeat that kind of thing too often. If I feel for the characters, it's mostly for a moment, and deliberate, to get inside their head. Mostly my real feels are all about the writing process.