Sunday, 23 December 2018

Why do I torture my characters?


All writers do it… Most readers love it. The reason a story is interesting is because a certain person gets thrown into awful situations and struggles to rise victorious (or at least alive) from them. The characters in a story, especially the main characters, are written in a specific way and get involved in various scenarios. These scenarios can be great or awful and that depends on the writer. You could have a great scenario in mind, but fail to give your characters a chance to interact properly in it, make them struggle, or throw some morality issues in there.
Protagonists are the main scape goats, since we get to read the story through their perspective. A protagonist should be a person that keeps moving forward no matter what, since his/her progression ties with the progression of the story. He/she can rise and fall, morals can deteriorate and reshape again, but he/she should never remain stagnant. Getting stronger or weaker, changing their mind or holding to their beliefs against other beliefs thrown against him/her. I love my protagonists and I love to torture them. It builds them up and backs up their actions, thoughts and power.
When writing book 5: Eyes of truth, I had the opportunity to truly describe a person chewed up and spit out by the entire world around him to a point that death was all he wished for. Yet he found the courage to carry on for the people he might be able to help. This character was the one with the most development I have ever written. ‘’Torturing’’ a character, in my opinion, is a great way to progress his/her story, but giving him a break here and there (a nice relationship, friendly or romantic, a success in plans), gives the reader a breather as well.
Let us remember that through struggles human beings rise up stronger than ever and become successful in the end.

(All opinions above are completely personal and not based in any sources.)
C.T.K.



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