First things first: all the images I’ve used in my posts over the last week or two are mine. I’ve tried to attribute the quotes whenever possible, but I took the picture. There are older posts here (like the one with the quotes from tumblr) that aren’t mine and that I didn’t have permission to re-post, and I will try and avoid that in the future. Not because anyone is making me, but because it’s the right thing to do.

But the awesome thing about all these pictures being mine? The one I’m using today was taken outside my office. Yes, there’s a curb in the parking lot that carries that scar. And the quote about suffering seemed to match both the concrete’s pain, and my writing lately.

In the last two weeks, I’ve written two of the most difficult scenes I’ve ever had to write in my stories. Wait, hang on, let me back up.

In my lifetime I’ve read countless authors talking about torturing their characters. How if the story isn’t exciting enough they make someone suffer, or they kill someone off, or they take an arm, or a loved one, or a favorite car. Anything to make their characters weep.

I’ve always heard that and gone “Hmm…but my stories aren’t like that.” Which is a fantastic excuse for not having to do that. Not that I knew at the time I was making excuses, but really, I was. It’s easy to say “My story is the kind of story where people don’t die. Or get hurt. Or have their purse stolen. Or have to do more to make ends meet than work an extra shift.”

Trust me, it’s really easy. Try it, go on. I’ll wait…
…
…
See? Simple.

You know what’s a lot harder for me? Realizing that bad things happen all the time and that means my characters have to suffer to. Like actually suffer, not face the kind of problems that they can solve in 22 minutes plus commercials and walk away from unscathed.

A lot of writers already know this. I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes. So you might be wondering, if it’s taken me this long to figure out, what were all my novels like before this?

Umm…let’s not go there today.

Anyway, suffering. I’ve realized I have to make my characters suffer. And they’ve been doing a lot in this current piece. I’ve even started to literally torture one of them. And that’s hurt a lot. Since this is a POV character, I’ve at least partially lived each passage of suffering as he has. It does funky things to my mind. A few days ago I was in the middle of one of these more intense scenes and the phone rang.

And I experienced something I didn’t actually think happened. I stared at it blankly, trying to remember what I was supposed to do with it. And even once I figured out I needed to answer it, I still couldn’t remember what happened next. I’m going to hope the person on the other end didn’t realize I wasn’t an actual part of the conversation for at least the first two minutes.

But I think it’s been worth it (I’m almost done with the really painful stuff. At least until the next round of revisions). I think the story is stronger for it. The one last thing I have to hope is that it has the same impact on the reader that it does on me.

Do you struggle with torturing your characters or reading tortured characters?