characters and suffering.

...look upon my works ye mighty and despair... or something

    I've thought about this a lot recently, but why do I have an innate urge to make my characters suffer? And on a larger level--though I cannot speak for everyone--why do (a few/ some?/ most??/ maybe all???) writers have an innate urge to make their characters suffer? 

    The great example here is Peter Parker/ Spiderman, there is a genuine excess of suffering dumped upon this character for some reason, and not just the usury of Ben dying or Gwen dying, but like even in ongoing series there is just suffering for him on a level that is noticeable enough that people have... Well, they have noted it. In fact, suffering and tragedy are words that kind of pop in when you think of the guy... Which is sad.

    Today's post is just kind of an exploration of my own thoughts on this weird thing, and look, I could very well be in the minority of having a weird urge to make characters suffer, which is on one hand extremely strange and a definite me problem, and on another, extremely funny and kind of entertaining. (at least personally, which I don't know if I should be worried about but eh) Of course, there's always the possibility that I will turn out to be an unfeeling psychopath and discussing this urge is just a self-report, but that's a problem for future me, like literally.

    Now for my thoughts, apologies in advance.

    Why I (probably have the urge to do it, and do it as well)

    I think this personally all partially stems from what I subconsciously think about life and living, and I say this with the implication that there is a conscious way I think about life to oppose it. But what are either of them for me? Well, I believe that my subconscious outlook is something like: 

    Life is a whole series of tragedies broken up by other things like romance, comedy, etc.

    Something like the human condition is, unfortunately, tied to suffering in a lot of ways, and most especially when in the pursuit of the opposite... Which is naturally happiness.

    To summarize, we want happy, we pursue happy, we face challenges which bring pain, and (maybe?) we get happy. That pursuit and the challenges that follow take up most of our life, which in turn means that our lives end up feeling like a series of tragedies broken up by other better and worse things.

As for the conscious outlook, it is the natural opposition to the given one.

The world is not just suffering and there is a better way to live, and that living can be happy.

    But why do I think like that? And why do I think, I think like that?

    As we live, we are influenced and what I've been influenced by contains definite tragedy. And I mean what I've been influenced by as in like narratives and such in literature or others. In fact, a lot of popular media, not all mind you, has an element of tragedy in it. 

    Classic literature for example is rife with tragedy. The writer who is regarded the greatest in English history is Shakespeare, who's most popular works are... Tragedies. Surely there is a correlation to why writers want to write tragic situations to the fact that one of the most popular writers in history was famous for his tragedies.

    But why were they so famed?

    See they were well written firstly, but also because tragedy draws attention and sympathy or even empathy. It gets people to pay attention... And care... And even relate. Now when you make people care or relate, or make any emotional connection to your story, you immerse them, which is VERY important when writing a story or what have you.

    And that is why I think tragedies become so popular. People connect to the characters, smile when they succeed, frown when they fail, get angry when they are wronged, and lament when they are lost.

    Of course, a character's... Uh characterization and personality also play a part, a very huge part, in connecting a reader to a story, but let's face it, tragedy catches attention and is also a good (and maybe easy) way to emotionally connect someone to a work.

    So, is my urge just because I want to be Shakespeare? Maybe. (I mean don't we all want to be William????)

    But also, here's the deal... Not all stories have to be tragedies to have tragic events play out, no? And not all famed works are tragedies either.

    Which is where the idea of the pursuit of... Anything, or simply a goal, comes into play.

    To be as direct as possible, in any story, a character is after something, and the suffering becomes a part of their journey to attain it. Think about any story you've read. The main character is after something right? And they are challenged in different ways in the journey to that something right?

    Remember above:

    "-we want happy, we pursue happy, we face challenges which bring pain, and (maybe?) we get happy. That pursuit and the challenges that follow take up most of our life, which in turn means that our lives end up feeling like a series of tragedies broken up by other better and worse things."

    And there is the notion that the best works emulate life. So, it's easy to believe that well written stories (or from a certain perspective, just fucking all of them, all the stories ever created good and bad) are kind of structured in that way (the way above).

    Let's look at The Lord of The Rings, it is not a tragedy. Do tragic things and struggles happen? Yes. Is it popular and immersive, and creates emotional connection with the reader? Also, yes. But is it focused solely on the tragedies that occur? No.

    So, yes, you don't need to write tragic stories or zero in on a character's tragedy to succeed as a writer. 

    ...But to succeed, do you need tragic events/ struggles to happen in your story?

    For me it's a maybe yes? 

    I mean, we in real life struggle and feel pain within that struggle, no doubt about it. So a story without struggle seems like a story that we can't even relate to or believe in, which might also mean we can't immerse into it, and that is obviously bad.

    And you might say, how about children's books? And I say what about them? The same applies to them, no good children's book eradicates the actual challenge that the characters go through to attain their goal... They just, baby it... For, you know... Children.

    But I guess that also opens it up to whether it (the baby-fied struggles of a children's book) can be called a tragic event. Oh well, for that reason alone, it's a maybe yes.

    So now I may think, maybe this pain we inflict, or sorry, I inflict on my characters is just me trying to make a good story? Or at the very least emulate life in hopes of making a good story...? Maybe as well.

    But then comes in my conscious mind, who tells me, no there need not be so much suffering in that character's life. It's like the equalizer for the urge, the sanity that fights the insanity.

    It is able to refocus the story away from the throes of despair and balance it to make (or attempt to) a more believable and better story. Because let's face it, no matter how you spin it, life contains suffering, but that's not what we focus on.

    And in actuality these famed works are so famous because they do not focus only on their tragedies. Even tragedies do not focus solely on their namesake. These great works are the sum of their parts, tragedy and challenge included.

    That is why we aren't turned away from Shakespeare's tragedies, but we question Spiderman's never-ending pain train. Because it seems like Peter's stories are reveling in the suffering it causes him, instead of any other character's suffering, which (when it is good) knows it is for the growth of a character, for the challenge in the journey, or the lesson it wants you to learn.

    And well, what then?

    The point is, I think life has a whole lot of suffering and I think that because of the things I've read, seen, and etcetera, because of that outlook, whether I want to or not, my writing follows it and injects suffering into my character's lives and the story as a whole. Now as a writer I also want to make some good shit, and as I talked about, a lot of good work includes suffering, a lot of good work also tends to emulate life, and that lot of good work which includes both suffering and the emulation of life is also immersive, gripping, and relatable... But at the same time, I can and do remind myself that it's actually unrealistic to only focus on that suffering, that there is happiness, and comedy, and romance, in life. Even in the darkest nights. Not only that, but it is also able to realize that these good works never drown or fester in their tragedy, but they find that right balance, they show their suffering right, because it is not without the other feelings of life. That kind of writing is what actually speaks to us, that actually imitates reality, that is actually good writing, what we as writers actually want to make.

    Or in summary:

    Suffering and tragedy will exist in reality and in fiction, but it's not all there is. Balance that shit.

    Or even more simply:

    Get good or something.

    Get it? I barely do.

    But anyway, that's that. Thanks for sitting through this abomination of a post!!!! - Z