#1 – Characters Need to Hurt

A good story matters. A good story touches the reader’s soul and changes it, just a little. A good story matters because it touches the reader’s soul and changes it for the better. Which is unfortunate, in a sense, because mankind does not tend to learn by being patted on the head and giving a lollipop. No, we sons of Adam and daughters of Eve learn as our parents did: by being punched in the face, kicked in the gut, and told to stand up for a repeat.

It is the nature of fallen man to sin. The nature of sin, as God tells it to us, is that death follows its, both final death and present death (Rom. 6:23). Suffering is the present death, in our perception, the retribution of God against unrighteousness (Lev. 24:19). Suffering fulfils a dual purpose: judgement and chastisement. What distinguishes them is not the suffering itself, though judgement certainly goes farther by passing recovery, but the purpose and end-state. Judgement is suffering until final death, until all is gone; chastisement is suffering until repentance, that life may bloom forth where once was only sin and sin’s fruit.

To deal with man as he is, then, stories must deal with sinners; to change man for the better, as he is, stories must deal with suffering. This suffering can only rarely be merely material. The destruction which afflicts the natural world is a fruit of sin (Rom. 8:22), but it is not this destruction which changes the man. Suffering changes men when it becomes their own; we do not care for suffering except that it becomes our suffering. This transition may be mediated by sympathy, by revulsion, by contemplation of the beautiful and contrast with the self, but it must happen.

All this is to say: a story where the characters do not hurt is a story which cannot pass the facile. Its narrative cannot gain purchase on the psyche. Perhaps its setting can- the Shire is a place with little suffering but much grasp upon the soul- but the narrative itself will remain remote from the reader’s heart. Sally will jump over the stream and land with a squish, but if anything in that scene is important, it will be the stream and the squish.

Stories are built around the change from one state to another. If the first is less desired than the second, we have a comedy; else, it is a tragedy (even status quo, in the presence of expected improvement, is tragedy). Suffering is the difference and the means of change. The man who beings the story must suffer to reach the end, or the end is without weight.

Characters, no matter how we like them, must suffer. Sometimes that means killing them, for the story’s sake. Sometimes it means worse. The question to ask is whether the story improves by each element and degree of suffering, whether it produces an impact in the reader and the narrative which heightens the sum. Caution must be taken not to exceed in this; too much suffering is as lethal as too little, if in a different direction (expect more disgust for an excess, more boredom for an insufficiency, though both disgust and boredom can come from both).

#2 – Characters (Sometimes) Do Hateful Deeds

This realization comes from my recent (semi-successful) efforts at starting a new story. In writing an attempt at a first chapter, I realized that I was worrying not about what the story needed but how my protagonist would be seen by the reader, how he’d be liked. The line here is fine, but the concern is real. If I sacrifice what the character needs to do for what is palatable in a protagonist, I lessen the story, possibly fatally.

The distinction that must be drawn here is between the hateful and the immoral. Murder is immoral but often not hateful. When the hero of a gritty vengeance story murders his target or cuts the throat of a foe, we can at once acknowledge the evil and find the protagonist no more repulsive. On the other hand, the hateful is that which makes a character disgusting. As discussed here, it can be cowardice, disloyalty, rape, racism, lack of chivalry, even brutality- particularly subtle brutalities, like reducing somebody to a tortured imbecile rather than killing. Killing often feels clean; these deeds and deficiencies seem filthy.

Sometimes, though, the nature of the character you like includes committing these deeds. Sometimes, as you write, you’ll realize that the man or woman you have created must do something repulsive. In the villain, perhaps, this is easier to reconcile- but in the hero? In the one you have learned to know and sympathize with? These things are painful to write, often. I may have said that I didn’t want the readers to dislike my protagonist, in the example above, but there’s also a sense in which I didn’t want to see the man do it.

I believe that a part of this lies in how we learn to know these characters. We inhabit them, see their thoughts and feelings, and in a sense become them to make their decisions. Then they do that which we hate, and we are asked to understand and inhabit what is hateful. More, when the author has put something of himself into the character (as all authors do, even just in the character’s humanity), the character’s crime becomes almost an admission that the author has the potential to do the same.

In these situations, we authors have choices. We can alter the character. In some cases that is better. We can alter the circumstances. Again, in some cases this is the right choice. I did a mix of both with one recent character; making him a rapist as well as a pagan would have dominated the story in a way that harmed its overall impact and direction. Sometimes, though, the story is best with the circumstances and the character which combine to this hatefulness, whether as a steady character element or a weakness to repent of. Sometimes the protagonist will have to do the hateful deed.

#3 – Growing as a Writer

To get better as a writer, you must write- a lot. However, that’s not enough. I can write all day, every day, and the gains I get will be marginal indeed if I’m just writing the same thing over and over again. I don’t mean writing out a story multiple times like a manual photocopier. No, I refer to a different trap: writing the same type of story over and over and over, never attempting a true challenge, using the same skills without real variation. The trap is to sit in comfort; the remedy is to venture forth.

I am a pianist of sufficient skill to sight-read the right hand in a hymnal at singing speed. I’ve been that for several years, but because I devote relatively little time to piano, because the pieces of music I’ve set myself to learning have been roughly similar to what I was doing before, I’ve probably only gotten marginally better (skill is not really quantifiable, so I speak in general terms). It’s not much. I’d guess I’m a little better at duplet-over-triplet rhythms, mainly because I keep accidentally choosing pieces that feature said rhythms.

In writing, similarly, stagnation is a danger. The man who write a thousand pulp novels may find that after the first hundred, his skills plateau. He knows how to get the results he needs from the words he has, and he has no reason to reach beyond, no idea how to do so. Now, if he is happy to be as good as he is, with only minor improvements in prose and the like, he can stay there.

Or the man can attempt a challenge. He can attempt something basically new, move from pulp novels to poetry. Likely his poetry will be absolutely miserable, both to write and to read, but growth in poetry will translate to growth in his original field. Crosspollination is a constant fact of writerly endeavor. He could also seek to take what he is already writing further. He can take his sci-fi pulps and try to elevate the material, to introduce more thorough thought and more vivid characters. This may involve a full change of genre, or it can be a heightening of the genre he already inhabits, keeping its essential elements and seeking to set them in a more brilliant setting, grinding their facets to display their fundamental beauties.

I speak in grandiose terms, but the truth is that improvement does not require such ambitious leaps. What is essential is to find what is new, what is difficult, what challenges, to find what in it is good, and to seek excellence there, despite the discomfort. For me, I like to choose some aspect of the story to attempt a change in. For one story, I omit (most of) my usual prolific use of thought-dialogue; in another, my next novel, I worked out a character arc which didn’t include doctrinal change, only the character’s relationship with what he already believed.

Such challenges keep the my writing-skills from atrophying or stagnating. They force me to seek new beauties and new skills, to develop those areas of my skill which would otherwise remain deficient, were I to refuse to engage with them. This challenge, this invitation to suffering, is how all artists grow; even the greatest genius will be ever less than he could have been if he flinches from difficulty.

God bless.