Young Writers Society

I am determined in my books to have at least one main person die. Lots of people are going to get seriously injured. One person is going to be stuck in time, left alone in a dark room for thirteen--or so--years while never aging, never needing food or drink, and her only hope stuck in a utopia. One person is going to go through a incredibly incredibly incredibly painful operation in order to maybe gain the powers she needs to help on her journey. One person is going to be in love with a girl who has amnesia of sorts and doesn't remember him, and for a plot reason cannot tell her that she knows him. One person witnessed/slashed caused her parents deaths at the young age of five. That's what I can think of off the bat.

Okay, so split these between two books. Still, am I being too hard on my characters? I mean, some of this stuff happens to one person, and while I know that being too easy on a character is both boring for the reader and doesn't help a character grow, I'm wondering if I'm being too cruel. Am I?

Ask yourself a few questions:

~ Is the in-story pain (operation, injuries, ect) just for pain's sake, or is there a reason they have to be in so much pain?
~ Is the death just to have a death, or can nothing else happen in the plot/to the character?
~ Is any painful backstory they have driven by their situation at the time?
~ Is any pain in general driven by the situation at the time?
~ Do the characters have the skill to not get injured all the time, and if not, what's keeping them from getting killed instead of injured?
~ Have you planed out the repercussions of the pain in the rest of the story, or does the pain (intense physical and emotional) wrap itself up quickly?

In just about all of those, "pain" refers to either emotional or physical pain. If you can come up with a justification for the pain you're putting in, keep it. If you can't, rework or cut it.

The reason I'm not saying if the list above is too cruel or not is because of what I can put my characters through. I also tend to pick up books with plenty of character torture in them, so it's really relative. The only trick is, the pain has to be justified and come from the character's situation. On paper, pain can look like too much. But in a living plot, pain can make perfect sense. It's just a case of making sure your pain comes from a realistic source/for realistic reasons instead of just "putting characters through pain is good/fun." (Not saying having that mentality is a bad thing, cause I get most of my conflict that way. But I always make sure it's the current situation causing the pain, not my whim that the character should be in pain cause it's fun. Whims tend not to fit in with the current situation, or make the story a pain to write after, most of the time)

Hope this helps!

~Rosey

I don't think there's a such thing as "too cruel" as long as the cruelty happens for a purpose. If a person is brutally tortured just for the sake of a brutal torture scene, that is too cruel, but if the torture they are subjected to changes who they are, it probably isn't gratuitous.

If the cruelty is happening because the momentum is dead, that's also no reason for cruelty...especially since romance can be a strong momentum-inducer .

As long as the cruelty has some sort of...well, not a reward, but serious consequence, I wouldn't call it excessive.

I agree with Rosey Unicorn and miroirnoir95 about the idea of intentions. Gratuitous violent scenes, for the sake of violence and/or appealing to an older audience, are a no-no.

Obviously if it's a war or battle orientated story, there's going to be some deaths, injuries, violence and possibly torture. I'd add to Rosey Unicorn's points:

-- Does the violence need to be spelled out in great detail? Sometimes violent scenes are necessary, but describing blood and guts rarely is. I'm pretty sure if someone was being attacked or tortured so badly, they'd be in too much pain to describe it, and everyone else would be either helping or running away, not taking note of every detail. So if it's a first-person or close third-person narration, excessive description in this type of scene is unrealistic, as well as unnecessary.

-- I second miroirnoir's point about the injuries, too. You need to have a realistic ration of injuries to deaths. What is a "realistic ratio" depends on many factors, such as the type of weapons, location, access to antibiotics and medical care etc, that the characters have.

On one hand, some novels/series shy away from deaths, preferring to have large numbers of injuries. This can work up to a point, but if your characters are running through battles all the time, eventually someone is going to get killed.

-- Also, I've noticed that in some books, people either die at the time of an injury, or walk away. This may be justified in sci-fi/fantasy series, where the killing ray/spell either does or does not hit you, but in any other situation there will be a range of things, including people who end up permanently disabled, people who survive but die later due to complications, etc.

I'm just wondering about the character having the painful operation: is there anasthetic or anything? Because you could avoid the painful-for-the-sake-of-painful effect by having some kind of painkiller that works, but not completely, rather than avoiding sedation/anasthesia altogether. Or have a painful recovery. Because the surgery-without-anasthesia thing is slightly cliche (I'm not sure if that's what you meant by a painful operation).

Anyway, generally I'd say this sounds okay spread over two books. It also depends on the number of characters you have. If every single main character gets seriously injured, that's different to if these 4-5 things you've listed happen over a large cast of characters. Generally, keep in mind the whether it is necessary/realistic, firstly, to have the injuries, and secondly, to describe them.

Thanks for the advice guys. These things are for the plot; without these things my characters wouldn't develop the way they need to.

And as for the operation, it's not a typical one. It's sort of like experimental testing, in a far out way. Anyways, anesthetic isn't available, nor would it help much. It's hard to explain without giving a whole in-depth summary of my plot.

Anyways, good advice. Thanks.

You can never be too cruel, as long as it's not unrealistic/unreasonable/without greater purpose.

Nah, your not being too hard don your characters. As long as their pain is happening for a reason, its okay. Think of Harry Potter or Jacob Black.