I have…. attachment issues. Meaning I get attached to things and beings that I should not get attached to, because it’s not sane.
I have over time managed to stop being attached to things, by and large. Meaning I no longer cry if I have to change a lightbulb, because that lightbulb saw such happy times, and now it’s just going out in the trash. soooob. Okay, I was under ten at the time, and just plain goofy.
But I still get attached to anything even remotely alive, yes, including plants. And if I’m responsible for them, it can eat up my whole life.
Like, right now, because Future DIL left me in charge of her livestock while she’s away for two weeks, even if that livestock is quail I’m deeply involved in quail dynastic politics, trying to figure out if the quail who almost killed the male in the covey is actually also male or just insane, and if I even have the right quail at all. And even if I have the right quail and it will have to be separated for the rest of its natural life, or (if male) until we get some more females, or might have to be offed to keep it from killing others, I don’t want to abuse it. So I worry about its being all alone, because it’s very sad. And I try to figure out how to put some sand in a tiny cage. (These critters LOVE their sand.) And when it’s hot (over 80) I spend a lot of time giving them cool-water-foot-baths. (Filled shallow dishes to walk across.) And And And.
It’s eating my life and they’re not even my quails. I’m only supposed to keep them alive till the quail owner, with the right to high and low justice comes back. So, why do I get so involved?
Because I’m attached to them. And because they’re alive and I’m responsible for them. And letting them suffer because I’m lazy or stupid (I’m often both) is unacceptable, since neither of those is their fault.
Which brings us to: what the heck does this have to do with writing, Sarah?
Well, you might feel that way about your characters. As a fellow author pointed out to me recently: we get attached.
However, stories have a logic of their own. Your character can’t be a hero, if he never suffers. Being given a ticker tape parade because he arrived doesn’t make him a hero. Having all the luck break his way doesn’t make him admirable.
Yes, I know, for most of us characters exist. On their own, in their own way. Yes, I’ve heard writers brag they just did whatever they wanted to their characters and characters have no say.
I never thought highly of any of those writers, even before I knew that. There is a reason.
If the character isn’t real to you, it won’t be real to the reader. Some readers don’t read for character. Some of these writers are popular. But they have something missing nonetheless.
And you’re not going to drag me into a discussion if the characters exist, just elsewhen, in another world. It’s not my purview. I mean, I wouldn’t mind if I could visit some/meet them, after I’m done with my mortal coil, but I’m placing no bets.
The thing is, good characters you get attached to. And you don’t want to hurt them.
You just have to, for the world to work.
If it helps, remember that in the same way your characters exist for you, their world exists too. You’re not hurting them, you’re narrating their struggles, so people hear. And it’s your duty to honor them by writing those as well as possible.
Trust me, enough of us have got pushback on something we were doing because “it didn’t happen that way” or “I’d never do that” that we have reason to think it’s not merely a mental work around.
And I’ve had one character die on me whom I didn’t want to die. I was planning sequels with her, for heaven’s sake.
So, okay, you are attached. Feel free to imagine as detailed and happy a future for them after the story — or even after death — as you wish, and you’ll feel better.
But right now, you have to let the story hurt the ones you love. Or the story won’t be any good, and your loved ones will never LIVE and breathe.
Think about it that way.
And now, I’m going to go feed the Deposed Quail King, and water the (likely) Kriminal quail.
Mad Genius Club 
23 responses to “Attached!”
On the other hand, when authors kill off characters for no reason other than shock points or because “the rules say I must kill one character per book” Not counting murder mysteries. Where there was a perfect and well established way they could have been saved, I get really torqued. Some times I’ve known 5-6 ways to save the character, as established in-book-world, and they just didn’t do it, because of that said “Shock” value.
Of course.
I try not to torture my characters because I can. That’s far too easy.
I torture them because I care.
Of course. Things happen when they need to happen. And sometimes I torture them because they don’t get that what’s happening is GOOD.
Growing up is hard to do. So is doing The Right Thing ™. There will be pain involved, to make the lesson stick.
You have a good point, but I like the quail story better than the point!
I do think that some suffering can take place “off stage”. Much as I don’t need detailed sex scenes, I don’t need detailed torture scenes, either.
I just wrote a fight scene for a character. Now comes the hard part – he has to explain to [redacted] what just happened. And [redacted] is going to be very, very unhappy about [massive spoiler] even though it wasn’t the protagonist’s fault. Getting pounded almost into jerky in a fight is nothing compared to that, at least in the protagonist’s mind. But he *has* to face that if he is to grow and step fully into adulthood.
I don’t mind dragging my characters through hell. But I can’t stand taking their victories away.
If a character fought tooth and nail to end up happily married off in the end, I am not going to start the next book with their marriage having failed in the gap. Or start the next book with them having unlearned everything they learned in the prior ones.
Just not doing that.
Absolutely.
This is a general rule about sequels. Remember that the events in Lord of the Rings were BETTER because of the events in The Hobbit.
And the great disappointment of War and Peace.
Seriously, watching all of the main characters just unlearn everything they’d learned in the preceding pile of book. Ugh.
Because :CUES UP THE HUMANS ARE SPACE ORCS/HUMANITY F YEAH SOUNDTRACK: humans pack-bond with everything.
Including vehicles….
…found objects, sidewalk art, praying mantises, ice cubes… we can personalize and adopt anything. And provide dialogue for both sides, or at least significant looks.
I watch Tube of You shorts in the evening. I have found them to be just the thing to keep the last few active brain cells firing (if only sluggishly) until it is my proper bed time.
There was one the other night, about the rock after the girl that was kicking it abandoned it and walked away… The poor thing! Nasty girl.
Weirdly enough, I’m finding it easier to talk out unpleasant things happening to characters in dictation and then fleshing them out in the cleanup than typing the unpleasantness out de novo. I’m sure this reflects badly on me somehow, haven’t figured out how yet. 😉
Well, All that goes a long way towards explaining our relationship. Any normal person would have put me out with the light bulb.
No…..
I need to get your covers done, too. New covers.
I wonder what the implications of this are in terms of the theological question regarding pain. The fact that you as a novelist find yourself forced to inflict pain on your creations to help them to grow (to the extent that plot arcs necessarily relate to character growth) may be a hint at the reason an omnipotent, omnibenevolent Creator allows pain.
I’ve assumed that for several years now.
Exactly. Heaven must still have struggles, IMHO – because otherwise even the most saintly soul will get up to causing trouble.
https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/when_earths_last_picture.html
“When Earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it — lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy; they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets’ hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from — Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!
And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame;
Andd no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!”
It’s just you get to win and perhaps really do what you want. Maybe. I hope.
Possibly we will no longer be related to Time in the same manner.
Possibly the continual vision of the glory of God will cause the saints to grow in wisdom and knowledge and thus be continually more glorious — causing the other saints to see a more glorious vision of the glory of God.