When we first start making up stories, especially as children, we’re fascinated with creating perfect, tailored, ideal, happy endings. After all, we don’t like to see our toys broken or our stuffed animals sad. We want the best for them. That’s what children are usually eager to do. Most of us, anyway.

(Now, mind you, a neighbor kid of mine gave off serious serial killer and animal torturer vibes before we were 10, and that was educational in its own right — I never forgot the shimmer of psychopathy when I met it after that. He convinced me that the stuff of horror movies had a real-life basis.)

Well, it’s one thing to day-dream naively about fixing all your own problems, or those of your imaginary friends, but when you start creating stories for public consumption, you begin to realize that you’ll be, as it were, sharing your work. And that means you have to scrutinize it from a more responsible point of view.

So I look at my, well, my moral toolkit when I create my long series stories. I don’t really want my characters to suffer, not for real (I mean, I really like many of them), but functionally, well, it’s hard to have a story with important stakes without strife and disappointment, even if all ends well. People are gonna die, likely. People are gonna lose important friends and family, likely. People are going to make stupid missteps and regret them later, possibly fatally.. I could have made them all infallible and well-meaning… but that’s not how it works.

So, I mustn’t indulge in benevolent dictatorship. I have to be a distant sort of deity, in order for there to be any interesting story. But there’s still a line… I can’t, as the line goes, “kill the dog” without consequences from my readers and even from my own conscience.

How, where, and why do you draw your “ownership for my created worlds” responsibilities?