Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Mr. Sensitive
I’m reluctant to begin the last phase of my romance. You know, the bit where Boy and Girl meet obstacles, stress out, and (eventually) overcome said obstacles before doing the monkey dance. I’m looking forward to the monkey dance, I really am, but the “stress out” part has got me down.
I mean, I’m seriously bummed about what I need to do. It sucks. I don’t want to torture these two. But when I consider my options:
A. Boy & Girl meet Strife and kick his ass, or
B. Boy & Girl have clear-sailing to their HEA,
the only good thing I can say about (B) is, It’s certainly the less trite option of the two.
But as I mentioned on Tam’s blog the other day, maybe things are trite because they work so well . . . i.e., there’s a reason some things become part of the formula. They’re really necessary. (Don’t think that’s true? Let’s have that “romance without an HEA” discussion again.)
I’m resigned to it. I have to write the difficult stuff, I know, but it upsets me. This is why I can’t write horror, or at least when I do, it comes out comical or understated. The one time I wrote an edgy, balls-to-the-walls story (something called “God’s Claw,” about a cannibalistic feral child who happens to be the tale’s hero) I felt sick to my stomach for days.
My writing affects me. I’m mature enough to avoid writing for catharsis, so the bile does not drip into the page; but I can’t seem to avoid absorbing the nastiness of the story itself.
Sometimes this works in my favor. Writing a romance has done wonders for my mood, and those sex scenes were like methamphetamine to my libido. (“Your libido didn’t need any help,” the wife told me.) But I guess I have to take the bad with the good.
So, writers of the blogosphere, speak: does this happen to you? How do you make your characters suffer without suffering yourself?
D.
You know, I don’t actually know how I do it.
I have one who has his entire family murdered, and who is then imprisoned and tortured, and I was able to write that without it particularly bothering me.
It may be that I put less of myself in my characters. One of the senses I get when I read your writing is that I’m getting parts of Doug. I don’t know which parts, and I hope that they’re freshly washed, but I feel that they are there.
I know that some of my characters are myself as I would like to be, but with important changes. Others are not like me at all. And if I really think carefully about it, I realize that my characters are all creatures of the plot: their personalities and foibles are formed by the requirements of the plot, not by me.
I think. Of course, I could be completely self-deluded. I’m not so vain that I don’t consider that a possibility.
Anyway, I don’t have trouble tormenting characters, because the plot requires that they be tormented.
Thanks, Dean. I suspect you’re right about why this one in particular bugs me (even God’s Claw had a certain autobiographical thread to it . . . not that I’m admitting to an upbringing as a cannibalistic feral child 😉
In the NiP, for Brad, I took the twisted romantic that I was in high school and carried him to the nth degree.
Ya know, the upbringing as a cannibalistic feral child might just get you a spot on Oprah.
I don’t usually have issues torturing my characters.
I did write a scene where I was crying as I was writing it–I think I tossed it, because I can’t find it any more.
No advice from this quarter, but I am waiting with great anticipation to hear how to deal with this.
I have problems getting into the hearts of my characters because I don’t want to have to feel what they’re feeling, and I’m not sure how to imagine it without living it [at least emotionally].
For instance, there’s a short story that’s been in my brain for several months about a woman who loses her daughter to leukemia, and how it affects her faith, and how she comes through it.
I don’t know how to write it without imagining myself in that situation, so I haven’t been able to let myself tackle it.
If done honestly, it’s got potential to be a really good story, but I don’t know if I have the ability to get it down right, you know?
That’s not quite the same thing you’re talking about, but maybe it’s in the same family? The probable advice for myself is quit being a weiner and just write the damn thing.
I’m probably just freaking out because I’m imagining it to be a lot more painful than it really is?
Suck it up, Doug. I have it on good authority (Crusie, I’m pretty sure, but maybe it’s Kinsale. Or could be Gaffney. Somebody good, anyway.) that if you want to write something that’s going to grab readers emotionally, you’ve got to bleed on the page.
If I find the reference (don’t hold your breath–I’m horrendously behind), I’ll pass it on.
Here’s a reference. blood on the page
Must get back to catching up.
sxKitten: snarl. If you see me around a boomerang, watch out.
May, that’s one of the reasons I still have faith in my trilogy (editing on the backburner, thanks to the NiP). I cried through most of the last 80 pages or so, cried again when I reread them, and still get choked up when I think about how I’ve left my protag.
Shelbi, I’d love to see how you resolve something like that (your story, that is). I have never understood how people can reconcile a belief in a loving God and the suffering of children.
Darla, I had trouble logging in at that site. But thanks for the words of encouragement. Yup, I’ll suck it up 😉
I cry as I type – but I tend to get over things quickly. Shallow as a mud puddle. It helps.
Could there be a third option, Doug? Like boy and girl meet strife, lose, but are brought closer together and are better persons for it?
Yeah, I should have defined the situation better. By ‘strife’, I meant strife in their relationship. As for the external bullshit, I have no intention of making it easy for them. It’s the psychodrama between them which bothers me.
. . . I’m a nonconfrontational kinda guy, I guess.
so did you suffer when you wrote the birds book? hmmm. If you did, you had to really be in pain.
Can you send me your latest copy? Please? I can’t find it on my computer and I’m way overdue on reading it.