Go Ahead, Make 'Em Suffer

By Margaret Lucke

Break the word compassion apart at its seam, and you'll get two pieces with Latin roots -- com, meaning "with," and passion, deriving from the word for "suffering."

Compassion refers to feelings of sympathy for someone who is enduring some sort of problem, difficulty, or turmoil, accompanied by a desire to see the person's situation improve. 

Isn't that pretty much what fiction is all about?

As writers our goal is to make the reader care about our heroes and heroines and root their success. But that success won't matter to the reader or anyone else if the hero doesn't have to suffer a bit to get there.

  There's a saying that goes: "No conflict, no story." Or, as an author friend of mine puts it: "The writer's job is to get the main character into trouble and then into more trouble." To create a story, we define what success means to our protagonist (in other words, what's her goal?), set her on a path in that direction, and then put plenty of obstacles in her way. The resolution comes when she succeeds in reaching a goal. Or fails to reach it, if the story is a tragedy.

We want the reader to feel compassion for our hero -- to worry, to be frightened, to share in the suffering, if only vicariously, as the two of them go off on the adventure together. Should the writer feel compassion too? Maybe not so much.

When I read manuscripts by students and aspiring writers, one of the main problems I encounter arises when the writer feels too much compassion for her hero. Too often, the writer yields to the temptation to let the main character off easy. Solutions to problems come too readily, and the character isn’t made to deal with the issues head-on. When that happens, the story fizzles. The stakes aren't high enough, the tension sags, and there's no reason to be concerned. If the writer has too much compassion, the reader's compassion has nowhere to go.

I think most writers struggle with this problem. We're nice people. We hate to inflict pain. We pull back from making someone else suffer, even a fictional character. After all, we like our protagonists. We think of them as friends, and naturally we want to protect them from pain and sorrow.

I've noticed that the tendency to be overly compassionate is especially true when the story is autobiographical and the hero is a stand-in for the writer. The more that the writer and the main character have in common, the harder it is to be ruthless with her in the way that's essential to creating a good story.

For a story to succeed, a writer must set up challenges for the hero and then force the hero to confront them, even if that process is difficult or painful. Be willing to be ruthless so that the reader will feel compassion. When that happens, you'll have the reader hooked.

Disclaimer: I'm really a compassionate person in real life. I try to be mean only to my characters. ;-)

Comments

[Staci]

Excellent points! My first instinct is always to be soft on my characters, even the ones I don't really like, but the story is so much better when I fight that urge.

[Susan Shea]

Agree with Staci - I sometimes like my characters too much and have to remind myself they exist only to make a good story.

[Mysti Berry]

I definitely suffer from this. It's hard to break co-dependent habits ;)

Thanks for the reminder to make life HARD for my protagonist!

[Ann]

I do like to make my characters squirm... must be the "mean streak" in me! ;-)