Tip #9 - Torture Your Characters
/As writers, we struggle to know what the interesting thing in our story is. We actively seek to find something entertaining for the reader within our own preexisting interests. We go on a complex quest to discover this fact, to come to the realization and overcome the confusion of not knowing and being lost. Yet, we never stop to think that the very steps we take to discover what is interesting is what is interesting. Readers want to witness a complex quest with struggles and challenges. Readers want to see the characters realize their weaknesses and overcome them to solve the troubles and trying times they’re faced with. The story is the experience.
So how do we go about knowing which struggle should face these characters? Which quests they should go on?
Simple. Torture your character.
Find the darkest, worst thing that could happen to your character. What would affect them in the most negative way? Make that happen. Put the character through true misery. Through truly trying times.
Then, make the character survive a seemingly infinite domino effect of things getting worse from that point. Make them cry. Make them scream. Push them to the verge of breaking. But never let them break. Just before they give up give them the strength and will they need to keep going. Do this a million times, until your character begins to see the pattern. Begins to understand that they can push through.
When attempting to do this it’s important to avoid the usual traps that others fall into.
1. Real Torture
The torture needs to feel real to the characters experiencing them and real to the reader. This means creating an anchor to a reality in which these events don’t happen as a point of reference. Whether it’d be through flashbacks, dialogue or setting the world up ahead of the tragedies striking, it all needs to be believable.
This goes to say, a character cannot be tortured by something they deem normal. If they do it regularly or if they see it regularly it cannot apply as the torture that is life-changing.
Discover what these characters’ fears are. Discover what they feel self-conscious about. Discover what they avoid. Discover their nightmares. What makes them hopeless. Who their worst enemies are. Who their rivals are. Their past tragedies. Their traumas.
When you do. Use all of them against the character.
2. Possible Circumstances
The torture can’t come out of nowhere and just so happen to be exactly what the character would hate the most. There needs to be a process as to how these events came to be and with it would come the explanation as to why the character is obligated to face these difficult circumstances.
3. Realistic Realization
The realization can’t be a literal realization.
The worst possible thing you can do as a writer is Tell something that needs to be Shown. A character should never arrive at a conclusion that the reader could not have also arrived at, and the only way to assure that both can arrive at the same conclusion through reasonable means is to sprinkle all the parts that add up to the conclusion throughout the story.
Example:
If water is the monster’s weakness, at some point before the character concludes it and decides to drown the monster to defeat it they must have seen an instance of there being a leaky pipe and it avoiding it, sprinklers going off and the monster not crossing through there, but instead, going around.
Earlier in the story - “I could barely focus over the loud barreling of the creature down the hall. Anything is better than nothing. As an animal maybe loud sounds freak it out? I hopped on one of the desks and held the lighter up to the fire detector setting off the alarms and the fire sprinklers.
Its screams could be heard as it ran out of the school.”
Middle of the story - “It caught up to me in City Hall. But I knew how to stop it now. Its thumping feet a few halls down were racing towards me. Luckily the fire alarm was right next to me. I pulled it.
But for whatever reason, this time it didn’t scream. It didn’t run away. Was it adapting? Fight or flight mode. I’d have to leave city hall and return after I’d escaped it.”
During Realization - “When I was across the river, I thought it couldn’t see me and kept moving. When I was in the school I thought the fire alarm scared it away. When I was in the sewers I could have sworn it was chasing the rats. But the river had water, the fire sprinklers were on in the school and I’d run under a pipe spewing water in the sewers. It’s avoiding the water!”
The series of events that lead to the realization could have been noticed by the reader before this realization took place. There were no parts of the equation that were hidden and thus the conclusion could be made by piecing available information together.
4. Lessons Should Make Sense
The ultimate lesson and theme needs to come from the events. There shouldn’t be a lesson learned that doesn’t apply to the story. Their proof of overcoming becomes aware to the reader through the wisdom the character acquired through the story.
Example:
Early in the story it’s established that the main character spends his time alone because he finds himself unworthy and dumb. Feels incapable of accomplishing things. But at least they’ve always got family to help them when they’re scared of the dark and monsters.
Not having friends means they have to face this monster alone and the family went on vacation just as this monster came to see the light of day. The worst possible scenario, facing monsters in the dead of night while alone.
Bad Lesson - I defeated the monster after piecing the puzzle back together. This is proof that I’m worthy of friendship and deserve to be loved.
Good Lesson - After everything I’ve been through, it turns out I could do it on my own. I’m more capable than I thought I was. And with what I know I can help others.
The Bad Lesson has a disconnect from the reality of the narrative and solves problems for the character that the circumstances didn’t give them the tools for. There is no reason surviving alone should allow the confidence to make new friends.
The Good Lesson, on the other hand, uses the very weaknesses of the character and the journey to reinforce what took place throughout the narrative and apply those acquired skills for the future.
The character should learn from the circumstances they are faced with. From the difficulties they are confronted with. But those must be the worst possible things that this character could imagine happening to them. And overcoming those challenges should not be easy. There should be moments in which the characters question their ability to continue. There should be moments in which the characters feel a lack of spirit and nearly quit on the journey as a whole. But the circumstances themselves should obligate the character to continue, to push through, to finish the journey.
Writing is difficult and it’s a process from which we only learn by doing. We only learn by being there. The struggles arise from the process, from the journey. This should be the take of your character. It should be a journey that you (the writer) are going on. Their highs should be your highs and their lows should be your lows. Write what’s true, even if the work is fiction the emotions and the journey are biographies.