how nasty are you?

[Artemis Cromwell]

@Dragonlady I'm still a novice writer myself, but I do put limitations on my characters' powers. Not every character has magic, even if they are born into a magic bloodline. In my series, every child is tested to see if they have it (either when they are born or sometime later in their lives). As for the cost, it depends on how strong their bloodline and abilities are. I just don't mention every restriction/limitation in my stories because it distracts me from writing the events and experiences that the characters go through.

 

[Karn's Return]

Me? I'm far too kind to them. There's enough darkness and ugliness in the real world that honestly, any writing I do anymore-and I haven't done any at all for a long time now, I don't think at all this season and not very much at all this year-is simply to make myself feel better about things so my characters all seem to wind up with the perfect little life without much challenge. :|

Something I need to change, but, I'm depressed all the time and I just want a little lightheartedness and joy in SOMETHING. That's the trouble with the world today. Nothing can ever be happy or light or silly. It's either all dark oppression or sadistically tearing any chance at anything happy a character might get just because it's "realistic."


I don't want real. I want happy. People don't seem to understand that there's such a thing as too much realism. :| Thanks for nothing, Martin. :|

 

[Capricorn42]

I suppose it's not about being nasty to characters, it's about doing to them whatever the story demands. If I wrote a love story in which a couple meet, buy a house and a lawnmower and have great holidays, then I would deserve to be pelted with rotting fruit. On the other hand, if they have the perfect relationship - and then one of them gets seriously ill. Or is arrested. Or is unmasked as a lizard... then that's not nice, but it makes for a better story.

 

[Cydramech]

My main character will have been baptized in fire. She will kill me with a grin on my face, knowing I created the best version of her that there ever could be. (I hope...)

 

[AlexH]

However nasty I am to my characters, the only time I cried at one of my stories was when one of my characters was attacked by two wild dogs. To defend himself, I think he ended up blinding a dog in one eye. I was far more upset about the dogs than my character, despite his injuries. If I ever go back to that story, I may remove that scene.

Saying that, there are definitely times I should be crueller to my characters.

 

[Toby Frost]

Apparently, the thing that Stephen King has got the most complaints from readers about is the killing of a dog in The Dead Zone.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Toby, I remember reading somewhere that the BBC got more complaints about the shooting (in a putting down sort of way, and off-camera) of a dog than multiple murders in the House of Cards trilogy.

 

[Mad Alice]

For some reason I had thought this was a hygiene question.

As for character retribution actions,I tend to wait to write them until something makes me quite angry, like finding out a friend has gotten beaten by thugs or something.
Then I punish the criminals in my writing. No holds barred. No surrender. Take no prisoners and sometimes no survivors. I work out all the beastly urges and slap them and slam the vicious predators that seek us out for their twisted amusement in the night.
Then I put it away and don't look at it until I'm calm, at least for the rest of the night. And then when the sun is shining and the world again seems gentle and caring, then I make a mug of cocoa, sit in my overstuffed wing chair I have instead of a desk chair, and have my cat in my lap purring. Then I look it over and edit the piece, dialing everything back about ninety points on the supremely vicious scale. So I write the retribution like Kali the destroyer unleashed. Then I edit like a fluffy winged angel oozing out the quality of mercy like rain from the heavens.
It's all about balance I've found. About finding that true voice inside and releasing it. Letting the connection ring through.
It's about making war and finding peace and teaching that last measure of grace how to grow from within us, after we have spent too long learning that we must guard every minute. Then reminding yourself what you are actually saving those minutes for.

 

[Dragonlady]

Came across an example today. I'm reading david olusoga's black and British, and slave trade aside, I'm not sure I would think to write something like the rivalries and violence between England, Spain and Portugal, let alone how they each treated Africa and Africans, one reason why my fictitious nation is in desperate need of foreign policy. Even today foreign policy is not a bed of roses.

 

[Capricorn42]

Iain Banks should get some kind of award for nastiness towards his characters. For instance, I'm thinking of the 'hero' in Use of Weapons. Tortured, raped, beheaded. And that's just one scene. Then there's the heart warming moment in Consider Phlebas where the hero is captured by a cult and his fingers are bitten off and consumed. Nice.

 

[The Bluestocking]

My characters get into enough trouble on their own. I don't need to further torture them or anything

 

[-K2-]

As has been mentioned in this thread by a few folks, I actually fall into the classic/old B&W movie style of things when you get down to it.

In a movie or a novel, a character can be killed and you don't need to see the wound or have it described (grabs chest and falls). A character can be tortured, but we don't need to see writhing agony as their skin is peeled...we only need to know someone hears the scream. Same-same for intimate moments; we don't need sweat and a detailed description of all 64 positions of the Kama Sutra, we just need a passionate gaze and fade to black.

I'll hedge on that here or there dependent upon what I'm writing and why I'm writing it, though usually just regarding the latter of those examples. However, that changes nothing...

A character is still killed, tortured, and made a happy face.

As to a current example...in my current effort there are scenes where not a few--but thousands--of people are killed in a single event. There is reason for it from all sides. So, with that aspect satisfied, that leaves the events. Even though I have the weapons detailed, I might state that 150 rounds are fired in three seconds of painting a crowd, but the most detail I offer is that 'people 3-deep fell in a wave.' The most gore I present in such a scene is 'a crimson fog hung in the air.' And though it won't make sense out of context (sounding excessive, which it is not), the most cruelty I 'show' is the person who performed the mass-slaughter kick one of the wounded who begs her to kill them and states, "Shut up, you're dead. Wait for it."

I can think of no reason to describe what happens further than that within the story. The horrific nature of the situation is all too clear without any detailed description.

Anywho, as others have stated, the story itself--the whys--outlines why it's terrible and horrific. Just my opinion, but the detail is only needed if the story's reasons are lacking.

Just my opinion...

K2

 

[F.J. Hansen]

My current WIP has given me plenty of opportunities to be nasty to my characters.

The first character I killed off was from radiation poisoning where his lungs were disintegrating, causing him to drown in his own blood. I had a number of characters suffer from extreme dehydration and burned alive in the fallout of a meteor impact. And my main character (Ken) and four of his shipmates were abducted and taken to a slave camp. His shipmates were stripped naked, placed in an alien menagerie, and two of them were drugged and forced to fight each other while Ken was forced to watch.

Right now, Ken's son is being accused (on a utopian world) of assaulting and attempting to rape a local girl whom he has been spending time with.