The Stages of Torturing a Character

Inflicting terrible things on characters is the number one way to create sympathy for them. And where there is sympathy, there are readers who will continue to read your book to make sure that things turn out for your characters. And usually they do. But in the middle (*crazy laugh*)bad things happen to your characters. Terrible, eclectic assortments of injuries, embarrassments, friend fights, and moments of crying into threadbare pillows behind closed doors come flying toward the characters like so many dodge balls on the playground. Ah, how I love tortured moments.

These moments will have all the readers in complete agony for the characters, longing to yank them out of their nest of problems and give them a cup of hot chocolate and some TLC. But they can't. So the characters are left all alone to weep over their problems.

And the best part is, as the writer, these problems are all your fault.

You're welcome.

And now I present to you (drum roll please): The stages of doing terrible things to a character.

Stage 1: You don't want to do anything bad to the characters.

You have such a lovely cast of characters, and you don't want to do anything to their precious little souls. Well, too bad! (another Bad Cop reference, if you didn't notice) You've got to. 

Stage 2: You decide to do something to them anyway.

You get over your earlier pity for your characters (who needs pity, am I right?) and finally do something to them. Nothing too big, just a bad day at school or a little brick dropped on their head to give them an itty bitty little concussion. I remember when I first learned that hurting the characters would result in sympathy. It was my very first novel, and I was told to hurt the characters, so I broke my MC's leg. Broke it right in half. Don't really remember how it happened, I think he kicked a jail cell window? Or something? But anyway, broke his leg. My first time hurting a character, and I snapped his leg. And it felt good. Which leads me to the next stage:

Stage 3: You discover that this is fun. So you do something worse.

After trying something the first time, you start to get the creepy psycho feeling that hurting characters is actually kind of fun. So you try something worse. Give them a terribly haunted backstory, strip their powers from them, maybe even kill their grandma (but really, that's kind of cliche). You're starting to get the hang of this.

Stage 4: Maniacal Laughter

This step speaks for itself.

Stage 5: Regretting Everything.

At this point you start to realize that all that terrible stuff that just happened to your characters was your fault. All your fault. And that makes you feel kind of bad. This step can be accompanied by crying silently, eating a whole bag of chocolate, or staring at the wall for a prolonged period while recontemplating your existence. Don't worry. This stage comes to you naturally.

Stage 6: Becoming okay with it.

You're a writer. It's part of life- or at least part of your life- to hurt characters and make them wonder why they even bother getting up in the morning. At this point you may sit there with your eyes closed, feeling a moment of zen as the acceptance washes over you. Feel free to sit in a bed of flowers in lotus pose if you wish, or start singing any amount of creepy villain songs that may come to you. Enjoy this bit. But if you're anything like me, you'll enjoy the next stage even more.

Stage 7: Doing even MORE bad things to the characters.

You're now running through your novel like an out-of-control flower girl, scattering pain and problems wherever you go. It comes naturally to you now. A little family fight here, a little mace to the head there. In your mind, it's an art form now.

Stage 8: Repeat

Back to the beginning with you. "I don't want to hurt all my characters, they're my babies, they're all so nice, I don't want anything bad to happen to them! Oh wait, but what if I did this to them????" And so it goes on to eternity.

Here's hoping you found my post funny. You probably know this without my telling you, but this post isn't actually writing advice, and it's not a genuine recommendation for how you should treat your characters. It's just a sarcastic post. If you liked it, though, please tell me in the comments, and let me know if there's any stages I missed! And make sure to let me know if you've ever gone through these stages, too. Or maybe it's just me. . .  You can follow me on my Instagram and Twitter accounts as well, where my attempts at humor are posted at least once a week. Enjoy.