Why pain and sadness is so attractive in stories

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Quick note: this post is a bit of a brain dump, it's not as well thought out as some of my other posts, but I wanted to get it out of my head, so enjoy XD

Here's the main thing: characters who have pain and face hardship are the characters we tend to cling to the most, the ones we like the most. So why is that?

My opinion, and the short version of the answer, is this: we love them the most because the pain they feel is familiar.

Pain is part of life, a big part of life, and it will continue to be until the return of Christ and a time where His people will go up to live in heaven. We all know some kind of pain, everyone has experienced something in their life that tried to break their spirit and block out their light. No one will make it out of this life unscathed. Those are the facts.

So if the characters feel pain, we can identify with that. Even if what they're going through isn't something we've ever experienced, we can still identify with how much life hurts sometimes. And if we have experienced what they've experienced, all the better. No, really. If we see a character going through the same thing we've gone through, it helps. It helps to see that we're not alone, and it encourages us to go on when we see that the character is still pushing through, making it through the pain and out the other side even stronger.

And here's another thing to think about: pain, unfortunately, is beautiful. It's very beautiful. It's the thing that reminds us that we're alive, and the fire that we go through to change and grow. But it's only really beautiful from the outside. It doesn't feel pretty when you're in the midst of it, and all you want is for it to go away. 

That's the big problem I have with all these Angsty Pained characters these days: their pain is written from a beautiful, outside perspective, rather than in the gritty ugly way all of us actually experience it. Like I said, this is really a subject for a separate post, but showing the pain as something that's pretty and attractive is dangerous. I did say pain was beautiful, and in a way it really is. But pain is pain.

And I think if we use it right as writers, we can use it to help everyone rather than make pain this pretty thing that we all want to feel and embrace and live in. Life is made of pain, but it's only good for you if you're doing your best to push past it and live to the fullest despite it all. Living around and through the pain rather than in the pain is the only way to move forward, and that's how we need to portray it. In my mind, that's the only healthy way forward for us writers in this scenario.

Okay, that's all I've got. That's my point of view on this. The end. See you soon.