Does anyone else feel bad for their characters?

[Amber5885]

I have been looking through some of my old stories and I cant help but feel just a tiny bit bad for what I have put my main characters through. Especially Ethan Harlow from Wolves among men, I spent most of my time apologizing to him as I read through that story lol

Has anyone else had a similar experience? felt the same way for there lovelies?

[Chrystalla]

I torture my characters so much!  It's a sign of love, I swear. I generally feel bad about it, but can't help myself...

[Guardian]

Yep, especially for my favorite character. So to ease my sense of guilt I also gave many great and memorable moments for the winged lady.

[gryeates]

Afraid not. My characters are born to die, or go insane, or discover that staying alive & sane in a monstrous world is the worst kind of nightmare.

[David Adams]

I've said it before, but my style of writing is to create realistic, sympathetic characters with flaws... then torture the hell out of them.

As I'm an emotionless writing cyborg, I don't feel any weak human emotions regarding my characters.

[Italiahaircolor]

For me, it's part of the joy. 

That might sound sick as in my first novel the protagonist dies of cancer and in my second, one character is the victim of domestic abuse.  But, I love how these characters figure themselves out in the middle of crisis.  I write their stories while they're the ones who guide them.  I don't shy away from the uncomfortable ... life is uncomfortable.  But the true merit of a character isn't found in giving them a happy ending and a blissful path, it's in watching them worm their way through a hole. 

[Seanathin23]

It sucks to be one of my characters but they are usually going to have a gran adventure before they die or get maimed or whatever cruel fate I have bestowed upon them. 

[-alex-]

Oh yes. Considering what I've put them through, and plan to put them through.

[KirbyTails]

My novel, The Night Life, is quickly turning into something of a "Support Gays, Religion is Evil!" kind of circlejerk.

(Note: Religion is not evil.)

My main character, Richard Broozer, is gay. He grows up in an extremely conservative home, though, with a very religious mother, and is pretty much petrified to tell anybody, and I mean anybody, about his secret.

He constantly refers to himself as sinful, a genetic anomoly, etc.

It literally tears him apart inside.

After his mother's death, he tries so hard to please his father, and goes to extreme lengths to hide his homosexuality, even when nobody really suspects anything.

It's heart-wrenching, really.

[Millard]

Nah, my characters are usually monstrous.

Which is why it's great when the audience feels bad for them.

[William Woodall]

I sympathize and feel sorry for some of them, sometimes, especially if they happen to be an otherwise endearing character who suffers a lot through no fault of their own.  But then again, it's times like that which make us stronger and better people, and usually I can end up being glad for them that they didn't give up and learned a thing or two about life and love.  If nothing bad had ever happened to them then they wouldn't have had the chance to grow.

[Cheryl Douglas]

I experience this all the time, especially in the case of characters I really connected with. Hopefully, that means readers will experience the same connection and it will make them want to root for the character all the more! Imho, if a reader feels bad for our characters and what we've put them through, we've done our job as writers because we're making them feel something.

[Pearson Moore]

"Does anyone feel bad for there characters?"

Where characters?

Reminds me of Young Frankenstein:
"Werewolf!"
"Where wolf?  There wolf.  [Points into the forest] There wolf."

I suppose there are people who feel bad for their characters--characters they're concerned about.  They created the characters, now their creations suffer or die.  I suppose it is hard.  I don't mourn my characters, though.  I mourn the loss of precious parts of our culture--things we should have instilled in our children, but instead seem to have taken for granted:  Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic.  Our children know all about Madonna and Lady Gaga, but can't spell to save their lives.  This is what I mourn. 

[J.R.Tate]

There are times I definitely feel bad for my characters.  Writing is my stress relief and I tend to take things out on them, especially my two main guys, Mikey and Lane.  I have put them both through so much in my books.  Poor Mikey is an alcoholic and I have him fight with his demons in wanting to take a drink. 

They are both troubled heroes in my series and endure and face things that they really don't want to go through.  I guess you could also call them reluctant heroes, since they go into things they were not expecting.  Mikey is a firefighter and Lane is a cop... they tend to experience things not too pleasant compared to "normal" people.  I'm hoping since me, the writer, can feel that sympathy toward them that the readers can make that connection as well. 

[Sean Patrick Fox]

*their

Sorry, couldn't resist 

And to answer your question, no, I don't feel bad for my characters. Bad stuff happens to them sure, but I'm generally not one for "tragedy" at least unwarranted ones.

[foreverjuly]

Yes, it deserves to be mentioned over and over again, because this is a forum for writers.

THEIR

[George Berger]

Feel bad? Hell no! My characters meet slightly strange and interesting people, take part in moderately exciting pseudo-adventures, get caught up in mild excitement, occasionally get lucky, rarely get indigestion/heartburn/migraines/hemorrhoids, and never seem to have to worry about how they're going to pay the phone bill or the vet.

Okay, so they, admittedly, occasionally encounter gruesome deaths and sinister conspiracies and the seedy underbelly of the world and random strangers who want to kill them, but in the ghetto where I live, we call that "Saturday".

[MikeAngel]

Since I have the official badge from Betsy,

I feel bad for writers who don't know the difference between their/there/they're. And for the lollygagger who wants to say all of this is simply an unconscious faux pas when posting. I say, get real. Such errors are one thing in a post, and quite another in a post title. Yeah. I'm hardboiled. And I don't hyphenate it. 

[Andrew Warwick]

Not really, no.

There are occasions when I wish I hadn't killed a character off, which is about as far as I go, but their deaths are normally required by the plot.

[Carradee]

Not particularly. I mean, I might think You poor character.  You need a friend to give you a hug.  But I don't feel like I need to apologize to them for what's happening.  What happened and what's happening shape the characters into who they are.

One good writing buddy of mine says it can be a bit disturbing listening to me on the phone, because I'll be chuckling as I tell her about the latest torment I'll be putting my poor character through.

Then again, I'm well aware my characters are figments of my imagination. When I encounter someone in real life who's been through some of what I put my characters through, I react far differently.

[JRTomlin]

I have been looking through some of my old stories and I cant help but feel just a tiny bit bad for what I have put my main characters through. Especially Ethan Harlow from Wolves among men, I spent most of my time apologizing to him as I read through that story lol

Has anyone else had a similar experience? felt the same way for there lovelies?

I cried when I killed one of my main characters so I suppose you could say I felt bad.

[Edward M. Grant]

If you don't feel bad you're probably not making them work hard enough. Of course if you kill them all off every time, your readers probably won't be having much fun either.

I'm trying to decide which of the characters to kill off in my current story. I think some of them will get to 'die' off-screen so I can bring them back if I ever write a sequel .

[meromana]

For me, it's part of the joy. 

That might sound sick as in my first novel the protagonist dies of cancer and in my second, one character is the victim of domestic abuse.  But, I love how these characters figure themselves out in the middle of crisis.  I write their stories while they're the ones who guide them.  I don't shy away from the uncomfortable ... life is uncomfortable.  But the true merit of a character isn't found in giving them a happy ending and a blissful path, it's in watching them worm their way through a hole. 

Exactly!  If bad, sad, or scary things didn't happen to our characters, they wouldn't be very interesting to read about.  Who wants to read "Perfect Suzie's Joy-filled Day"?  Blech!  

Seeing their pain & sorrow helps readers connect with characters and actually care what happens to them.  Even my bad guys have problems with which readers can sympathesize (sick kids, bad marriages, etc.), so the reader gives a darn and wants to keep reading.  It's all about connecting readers to the story...

--Maria

[KateDanley]

[scslawin]

I read this thread based on the thumbnail image. I really wanted to like this thread, but I'm going to have to rate it only one star due to the typo in the thread title. I am also requesting a refund.

Oh, and I feel bad for my characters once in a while. I also get very PO'ed at my characters when they ruin my extremely well-planned plot outline by veering completely off-track and taking the story to a place I never, ever intended it to go. I especially hate it when a character I intended to die refuses to do so, or when a character I designed to live gets killed off without my consent. The latter of which has happened to me numerous times.