Do You Let Your Characters Cry?

My MC cries a lot. False tears. He does it a) to get stuff b) to avoid punishment. Always out of cold calculation. Not sure if it counts.

I think it's fine to let characters cry. It's just a matter of how.

IMO, it's best to describe it either very subtly, or go totally overboard and take refuge in audacity.

Corussa said:

This puts me in mind of an interesting piece of advice in Orson Scott Card's Characters & Viewpoint:

'If your characters cry, your readers won't have to; if your characters have good reason to cry, and don't, your readers will do the weeping.'

... As a result, I'm trying to have my characters cry only if I think it is genuinely required by the context and their personalities.

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I agree with Orson Scott Card, he makes a valid point. But that also makes me think don't make your characters fight because if you don't the readers will fight for them. I know that sounds melodramatic but that's how I see it. I'm not saying it's wrong, just that emotions should be used sparingly.

If you make any character show the same emotion too often, it loses the effect. As far as crying is concerned, I only have my characters do it if it's justifiable (someone dying) or if it's a part of their personality.

I think crying can be a really useful point in building characterization. My first novel was about a man dealing with the death of his lover; there were definitely tears! But I tried to use them judiciously. He held onto things and tried to be stoic until he totally broke down, and I made sure he was around the right people when that happened. Having him cry around them showed that he was growing to trust them, and let them see his vulnerability but also his strength when he was holding himself together most of the time.

I wouldn't trust a character who went through something TOTALLY traumatic and didn't show signs of the trauma, and I think tears are one of the healthier expressions of pain.

Lyxdeslic said:

Only when people are dying in their arms. Or if one brother is forced to chop off the other's head.

Lyx

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Excellent criteria, especially the second.

Haikujitsu said:

I guess to me it feels so intrusive--like you're telling the reader how to feel instead of drawing them to that conclusion.

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... there's more to it than this. There's a place for crying in some narratives, as you go on to add. But I know what you mean by this statement here. And crying can definitely be used by writers for this purpose: to tell readers that a scene is sad and is affecting a character, instead of conveying that more subtly.

The MC of my last book cried when he had to kill his wife to keep the vampire secrecy. I think it is fine for a character to cry.

Yup. Mine cry. However, after reading this thread, I'm a little concerned.

Oh yes, my characters absolutely cry. Not a lot, and only around certain people, but they definitely have their breakdowns at important times.

For me, I don't focus on the crying part itself for long. Just a sentence that will describe the physical happenings as opposed to "he cried."

X person dies. Character reads the note or takes the call and the numbers on the phone get blurry. Or, Character quickly wipes the wetness from corner of eye.

There are times when I've left the wailing, crying, sobbing to "the pages between." 1 chapter ends with bad news. Next chapter begins with something that might reflect on what occurred between the chapters.

Something like this:

"Character didn't have it in him to cry anymore."

And leave it at that.

In the end, writing a loud moment softer can turn up the volume in surprising ways. That said, I imagine there's a time/place for the these moments to come out stronger in the writing. Unfortunately, it's hard for me to think of examples specifically. Perhaps some folks know of a good story where they've seen the crying parts done well and in detail. Would be fun to see a list and check those stories out.

I have two characters that, for some reason, whenever they have a scene together, somebody cries. All their conversations in the first draft are ridiculously melodramatic. For me, this is a red flag. All of those scenes are better on third and fourth re-writes, and almost all of them end up without the crying.

I also like crying mentioned in summary instead of described in scene. It can be good for me to know that a character cried, but it probably won't have any effect on me to watch it in great detail.

I don't see how you can exempt characters from the action of crying without also excluding laughing, being insulting and rude, yelling, hugging, smiling, frowning, sighing, getting violent, etc--in short, all reactions that express emotions.

Why would you ever want to? It's arbitrary and has more to do with our cultural mores than the craft of writing.

One of my MCs cries a fair amount in reaction to traumatic events. She also laughs a lot. She is strong, feels deeply, and is uninhibited. (An emotional, yet strong character. Isn't this the type of complex character we are always touting as writers.) Many cultures may have issues with that--including Anglo-Saxon culture--but there is nothing intrinsically impossible or wrong about it.

Mine cry, but sporadically. I can only think of a handful of times I let them get away with it:

MMC gets falsely accused of rape and banished
FMC1's marriage falls apart
FMC2 has a trauma flashback

Other than that...they have good reasons to cry, I just prefer not to have them sobbing every two pages. But when they have a good reason? Sure. Tears ahoy.

GiantRampagingPencil said:

I don't see how you can exempt characters from the action of crying without also excluding laughing, being insulting and rude, yelling, hugging, smiling, frowning, sighing, getting violent, etc--in short, all reactions that express emotions.

Why would you ever want to? It's arbitrary and has more to do with our cultural mores than the craft of writing.

One of my MCs cries a fair amount in reaction to traumatic events. She also laughs a lot. She is strong, feels deeply, and is uninhibited. (An emotional, yet strong character. Isn't this the type of complex character we are always touting as writers.) Many cultures may have issues with that--including Anglo-Saxon culture--but there is nothing intrinsically impossible or wrong about it.

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Right on the nose.

First they say "show, don't tell", and when I show a character is sad or emotional or such by tears, then they say that's wrong.

I'll keep my emotions, thank you very much.

'If your characters cry, your readers won't have to; if your characters have good reason to cry, and don't, your readers will do the weeping.'
I like to interpret this, that the reader cries due to poor storytelling, where characters don't express emotion where they should.

Dreambrewer said:

'If your characters cry, your readers won't have to; if your characters have good reason to cry, and don't, your readers will do the weeping.'
I like to interpret this, that the reader cries due to poor storytelling, where characters don't express emotion where they should.

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I agree with allowing characters express emotions in a natural way, but I think this advice is aimed at those writers who have their characters indulge in uncontrollable fits of sobbing and/or hysterics and expect that to make the reader feel emotional, too. But it tends to have the opposite effect. Which is why scenes involving deep, huge emotions need to be written with restraint.

It works the same with humor, too. If you want your reader to laugh at a funny line of dialogue or a comic situation, don't have the characters laughing at it. That lets all the air out of it.

GiantRampagingPencil said:

I don't see how you can exempt characters from the action of crying without also excluding laughing, being insulting and rude, yelling, hugging, smiling, frowning, sighing, getting violent, etc--in short, all reactions that express emotions.

Why would you ever want to? It's arbitrary and has more to do with our cultural mores than the craft of writing.

One of my MCs cries a fair amount in reaction to traumatic events. She also laughs a lot. She is strong, feels deeply, and is uninhibited. (An emotional, yet strong character. Isn't this the type of complex character we are always touting as writers.) Many cultures may have issues with that--including Anglo-Saxon culture--but there is nothing intrinsically impossible or wrong about it.

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Yeah. The attitude against crying in our culture is stupid and unhealthy. I'm certainly not going to let it influence my writing, especially since my main WIP is set on another world with completely different attitudes.

The MC in my main WIP cries easily. It's part of his character that he's very passionate and emotional. A lot of times it's just mentioned in passing, because he'll keep talking/doing whatever he's doing. Of course this does reduce the impact of tears. If I want to show that he's really upset I have to find additional ways of doing it, which isn't a bad thing at all, IMO.

Crying doesn't break the tension of a scene unless you want it to. Certainly the scene where my MC is preventing his sister from sacrificing herself for himself and the others doesn't stop being tense just because he's crying a little while he does it. Obviously that scene won't lose tension until the situation is resolved.

There are also special cases where crying raises the tension in a scene. I have one character in my main WIP who never cries, except in one scene, and she's not doing it out of sadness, but because she's *that* scared. When my MC sees, he realizes just how much trouble they're in and the tension shoots up higher.

That's another mistake I see a lot, now that I think about it--characters crying only out of sadness/despair. Tears can come from a lot of other emotions too. Terror and relief are big ones in my writing.

Something I've come to dislike is the big dramatic scene where the hard-ass character has their one and only breakdown, which releases all the pent-up feelings. It's not necessarily unrealistic, but it's such an overused cliché.

Oh, and I don't like Card's writing, so I'm not inclined to take his advice on anything.

My characters cry, but only if it's necessary. IMHO if we all followed each and every piece of advice we read or heard, none of us would write a word.

L.

Sorry to double post, I didn't see this.

BethS said:

I agree with allowing characters express emotions in a natural way, but I think this advice is aimed at those writers who have their characters indulge in uncontrollable fits of sobbing and/or hysterics and expect that to make the reader feel emotional, too. But it tends to have the opposite effect. Which is why scenes involving deep, huge emotions need to be written with restraint.

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I agree that frequent fits of hysterical sobbing will probably get annoying, if only because they're going to tend to bring the whole scene to a screeching halt.

I don't try to manipulate my readers' feelings, though, because I HATE it when I catch a writer calculating events and character reactions to manipulate me. Like, hate it to the point of instantly wall-banging the book and never reading that author again. I just tell my stories honestly, writing whatever the character would really do in that situation, and let readers feel whatever they're going to feel. My experience has been that what readers feel will vary so greatly it's pointless to even guess at how they'll react.

The one scene in my WIP where my MC actually breaks down sobbing isn't something I particularly envision readers crying at. It's an overwhelmed relief reaction after the most intense action/horror sequence in the story, and it's honest to his character. It's also a point in the story where I'm trying to purge tension (because I need to cycle down so I can ramp back up for the ending sequence).

Depends on the characters. The novella I wrote before the YA horror had a character who cried frequently; my novel's MC wouldn't cry if she were being thumbscrewed at her best friend's funeral, because that's not how she deals with her emotions; my current WIP's MC falls somewhere between them.

What I think authors who advise to "cut crying" are cautioning against is forcing a character to cry to choreograph to the reader that the scene is sad. If you're effectively writing a sad scene, the reader won't need the road sign, just like forcing a character to laugh at a joke to choreograph to the reader that it's funny tends to ruin the effect. Characters can still laugh and still cry, but it has to be coming from them.

I know my characters in their fictional world don't know if a reader is crying, and they don't care if they are, to boot.

For that reason, they cry when they cry. And if someone on this fictional planet Earth wants to laugh at them for it, no harm was done

My characters cry, although I try not to let them do it too much. They are all very young (the oldest important character is 23, and the youngest is 4) and they go through horrible things such as war, torture, murder and rape, so they have a right to cry. However they don't burst into tears in every chapter.
My MC has some issues dealing with past trauma and feels unwell every time she's reminded of it, but more often than not she doesn't cry.
I have another character who is very joyful but also very easily offended, so I have her hold back tears for a few silly things, like when somebody is rude to her. I guess it's forgivable since she's only eight years old at the beginning of the story.

I heard a very interesting remark a while ago: "Tears only come for the smallest of sorrows." If you've lived through traumatic events, you'll know that it takes some time for you to be able to cry when you think of them. Most of the time you'll just be sitting there with your chest tight and your eyes wide open, wishing for the tears to come. That's what I have my characters do in important moments. When they do cry, it shows that they have begun to accept what happened.

StarryEyes said:

I heard a very interesting remark a while ago: "Tears only come for the smallest of sorrows." If you've lived through traumatic events, you'll know that it takes some time for you to be able to cry when you think of them. Most of the time you'll just be sitting there with your chest tight and your eyes wide open, wishing for the tears to come. That's what I have my characters do in important moments. When they do cry, it shows that they have begun to accept what happened.

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That's too much of a generalization for me. Not everyone is going to have the same reaction to trauma. People cry over little or big things, and sometimes they can't muster up a tear no matter how much they're hurting. It just depends on the person.

I let my characters cry because they're going through overwhelming events, and they deserve to shed a few tears when it becomes more than they can handle.

Haikujitsu said:

I guess to me it feels so intrusive--like you're telling the reader how to feel instead of drawing them to that conclusion. Words like "tears, wept, sobbed," etc. have me automatically reaching for the backspace button.

But then again, I've read books where it felt perfectly natural.

How do you deal with it?

-Hj

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In my latest novel, I have a character who's wife dies at the opening of the novel. It takes him three days to break down and cry (or come out of the numbness), and it's a big deal when he does, and an important scene in the novel. I don't feel it's a "telling readers how to feel" scene; there's build up, there's a particular atmosphere, and it's sort of cathartic, I hope. It's not just "And he cried because he felt bad, you feel bad for him too kind of thing..."

Another character in the same novel mentions having cried once, though he is not depcited as crying.

The novel I wrote before that has someone's eyes get moist, without actually crying, and another character who criestwo or three times in the course of the novel, because she's a bit melodramatic, and rather than say, "She's melodramatic," I try to show the ways in which she is.

Sydney Carton weeping into his pillow in a Tale of Two Cities...I read that when I was a fourteen year old girl, and it has stuck with me ever since as one of the most affecting scenes I have ever read. I don't care how manipulative it was. God how I loved that scene. Maybe I'd feel differently if I read it now. I don't know. But I think some readers are happy to have their emotions manipulated from time to time, more than a few, in fact, and I happen to be one of them.