Sacrifice are annoying! Or is that just me?

I ascribe* to the philosophy that you tear your characters down in order to build them back up, do they rise above? Or do they stay down?
But that's just me.







Or should that be subscribe?

Depends. Are you subscribing to the philosophy or ascribing something to it?

quicklime said:

sure, but here's the thing: nobody CLAIMED one was better, and nobody said the OP HAD to make his people suffer. They suggested a deliberate decision not to do so narrows the scope of what he can write and the impact he may be able to create. Not really the same thing.....

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I may certainly have been wrong in seeing an implication that a book with sacrifice is better than one without.

Now I'm thinking it should be proscribe and I know that's completely wrong, so I think I'm stuck on 'scribes!
I'm going to go commune with my dictionary for awhile. . . maybe find myself some new definitions.

FWIW, I think sacrifice is the unifying theme that connects every work of fiction that I have ever loved.

ZBasin20 said:

FWIW, I think sacrifice is the unifying theme that connects every work of fiction that I have ever loved.

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Here, also. The willingness to sacrifice things you want in order to do the right thing is a theme that keeps coming up in my work.

Without the characters sacrificing something a work feels hollow to me, like all the struggle and conflict were for nothing. It's just 'A person does something, and they get everything they want without having to lose anything and without having to change at all.' What's the point?

I'm not saying they have to sacrifice something big, necessarily - it can be as small as sacrificing their ability to go out clubbing all the time to spend time with a neglected loved one. But they have to lose something to gain something else, because that is how life works. And even in fiction, we have to tell the truth about how people are.

Edit - I think there also may be confusion about what I mean when I say 'sacrifice'. I simply mean the character must lose something, even if they gain something better out of the deal. I would say the vast majority of books have a slight sacrifice in them, even if it's a sacrifice of something the character hates and doesn't want. For example... Twilight (shudder) Bella DOES lose something - she loses her humanity, and she gets married when she doesn't want to so that she can. She gets what she wants, but she has to give up something else in order to do so. It's not a true sacrifice, but it's still a sacrifice.

It happens in real life all the time, too.

I want to be a published writer, which means I have to give up allowing my friends to come round without warning all the time, and a lot of my social life. I give up one thing in order to have something I want more.

I want some new clothes, but I have too many, so I have to get rid of some of my old clothes. I have to give up something in order to have something else.

I love sacrifices. Nothing should be free. It's a question of pay now or pay later, and both are equally good.

I was going to say because non-sacrifice is boring but I'm not convinced that's true. And I really don't know why people - me included - write about sacrifice as if there were no alternative.

When I think about it, my life is an endless series of compromises, not sacrifices. Find the best way that fits as many people dear to me as possible. So, maybe that's a sacrifice in itself, but not the be-all, end-all version one expects. I haven't fully given up many things I like. I juggle them, prioritize them, but I don't think i ever aim to give up anything which cannot be avoided somehow.

Maybe I'm one-in-a-million but does everyone forcibly throw away everything that they must to get something the want? I just can't imagine that. We're egoistic, us humans. We don't willingly surrender things which we like unless there is really no alternative.

One of those many questions where I don't think there is a right or wrong but my personal preference is to bring sacrifice into the plot. I like to at least have the protagonist be willing to make a sacrifice, even if it doesn't come to that in the end. That way it's hanging over him and the reader is wondering.

Of course getting around having to make a sacrifice can be fun as well. James T. Kirk didn't believe in the no-win scenario, as I recall.