Sacrifice are annoying! Or is that just me?

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ElectricLights

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Build up drama is kind of like constructive criticism. It gives a character the means to better themselves.
Tear down drama is like tactless criticism. It's not that helpful. Maybe a character can get something from it, but it probably will be a darker outlook on the world around them.
This is just my terminology not actual literary terms but I would think there's something pretty similar out there somewhere.
 

quicklime

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Build up drama is kind of like constructive criticism. It gives a character the means to better themselves.
Tear down drama is like tactless criticism. It's not that helpful. Maybe a character can get something from it, but it probably will be a darker outlook on the world around them.
This is just my terminology not actual literary terms but I would think there's something pretty similar out there somewhere.


this may well be....but by your definition, then, this is where one gets characters like Gregory House, Captain Ahab, Spacey's character in American Beauty...even Batman.

Bad stuff happens. It doesn't have to in YOUR book, but it does....and sometimes readers gravitate to it, if for no other reason than to finish the book and say "Christ, glad that isn't me!!!"
 

quicklime

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With all due respect, I can't do that. When I read, I get ridiculously attached to characters and their endeavors. I kind of befriend them in a sense. When I write, my characters are like my kids. I want to see them be happy. Granted, I'll through in some problems here and there so that they can grow and progress. That's what every parent wants, right?


I'm less a parent than a biographer, I guess.

That said, you may have trouble creating stories with a "real" feel if you're more worried about your character's experience than your reader's.
 

ElectricLights

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I'm less a parent than a biographer, I guess.

That said, you may have trouble creating stories with a "real" feel if you're more worried about your character's experience than your reader's.

You may very well be right but I don't exactly aim to do so. I lean more towards having my reader connect with character and take a journey with them. I do think about how my work affects whoever may read it but more on an emotional level than anything else. That's where I feel I can create more of a response in my readers.
 

willietheshakes

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I love my characters deeply. I ache for them, I hope for them, I weep for them.

And when the story goes dark -- as mine always do -- I wish them the best.

But I have to go where the story leads -- anything less is a betrayal of the story, the characters, and the reader.

Bad shit happens, to people and to characters. Some of them make it through, and some of them don't, but that's really up to them.
 

tko

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I think I get it

Sacrifice that isn't logical. Sacrifice where there could be an easier way.

I crossed the burning desert and fought a thousand warriors to be by your side

Why didn't you take the train?

Oh. Didn't think of that.


In other words, poor plotting, where the characters did dumb things that seemed contrived to make simple tasks exciting and drawn out.

I can't think of any books like this, most authors have this down pat. But I can think of a lot of movies. Scenes with mayhem and bloodshed where they could have been a simpler way.
 

willietheshakes

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Sacrifice that isn't logical. Sacrifice where there could be an easier way.

I crossed the burning desert and fought a thousand warriors to be by your side

Why didn't you take the train?

Oh. Didn't think of that.


In other words, poor plotting, where the characters did dumb things that seemed contrived to make simple tasks exciting and drawn out.

I can't think of any books like this, most authors have this down pat. But I can think of a lot of movies. Scenes with mayhem and bloodshed where they could have been a simpler way.

Ah, the old "Why do they stay in the haunted house?" question.
 

Amadan

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You may very well be right but I don't exactly aim to do so. I lean more towards having my reader connect with character and take a journey with them. I do think about how my work affects whoever may read it but more on an emotional level than anything else. That's where I feel I can create more of a response in my readers.


The problem is, just as no one will ever think your baby is as beautiful as you do, no one will ever love your characters as much as you do.
 

muravyets

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Like tko said. If the Story Problem can be solved without the sacrifice, then the sacrifice is pointless and, thus, annoying. So I guess if we see a character making an unnecessary sacrifice, we should focus less on sacrifices and more on what might be wrong with the plot.
 

gothicangel

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I think what this discussion is centring on, is one of editors worst nightmares. The author who is so in love with their characters, they tip-toe around the character and conflict, so they don't hurt their precious creation.

Now, you can throw knives, bullets and bombs as much as you like at your character, but if there is no emotional pain there I don't give a flying *beep.* Growth comes from that emotional pain. I'll give you two life examples of my own:

Real life:

I had a gorgeous flat in Stirling, just graduated, but because of the economic situation, the best job I could get was McD's, and it would not sustain me financially. My debts were rising, my dream was turning into a nightmare. I was going in circles. So I had to give up the flat, and my life in Scotland and return to my parents home. I now have a good job with the NHS, the debt is slowly coming under control, and I'm starting university again in October.
But the sacrifice still hurts.

Fiction:

In my current WIP, my MC sacrifices love [with a Christian girl] to fulfill his duty to Rome, and protect his family from the dishonour he would pull down on to him.

Sacrifice is the stuff of life, and that is why it is so appealing . . . and essential.
 

quicklime

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I think what this discussion is centring on, is one of editors worst nightmares. The author who is so in love with their characters, they tip-toe around the character and conflict, so they don't hurt their precious creation.

.



this is worth quoting for the OP. Not every story needs gut-wrenching choices, and sacrifices, but if you're deliberately protecting your precious darlings, which it sounds like you are, it can take a toll on the writing.

story comes first, and if my guy's gotta die, he dies. Not the other way around, where the story gets rewritten so I can be nice to him. Why? because I want the story to be true, and because i want it real enough it might sell one day....and both are far more important to me than my character is.
 

ElectricLights

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I think I need to clarify. My WIP doesn't involve anything as sever as death. It's a romance that takes place in college. Anything that drastic in my story would be terribly out of place, not because I want to skirt around it but because in what I'm writing it doesn't belong. Once I finish it, I plan to try writing fantasy, and if the story calls for a character's death that is essential to the story's progression then so be it. I will not kill off my characters willy-nilly because it's very clear in the way I write to see what moves things along and what's pointless. The only kind of "pointless" death I would ever use in a story is murder and, even then, it will be to propell the remaining characters into what I want to have happen next.

I don't coddle, I care for, there's a difference. My characters go through what they need to in order for growth to take place in the story and themselves. Actually, my WIP was inspired by that I got tired of seeing sacrifice in books. So, in my story I didn't give it a place to play in.
 

quicklime

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I don't coddle, I care for, there's a difference. .


maybe, maybe not...I haven't, after all, read your book. by nature and experience though, i'm a skeptic. After all, this argument is a small stone's throw from any number of other "yeah, but I'm gonna do it MY way, 'cause I just want to" arguments in writing....and, you're likely to get some flack for the implication above that someone else, who does like sacrifice, does not therefore "care for" their characters.

you're young, and new. Both are lovely attributes, but note a great many of the people who are discussing the merits of sacrifice are a good deal farther down this particular road than you, and they aren't simply trying to argue with you for the sake of argument--there's considerable merit in the things they are (trying) to tell you. Not every book needs sacrifice, but it is a pretty common result of conflict, and conflict is a pretty common tool in writing. Avoiding sacrifice narrows your niche and increases the odds of your writing coming off less than realistic.
 

Amadan

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I think I need to clarify. My WIP doesn't involve anything as sever as death. It's a romance that takes place in college. Anything that drastic in my story would be terribly out of place, not because I want to skirt around it but because in what I'm writing it doesn't belong. Once I finish it, I plan to try writing fantasy, and if the story calls for a character's death that is essential to the story's progression then so be it. I will not kill off my characters willy-nilly because it's very clear in the way I write to see what moves things along and what's pointless. The only kind of "pointless" death I would ever use in a story is murder and, even then, it will be to propell the remaining characters into what I want to have happen next.

I don't coddle, I care for, there's a difference. My characters go through what they need to in order for growth to take place in the story and themselves. Actually, my WIP was inspired by that I got tired of seeing sacrifice in books. So, in my story I didn't give it a place to play in.


Well, obviously not every story needs to involve character death or an angel losing his wings for a creepy gag-worthy "romance"Twu Wuv. But "caring for" your characters seems to imply promising that nothing really bad will ever happen to them, nothing that traumatizes or changes them in a negative way.

Some people may like that sort of fluffy read with a guaranteed HEA, but most want to feel some kind of tension and uncertainty. When there is an aura of author-bestowed invulnerability around a character, it shows.

This kind of reminds of Laurell K. Hamilton, who has said she "promised" her (fictional) character Anita Blake that she wouldn't kill any of her close friends because that would make Anita sad.
 

quicklime

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This kind of reminds of Laurell K. Hamilton, who has said she "promised" her (fictional) character Anita Blake that she wouldn't kill any of her close friends because that would make Anita sad.


christ, I never saw that, but good to know, in case I ever consider another book because I forgot how repetetive the first one was. Now I have another reason not to read her. Now I have another reason not to read her.


Now I have another reason not to read her.
 

Buffysquirrel

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It's hard to know quite what we're arguing about, though.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Is it really a sacrifice if it makes you happy? For the most part, I don't believe in sacrifice. If I give up one thing to get something I want more, it's silly to call that a sacrifice.

Sacrifice is when I give up my own life, or my own happiness, in order to save someone else, or in order to make that other person happy. It's giving up yourself, your own wants, your own happiness, for the greater good, or simply for those you love. Or simply to do the right thing. Making myself happy is never a sacrifice.

But when you ask why people have to antagonize one another, well, such is life. We don't live in a Rodney King "Can't we all just get along" world. This is reality, and wishing it were different doesn't make it so. Or even desirable, for that matter.
 

quicklime

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Is it really a sacrifice if it makes you happy? For the most part, I don't believe in sacrifice. If I give up one thing to get something I want more, it's silly to call that a sacrifice.

.


this is another point...the angels in question freely chose to do this, they chose to lose their wings because more than that, they wanted love, no? That's less "sacrifice" than "consequence," and real life is full of those:

I want a car, I gotta part with 25 grand.

I want pecs, I need to get my ass to the gym, sweat a lot, and spend less time at home getting intimate with Ben and Jerry.

I want my kids to learn respect, and to listen, I have to go through the drama of punishment...and they want to talk back, they have to deal with the consequences as well, and decide if it is more important to say something pissy in the heat of the moment, or to avoid the punishment that will follow

I want to stay married, I gotta decide which fights are worth dragging to a win at all costs and which are not, where I park my pecker, etc....

Hell, if I want a sixteen-inch tuna sub, I probably don't get to also eat a double-size peanut butter cookie....although that's not likely to make very compelling reading. EVERYTHING has consequences.
 

job

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Some books are 'about' character growth and change, life-changing decisions, suffering, sacrifice, redemption and suchlike.

Some books are 'about' solving a mystery, having an adventure, falling in love or just making people laugh.

One class of books is not better than the other or more important or harder to write or less destined for immortality in the annals of literature. The man who wrote Romeo and Juliet, (surely the stupidest of all sacrifice books,) wrote Midsummer Night's Dream.

If the O.P. wants to write books that do not involve holding the characters' feet to the fire, there is a whole plethora of readers out there that wants to read well-written, feelgood books.
 

Jonathan Dalar

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You may very well be right but I don't exactly aim to do so. I lean more towards having my reader connect with character and take a journey with them. I do think about how my work affects whoever may read it but more on an emotional level than anything else. That's where I feel I can create more of a response in my readers.

The problem with this is that if I don't cry for my characters, my readers won't either. If all I feel toward them is a little bonding, then they're boring to my readers. You want an emotional response, but don't want to do anything to them to elicit one.

You don't have to kill off all your characters best friends or mothers, or put them through some horrific trauma, but they need some sort of sacrifice, at least something to react to.
 

quicklime

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One class of books is not better than the other or more important or harder to write or less destined for immortality in the annals of literature. The man who wrote Romeo and Juliet, (surely the stupidest of all sacrifice books,) wrote Midsummer Night's Dream.

If the O.P. wants to write books that do not involve holding the characters' feet to the fire, there is a whole plethora of readers out there that wants to read well-written, feelgood books.


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.....
 

willietheshakes

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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.....

cough*she*cough
 
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