Why ... Torture Them Of Course!

I know with a title like that you're wondering if I'm bringing out the whips and manacles. Not this time... :-D

It has been brought to my attention more than once that one of my weaknesses when it comes to my writing is that I don't have enough conflict when I bang out that first rough draft. One of my dear friends, and published authors, has this discussion with me all the time. I once asked her, "Well, how the hell do I remedy that?" and her reply? "Why... torture them of course! You can't just have your hero hanging from a cliff by his fingernails... you have to pelt him with rocks too."

Okay... I can do that... maybe... *sigh*... okay, maybe not that easily. I truly do have to struggle to torture my characters (unless it's what they like, but that's a whole 'nother blog). And as I go through edits on the first draft of my Rocker romance I've been watching a certain movie in the background. Yes, I can do more than one thing at a time... can't you? LOL Anyway, so I've been watching Moulin Rouge. Yes, yes, cheesy, and sucky ending... but if ever there were a pair of tortured characters these two were it. My all-time favorite scene in the movie is the Roxanne Tango.



Something about that scene gives me chills every single time. As a dancer I admire the sensual, crisp movements of the dancers. You can taste the angst and anger and passion. And THAT is what I have to add. I have to add that angst and passion and make my reader FEEL it as if it were their own. Who knows if I'll succeed, but I'm determined to give it my best shot. So, before I go gather my rocks and work on my aim I have a question for all the authors out there: How do you make yourself torture your characters? And to the readers: How much is just too damned much torture for you to read?

Conflict!

I hate that word with a burning passion. I am a complete and utter wuss when it comes to confrontation and conflict usually leads to confrontation... and I don't do well with confrontation. Anyone who knows me knows this much at least.

I've been going through edits from one of the other Menagerie ladies on my latest endeavor... which she dared me to do... anyway she made a comment that made me groan. Sweet and sexy story, but not much of a conflict to keep them apart... or something like that, I don't have the document open to give you a verbatim quote. But, there was that dreaded word... CONFLICT!

*sigh* Did I mention I don't like conflict? Well, that's not the whole story... I don't like to write conflict because any conflict that jumps into my over filled brain is alwasy, "Done that" or "used too much" and I really don't like to torture my characters too much. Yanno?

Another story I've been working on has too much conflict to the point that my crit partners weren't even sure they liked my heroine as a person, and I realized neither did I and I thought she was incredibly immature and that drives me insane. I have to rewrite major scenes to make myself happy and still keep my "voice" in it.

Am I the only one who has a hard time putting conflict in their stories? Am I the only one who, when a conflict DOES present itself, finds that THAT conflict is cliche or ridiculous? Help! I wish there was a book I could order that had a list of helpful conflicts: you know with a table of contents chart in the front where you combine circumstances from group A, hero personalities from group B and heroine personalities from group C and it tells you to go to this page and there would be at least one full page with all sorts of suitable conflicts to choose from. Come on, you know you want one too! And since this is April Fool's day, I refuse to believe any of you that tell me there is such a book... :::narrowing eyes::: You know who you are!

How do you deal with "no conflict" in your stories do you search around in your head for a conflict or does it just come to you as you're going along? HELP!

It's TORTURE!

Lately, I've been trying to analyze "the darkest moment" idea in writing. Ideally, you want to really mess with your characters -- metaphorically run over their puppy. You take it all away, and have them hit absolute rock bottom before ultimately giving them their happy ending.

Danielle Steele (of whom I am not really a fan, for the record) did this better than anyone else. Which is why I'm not a fan. I hate seeing people I've come to adore being tortured. I can't stand it when their lover leaves, their dog dies, their kid gets cancer, their home is burned down, their....

Well, you get the idea.

And, as hard as it is for me to read a book (or watch a movie) where these things happen, it's that much harder to force it upon my characters. I fight it. I want their lives to be rosy. A bowl of cherries. ((insert favorite cliche here)).

I always say that fiction should be happy, because we have control. Life, real life? No control... not really. But fiction? You bet.

So, why should my heroine's dog die? Why does my hero have to lose his mother, brother and favorite horse in a barn fire? Why???

Because otherwise, the story would be boring. Dull as dirt. Blah.

But, it is still the hardest thing I have to do when I write. I love my characters like they were my kids. But, just like we must do with our children, we grow them as best we can and then send them out into the world. And we let them make their mistakes. And watch them hurt. And see them fail.

And we hope for a happy ending.