Making Characters Suffer: What's That All About?

It is true. Cheever's work did bring home that ‘life is never a box of chocolates. And if it is, it’s probably going to find a way to poison you anyway’. We seem to be hooked with the trials and tribulations of a character’s life; their flaws and how they deal with situations gives them character (see what I did there? Anybody?). After all, it’s what makes them relatable, more like ‘us’. So is it wrong to make them suffer like we do?

 

I seem to almost always convey some type of negativity in my creative pieces, whether it’s intentional or not, it finds a way to creep under the floorboards. Actually, I especially do it in children’s stories, not to scare them, but to simply question; what would you do?’ It is hardly surprising that Cheever, too, has ghastly ghouls scratching at the forefront. If we take into consideration that he relied heavily on alcohol, and had a troublesome time ‘accepting who he may have been’, it may come as no surprise that the majority of his work isn’t children riding unicorns on a rainbow. Quite a proportion of Dickinson’s work was somewhat similar.

 

It could be that they are trying to guide and teach us the only way they know how, similar to what I do myself. A part of a quote from Al Alvarez states: “you become obsessed with the beloved's whole take on life... you want to be him”. The reality is that you probably don’t.