Discouragement

Discouragement

Let’s get something straight.  Reading stories where the protagonist has to suffer immensely against overwhelming odds throughout the story to eventually reach the conclusion and survive or win or succeed; that is what makes reading stories fun.  At least, the adventure, fantasy, action, mystery, drama genres.  Or any genre, for that matter.  We want to live vicariously for those characters and watch them succeed and thrive in the face of adversity.  I think that’s why we love to root for underdogs, we want them to win against the odds.  It’s the kind of story that sometimes, defies real life despite the fact that it is currently happening before your eyes.

Writing them sucks.

I like people, for the most part.  That’s a lie.  I hate people in general.  As a whole we are horrible people whom do horrible things.  Individuals can be good and do good.  But I find it very hard to believe that large groups of people can do good things as a natural tendency.  You know, cause we sinned.

Setting Jesus aside for now, (not that we should set Him aside at all, but you should get my point, right?,) writing horrible things happening to my main character comes in to emotions for me.  And each emotion comes in two waves.  The first wave is associated with the Dear-God-What-Did-I-Just-Write?  The second wave inevitably follows and that’s the Dear-God-What-I-Just-Wrote-Was-Sadistically-Beautiful.  Which then cycles endlessly upon itself, over and over and over again as I obsess over the situation or the story.

I want my protagonist and friends to ultimately succeed.  I don’t want to make it easy for them, however, and my judgement when it comes to how “easy” it is is something that I am consistently learning and developing on my writing journey.  I’d like to think that I am able to do this well.  I also like to think that I’m halfway decent at writing, so there’s that to.  (If you can’t read the sarcasm dripping from your inner voice reading this as if I was speaking it, then you have bigger problems.)

I also don’t want to hurt my protagonist.  They’re like my kids, my little babies.  I want them to grow up sheltered and safe and loved.  I want them to go out into the world kitted out in the tools of their trade.  I don’t want them to fail miserably time and time again to succeed.  But reality has to sink in, and I have to remind myself that while I may love my kids, I have to understand that discouragement and failure is a key part of growing up.

So writing and balancing that is hard.  Especially when I compare myself to other writers who have vastly more experience in this field than I do.  And that’s quite often.  I can’t help but compare myself in those degrees because if I don’t point out my flaws, how can I possibly learn to learn and grow?

That’s the same as my characters.  If I don’t let them recognize their flaws, how are they supposed to learn and grow?  As stated, writing that discouragement is hard.  Is requires a level of discernment and people skills that I don’t necessarily have at the moment.  And I can only learn how to do that by writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and writing in an endless loop that I will never, no matter how I try, get out of.

For I have stories in my head, and if I don’t put them down on paper I could very well go mad.