How Much Do You Sympathize With Your Characters?

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I mean, consider some of the stuff you put them through. Should anyone have to suffer that?

Do you ever just feel sorry for them and want to apologize to them?

 

[lovecraft68]

I do and I imagine others do as well, especially in longer works where you really invest in the character.

You feel like a bad parent

 

[SimonDoom]

My characters are generally having a good time in my stories. I can't say I feel bad for them.

 

[Djmac1031]

My characters are generally having a good time in my stories. I can't say I feel bad for them.

Same.

With a few exceptions in my fantasy stuff, my characters are usually having a good time, finding love or just getting laid.

I have written some characters with sad or rough back stories but usually by the end of the story they're in a much better place.

 

[millamomud]

I may or may not have shed a tear while writing the grand finale of my current project. I think it may wrench a few guts.

 

[anthrodisiac]

While I don't empathize with my characters hardly at all, I am pretty sympathetic to how much shit I put them through I have 100% apologized to characters after I wrote a horrific scene.

I wrote a lot of horror and really dark things. Dozens of short stories, a few books, very rarely happy fluffy things. Apocalypse, monsters, cruel life circumstancs, dismemberment, cannnibalism-

"What was that last one?"

...disfigurement?

And of course, most of them tend to have a slew of anxieties and inner turmoil, so I'm sure most of them would appreciate it if I stuck with fluffy rom-coms instead of being tortured by the past.

Very few people deserve the sorts of things I put them through. But art demands sacrifice, so... Sorry, dude.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

I mean, consider some of the stuff you put them through. Should anyone have to suffer that?

Do you ever just feel sorry for them and want to apologize to them?

Almost all of my characters are bad people. I don't treat them half as bad as they deserve.

Worse, they usually enjoy it.

 

[Djmac1031]

Almost all of my characters are bad people. I don't treat them half as bad as they deserve.

Worse, they usually enjoy it.

While most of my characters are decent people, I have written a few Bad Guy types.

And I will say they're a blast, not just to write, but to give them the comeuppance they richly deserve.

 

[crookedletter]

I guess I hold my characters at a bit of a remove. I like to get inside their heads enough so they feel real to me, so I can have a good sense of what they would do or say. I feel like I know them. But do I care about them?

I'm not sure I really empathize with them. Like @anthrodisiac said, in my non-erotic stuff I have some pretty gnarly shit happen to my characters. I wouldn't say I feel bad about it. Just like in watching a movie or reading a story I can be wholly invested in a character but enjoy watching their life (or their body, depending on the genre) get torn apart if it's in service to the story. I guess I'm a bit of a fiction sociopath in that regard.

And like @SimonDoom said, in my erotic stuff my characters are generally having a pretty good time.

 

[dirk2024]

I've killed a couple of characters now, writing in Erotic Horror. They were nice people, didn't deserve what happened to them.

But no regrets on my part.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I agree with some other replies. My stories are generally about decent people having a good time.
But this poor guy, A Fortunate Man, this guy I feel sorry for. I put him through hell.

 

[Erozetta]

Pretty much all of the bad stuff I put my characters through, I've already experienced. I feel bad for them, but not for me, weirdly, lol.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I mean, consider some of the stuff you put them through. Should anyone have to suffer that?

I don't know about shoulds, but I have went through similar crucibles, and sometimes worse. All my stories either have elements of the things I went through, or are outright based upon my experiences.

I don't feel bad for them; I feel bad for myself. Then again, it's what heals me, and writing is what I do...

 

[Dancefactory]

I have a non-con story (blackmail basically) written 20 something years ago. Last year I finished the series and gave the main characters happy end. They won, and the bad guys went to jail. I felt really good, for I really love them.

 

[SmilingLez]

I can totally sympathize/empathize with Kai, in my flash fiction Under the Sea. Endings for a valid reason (such as my free verses Seventeen and The Lucky Plate Club) don't effect me at all

 

[MK_Whimsy]

I mean, consider some of the stuff you put them through. Should anyone have to suffer that?

Do you ever just feel sorry for them and want to apologize to them?

No, because I know they secretly like all of it.

 

[BeechLeaf]

What I put them through is anger, tears, jealousy, misunderstanding, occasionally a bit of shock, betrayal, depression - what any normal person goes through. I don't put them through erotic horror or BDSM or alien possession or...

That said, by far the worst thing I've ever done (to any human being, and probably tout court in my entire life) is the backstory I gave to one character (not this site), and if I'd known her better then I perhaps couldn't have done it. Yet because that horrible past happened, she was free to find a new love, the central part of the story concerning her. I feel so conflicted: it was awful, but in the end it gave her so much more. Still, I will always live with that on my conscience.

Edited to add: [anthrodisiac's question below was answered in a private message]

 

[anthrodisiac]

What I put them through is anger, tears, jealousy, misunderstanding, occasionally a bit of shock, betrayal, depression - what any normal person goes through. I don't put them through erotic horror or BDSM or alien possession or...

That said, by far the worst thing I've ever done (to any human being, and probably tout court in my entire life) is the backstory I gave to one character (not this site), and if I'd known her better then I perhaps couldn't have done it. Yet because that horrible past happened, she was free to find a new love, the central part of the story concerning her. I feel so conflicted: it was awful, but in the end it gave her so much more. Still, I will always live with that on my conscience.

I know it's not on this site and you want to protect your privacy, but broad strokes, what was so bad? Totally fair if you don't want to share, just curious. As someone who has done some of the most abysmal things to characters, I'm always curious to see what other people see as "attrocious," then twiddle my thumbs and hope they don't ask me because it was positively anodyne by comparison to 90% of what I've done

 

[Baztrachian]

I mean, consider some of the stuff you put them through. Should anyone have to suffer that?

Do you ever just feel sorry for them and want to apologize to them?

Well, they are imaginary so no, I do not sympathize with them.

However, I do try to imagine how a real person might feel in their position. And that factors into my stories.

 

[Baztrachian]

Well, they are imaginary so no, I do not sympathize with them.

However, I do try to imagine how a real person might feel in their position. And that factors into my stories.

I guess to expand on this I prefer my characters to have a degree of reality about them.

It's part of what draws me to non-consent stories because in real life non-consent has been present in my life. My sister was raped by my father. My first wife had a rough experience with her first. A guy I knew committed horrific crimes and will not leave Federal prison until 2047. It is real. It might not be preferable for some people but it is real.

Like I don't tend to write about women who cavalierly engage in sex mostly because I don't know any such women in real life. Every last woman I know is impacted and affected by sex. Almost all of them second-guess their experiences...even the ones who have storybook weddings to great guys.

Men have issues too. Kinks come about from experiences or desires.

My first wife was frigid and averse to even the risk of having kids. Thus when I got with the girl who became my second wife and she told me she was unprotected it just *clicked* something in me and I needed to cum in her and make her pregnant. I wrote about that a few years ago:

https://www.literotica.com/s/raelene

In short, I write from perspectives I know and I try to be respectful of the feelings and motivations while also accepting that most of my characters are fictional.

 

[Voboy]

I usually write people who would spurn my sympathy. Certainly they're tough enough to handle nearly anything I can do to them.

Some of them get overwhelmed sometimes, but they persevere and grow just as they would in real life.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

"What was that last one?"

...disfigurement?

Well that's okay, I'm sure you meant no arm.