On writing: misery

[StillStunned]

A bit ago we did a thread on the sad stuff in our stories. This one is related, and to @NuclearFairy's thread What makes a good conflict? too, but it deserves a thread by itself, I think.

Several of the books I've read on writing advise you to make life miserable for your characters. Give them a setback, and another. Is the outlook bleak? Great! Let's pile on the misery! And keep going until your character reaches breaking point.

The explanation is that the greater the challenge, the more satisfying the outcome will be. A person's true nature isn't revealed until they're at absolute rock bottom. Keep the reader's on the edge of their seat, wondering how their hero can possibly extricate themselves as the world collapses around them.

Personally, I don't buy this. For a start, there's no limit to how much misery a writer can invent for their character. If nothing else, give them a hole in their shoe so that they're walking around with one damp sock. So the point where the shitpile stops is always artificial. Whether it's with one unfortunate setback or a hundred, it's never exhaustive. And the character's breaking point? Again, that's for the writer to decide. Maybe it's the damp sock that makes them snap.

Secondly, I personally give up if I see this happening. I mean, conflict is a key part of storytelling, and characters should have challenges. Yes, it's satisfying when they resolve the conflicts and overcome the challenges. But too much? Sorry, but I read for my enjoyment, not to vicariously suffer one hurt after another. Particularly if I'm not fully engaged with the character, I see no point in living their misery.

Just like there are some writers who seem to be in love with their characters, and what to live every moment of their lives, there are also authors who seem to hate their characters. GRRM comes to mind, and Robin Hobb too, from what I remember of her books, and quite a few thriller series on television. Obviously those writers have sold more books and scripts than I could ever dream of, so clearly there's an audience.

But I can't help thinking that, for every writer who does it skilfully enough not to alienate their readers (I've read A Song of Ice and Fire several times), there are dozens who don't. If "misery" is presented as general advice - and in the fiction guides I read it was - they adopt it as gospel. The shit piles higher and higher, with no room to breathe, no small triumphs, no moment where the reader can revel in the character's achievements - or else they end up in a deeper pile immediately.

Has anybody else come across this phenomenon? It doesn't necessarily factor much in short fiction, and particularly short erotic fiction, but enough of us write longer, more plot-driven works that it might have come up.

 

[Jada59]

I have done that in my novels. But they always reign triumphant in the end. I want the reader to feel it.

What I write here is another matter.

 

[NotWise]

Misery is part of literature. Kurt Vonnegut believed that all great literature had an emotional shape that could be graphed. This is a short explanation that links to the video of the man himself explaining it.

I think all the shapes (except Hamlet) have at least a period of misery. Hamlet doesn't because you can't tell what is good from what is bad. Most of them end with a recovery. Kafka (and other existential writers) write stories that are nothing but misery. For them, things can't get bleak enough.

If you're willing to plan your story at least a little, then you can use Vonnegut's concept to shape a story. I've done that intentionally and found that it gave a good platform to develop the story and the characters. You use misery with intent.

I'm not sure that Vonnegut's talk covers all the possible shapes. I'm writing one now where the outlook on life is bleak, and gets worse. There's a sudden improvement mid-story, but then the story crashes to a miserable ending. It's a tragedy in a tragedy, but the result is somehow better than the inevitable ending should have been.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I'm not planning to name a character Misery, kill them, and get into a crash at any point in life.

 

[EmilyMiller]

A bit ago we did a thread on the sad stuff in our stories. This one is related, and to @NuclearFairy's thread What makes a good conflict? too, but it deserves a thread by itself, I think.

Several of the books I've read on writing advise you to make life miserable for your characters. Give them a setback, and another. Is the outlook bleak? Great! Let's pile on the misery! And keep going until your character reaches breaking point.

The explanation is that the greater the challenge, the more satisfying the outcome will be. A person's true nature isn't revealed until they're at absolute rock bottom. Keep the reader's on the edge of their seat, wondering how their hero can possibly extricate themselves as the world collapses around them.

Personally, I don't buy this. For a start, there's no limit to how much misery a writer can invent for their character. If nothing else, give them a hole in their shoe so that they're walking around with one damp sock. So the point where the shitpile stops is always artificial. Whether it's with one unfortunate setback or a hundred, it's never exhaustive. And the character's breaking point? Again, that's for the writer to decide. Maybe it's the damp sock that makes them snap.

Secondly, I personally give up if I see this happening. I mean, conflict is a key part of storytelling, and characters should have challenges. Yes, it's satisfying when they resolve the conflicts and overcome the challenges. But too much? Sorry, but I read for my enjoyment, not to vicariously suffer one hurt after another. Particularly if I'm not fully engaged with the character, I see no point in living their misery.

Just like there are some writers who seem to be in love with their characters, and what to live every moment of their lives, there are also authors who seem to hate their characters. GRRM comes to mind, and Robin Hobb too, from what I remember of her books, and quite a few thriller series on television. Obviously those writers have sold more books and scripts than I could ever dream of, so clearly there's an audience.

But I can't help thinking that, for every writer who does it skilfully enough not to alienate their readers (I've read A Song of Ice and Fire several times), there are dozens who don't. If "misery" is presented as general advice - and in the fiction guides I read it was - they adopt it as gospel. The shit piles higher and higher, with no room to breathe, no small triumphs, no moment where the reader can revel in the character's achievements - or else they end up in a deeper pile immediately.

Has anybody else come across this phenomenon? It doesn't necessarily factor much in short fiction, and particularly short erotic fiction, but enough of us write longer, more plot-driven works that it might have come up.

I think there is a difference between characters having a challenging backstory and present day difficulties - both can add depth and emotional engagement if handled well - and having Job-like protagonists where their troubles are essentially unremitting. The first approach allows for an endorphin-inducing payoff if they achieve some sort of redemption. The second can be grim to the point of sadism and cause me to stop reading. As you imply, balance and skill is the key.

 

[NotWise]

I think there is a difference between characters having a challenging backstory and present day difficulties - both can add depth and emotional engagement if handled well - and having Job-like protagonists where their troubles are essentially unremitting. The first approach allows for an endorphin-inducing payoff if they achieve some sort of redemption. The second can be grim to the point of sadism and cause me to stop reading. As you imply, balance and skill is the key.

But Job's miseries were eventually rewarded with success and great happiness.

 

[EmilyMiller]

But Job's miseries were eventually rewarded with success and great happiness.

I stopped reading at chapter 18…

 

[Callum_M]

For me as a reader, it depends on my mood. Often, I don’t even realize I’m in certain moods until I’m deep into a story and it’s feeling satisfying despite it being all kinds of bleak.

Good example, my favorite graphic novel is Irredeemable wherein the book opens with the villain killing a hero along with his wife and young child. It only gets darker from there as every effort to stop this maniac fails and there are so many more casualties. The ending is a hopeful one, but the world it’s set in is never the same. It’s misery at every turn and yet I couldn’t read it fast enough.

On the flip side, I’ve given up on stories because things seemed too bleak and I couldn’t handle it. A handful of times I find myself worrying so much for characters that I flip to the end just to ensure they are okay before I continue. I can go on their painful journey if I know they make it out the other side.

 

[BeechLeaf]

There's a writer here who does misery well. On two of their stories I've actually commented that I couldn't have made it to the end of page 1 if it had been any other writer. But I trusted them to make the story worth the suffering by the end.

 

[Bayzapper10]

Another quote from a famous person (not in the strata of Vonnegut, but …) “You can’t have an easy life and a good character”, comedian Jimmy Carr. I take the surface meaning that good character development comes only through adversity, but as it applies to writing, there is certainly layers of depth also: adversity pulls the reader/writer into the story. The backdrop is only the canvas to the movement and color.

 

[caleb35]

A bit ago we did a thread on the sad stuff in our stories. This one is related, and to @NuclearFairy's thread What makes a good conflict? too, but it deserves a thread by itself, I think.

Several of the books I've read on writing advise you to make life miserable for your characters. Give them a setback, and another. Is the outlook bleak? Great! Let's pile on the misery! And keep going until your character reaches breaking point.

The explanation is that the greater the challenge, the more satisfying the outcome will be. A person's true nature isn't revealed until they're at absolute rock bottom. Keep the reader's on the edge of their seat, wondering how their hero can possibly extricate themselves as the world collapses around them.

Personally, I don't buy this. For a start, there's no limit to how much misery a writer can invent for their character. If nothing else, give them a hole in their shoe so that they're walking around with one damp sock. So the point where the shitpile stops is always artificial. Whether it's with one unfortunate setback or a hundred, it's never exhaustive. And the character's breaking point? Again, that's for the writer to decide. Maybe it's the damp sock that makes them snap.

Secondly, I personally give up if I see this happening. I mean, conflict is a key part of storytelling, and characters should have challenges. Yes, it's satisfying when they resolve the conflicts and overcome the challenges. But too much? Sorry, but I read for my enjoyment, not to vicariously suffer one hurt after another. Particularly if I'm not fully engaged with the character, I see no point in living their misery.

Just like there are some writers who seem to be in love with their characters, and what to live every moment of their lives, there are also authors who seem to hate their characters. GRRM comes to mind, and Robin Hobb too, from what I remember of her books, and quite a few thriller series on television. Obviously those writers have sold more books and scripts than I could ever dream of, so clearly there's an audience.

But I can't help thinking that, for every writer who does it skilfully enough not to alienate their readers (I've read A Song of Ice and Fire several times), there are dozens who don't. If "misery" is presented as general advice - and in the fiction guides I read it was - they adopt it as gospel. The shit piles higher and higher, with no room to breathe, no small triumphs, no moment where the reader can revel in the character's achievements - or else they end up in a deeper pile immediately.

Has anybody else come across this phenomenon? It doesn't necessarily factor much in short fiction, and particularly short erotic fiction, but enough of us write longer, more plot-driven works that it might have come up.

...I'm sorry, what's the question?

 

[old_prof]

As a writer, I've had a few stories get very dark. Friendly Advice was my best piece of writing when I published it. (Unfortunately, almost no one has read it.) There is a stretch in the middle where it gets very dark. And neither character ever completely recovers from it. They learn to live with the scars. (And now none of you will want to read it.)

Writing that took a toll on me. I think that's why I had to step away from writing for a few months.

But stretches like that can be very powerful for the reader too. I'm still trying to learn how to balance the impact on me with the importance for my story. I'm about to write 5-10K dark words for my WIP. We'll see how that goes.

 

[NuclearFairy]

But Job's miseries were eventually rewarded with success and great happiness.

I think he would've been happier if he'd just stayed in the damned wale.

 

[NuclearFairy]

A shit storm without any sunshine and rainbows, just doesn't stink as much.

When writing or reading a book full of misery, you need those quiet moments of happiness, those small steps forward that might get snatched away, those little triumphs that no one but the readers and protagonist witness. Otherwise, the misery won't hit as hard. But most of all, you need an ending that makes it all worth it, whether that be a tragedy that'll have my SO sobbing and rereading the book six times in a row (Seriously don't get his taste in books sometimes), or triumphing over the hardships, or even an escape that leads to the next book where things will surely get better. Right. Right?

That said, not all longer books need to heap the misery on their poor protagonist. Dishing it out in small servings or not at all might work just as well if not better depending on the story.

 

[ALustSupreme]

Maybe this is the self conscious guilt of modern man? Although if we think back to like ancient Greek literature there is tons of unremitting suffering there too, especially in the tragedies. And when I think of some of the comedies of Shakespeare, even if the situations are funny to the audience who know the full facts, the characters themselves are often genuinely suffering in their ignorance.

So I think this is just something intrinsic to storytelling that we respond to. There has to be at least some suffering and conflict. You're right though that some authors can take it too far. Although GRR Martin is a skilled writer, I couldn't stand to be in his worlds anymore after I read the first 4 books because I feel like it was too much misanthropy and sadism.

 

[Britva415]

Personally, I don't buy this

Don't buy what? That we should always do it? Or, that we should ever do it?

 

[genzsub]

This is something that I am struggling with. Like most authors, I think I write what I like to read, and that generally includes drama and challenges, but not misery as such. I don't think those are synonymous in the context of the OP's question. I've put misery in my characters' past, but I have trouble writing it into the current story I might be working on. This makes stories constructed around something like the hero's journey almost impossible. Without the misery of failure, there is no emotional journey out, no redemption arc, etc. I believe good stories can be told without misery (like most of Harper Bliss' romance novels - my guilty pleasure ), but it certainly limits the range of things one can successfully write about.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I also don't buy that great trials and tribulations are required for every story, but I think harkening back to @NuclearFairy's thread earlier, you should have some element of conflict.

I used to engage in misery porn. Earlier in my writings, everything was trauma and pain, mirroring a lot of the challenges I was facing in my own life. Maybe it was an outlet, or had darkened my view of the world, or I was using it for catharsis when they (sometimes) triumphed. I think it's easy to go overboard with it though, and discomfort a good chunk of readers. It's a certain type of person who is willing to wade through horrific traumas and pain to hopefully get some payoff, and another person entirely to be satisfied if there is none. There's a perversity to it, I think, in heaping such sorrows upon a person so as to break them. You don't do it unless you derive some satisfaction, it's too difficult otherwise to simply have someone stumble upon his friend's cannibalized corpse if you aren't deriving some creative pleasure from doing so. It's not necessarily something broken or wrong with a person who does so, but I think it either requires low empathy, or extremely high empathy, to be able to muddle through pain after pain, either being able to disconnect from it and focus on what you're writing from a more writerly perspective (this is a great plot point that will lead to catharsis, even if this moment is bleak) or being someone who enjoys wallowing in the pain. I've been both, at varying points in my time as a writer.

I grew out of misery porn for the most part, but I still inject traumas into most of what I do, because it's just a natural part of being alive. They aren't always major plot points, or relevant to the story, but these things shape you into who you are, and to ignore them feels disingenuous. Now, when I inject hardships, it's not because I want to inflict psychic damage on my reader (misery porn), but because it's narratively satisfying, or helps create a deeper character who can be someone the reader is more able to empathize with.

That's the beauty of misery. Yes, it hurts, and is uncomfortable, but it's something that is capable of creating deep bonds, both in life and in fiction. It can be done early on to make someone sympathetic to a character, or later on to make someone empathize with a character. Nearly everybody has experienced some form of deep pain in their life, and seeing it in someone else, especially when you're in such an intimate setting as reading, for most people will trigger a protective response, and that can be used to great effect to quickly latch a reader onto a character.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just like there are some writers who seem to be in love with their characters, and what to live every moment of their lives, there are also authors who seem to hate their characters. GRRM comes to mind, and Robin Hobb too, from what I remember of her books, and quite a few thriller series on television. Obviously those writers have sold more books and scripts than I could ever dream of, so clearly there's an audience.

But I can't help thinking that, for every writer who does it skilfully enough not to alienate their readers (I've read A Song of Ice and Fire several times), there are dozens who don't. If "misery" is presented as general advice - and in the fiction guides I read it was - they adopt it as gospel. The shit piles higher and higher, with no room to breathe, no small triumphs, no moment where the reader can revel in the character's achievements - or else they end up in a deeper pile immediately.

Has anybody else come across this phenomenon? It doesn't necessarily factor much in short fiction, and particularly short erotic fiction, but enough of us write longer, more plot-driven works that it might have come up.

Yeah, I think over-egging it is more likely to alienate the reader. Even if you really want to stab them in the feels, unremitting misery is not the way to do it because people will just disengage. There needs to be enough else to keep them invested in the story.

It's also worth considering how readers relate to you specifically, as an author. One of the hardest books I've read in recent years was Harrow the Ninth, because the first 200-ish pages are very bleak. Harrow is depressed and damaged in ways neither she nor the reader understands, somebody's trying to kill her. I persevered, because I knew from the previous book in the series that there was probably going to be a payoff eventually, and there was and it was worth it.

But if I'd been reading that exact same story posted by some unfamiliar author on Literotica, I probably wouldn't have lasted 50 pages. Without knowing the author I have no reason to believe there's a payoff coming; for all I know the bleakness is just going to continue until the heat death of the universe while the author pats themself on the back for keeping it grimdark.

The average Lit reader has much less information about us than they do about GRRM or Tamsyn Muir or whoever, so we need to work harder on setting expectations. Let the reader know why they might want to stick around through the misery.

 

[bi_cathy]

Misery makes for some very interesting writing, but it can be a cheap way to trigger emotions and it gets relied on way too much by those who don't know how to build a story differently or think it's essential to build a character up and give the reader emotions.

I think I only used it once, in Taste Me, but I made sure there was so much more on top of it to color it and keep the reader interested - anger, seduction, an interesting plot device, internal conflict.

One of my upcoming ideas is so bleak and dark that I have yet to start writing it because I need to find more elements of joy and more layers to start the story, and I need to be in a strong mindset to keep that in check while writing it. I'm working up to it.

 

[StillStunned]

Don't buy what? That we should always do it? Or, that we should ever do it?

I don't buy that more misery makes a story better.

 

[anthrodisiac]

One of my upcoming ideas is so bleak and dark that I have yet to start writing it because I need to find more elements of joy and more layers to start the story, and I need to be in a strong mindset to keep that in check while writing it. I'm working up to it.

Misery and joy, or misery and humor, are wonderful to play off of one another. They can interact so beautifully and heighten one another when paired correctly. There's so much you can do with both elements in a story at the same time, it's honestly one of my favorite things to do, humor especially. Humor in darkness is a great way to keep someone off balance, or pull them back from the abyss by a step or two, or to hurtle them headlong into it, or evoke a strange bedfellow of emotions, complexity, nuance. It can help sweeten the bitterness you have them swallow, when it might be a bit too bleak, a bit too much, having humor turns morosity into a chimera.

 

[Erozetta]

Dark humor is my misery buffer, usually.

But also, I don't see the things I write as making a character miserable or making a situation miserable. Mostly, I just lean into real life experiences and feelings, many of which I find amusing, and then get told, "Hey, that's bleak as fuck." And I'm like... "I found it amusing...."

 

[Seurat]

I'm a fan of cosmic karma; things even out for characters, generally. The worse it gets for a character, the better it should get. The meaner the antagonist, the more he should suffer. But when subjecting a character to misery there is a limit; I don't need to have him suffer for suffering's sake, and sooner or later I am going to view it as torture porn. There are exceptions to every rule, of course. The femme fatale that only seeks to escape what cards life has dealt her, ala L.A. Confidential, or the good guy that keeps being forced or tricked into doing horrible things, ala Momento. Like anything else it is a tool to be used in a specific situation for it to be effective.

Of course, if the misery hammer is the only tool in your bag, you're going to see every opportunity as a nail.

 

[anthrodisiac]

The thing about misery is, like any highly charged emotion, you have to worry about desensitization with repeated use. You get diminishing returns after a while, because the reader's mind inures them from compounding distress by getting them to stop investing so much emotional energy into the character. It's why it helps to re-up on moments of lightness between shots of darkness, it breaks up the monotony of pain and helps reset their tolerance to a degree.