Hello, friends! Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. This month, I am still slowly getting back into the rhythm of writing. It’s happening more slowly than I expected and more slowly than I would have wanted, but it is still happening. And right now, all of my writing related thoughts can be summed up in a single word: choice.
Not the creative choices I make as a writer, but rather the choices my characters have to make. The choices I am forcing them to make. The kind of choices that my characters would, quite honestly, prefer not to make at all, if they could help it.
I’ve read many stories where characters have to choose between two things, but the two things are not really equal. Like, Mr. McHero must choose between spending time with his children or saving the world from a nuclear holocaust. I mean… yes, it sucks that Mr. McHero doesn’t get to spend more time with his kids, but if there’s a nuclear holocaust, he won’t get to spend much time with his kids anyway. There isn’t a real choice here. If Mr. McHero is the only person who can stop the nuclear holocaust from happening, he needs to go do that.
I’ve also read stories where story events make a difficult choice become an easy choice. For example, Sally Romance has to choose between two equally attractive male suitors. But then it turns out that one of those suitors murdered Sally’s grandfather, and he’s only interested in marrying Sally because he’s after the inheritance money. So who will Sally choose? There isn’t a real choice to be made anymore!
Stories like Sally Romance’s story or Mr. McHero’s story can be fun and interesting in their own ways, but that’s not the direction I want to go with the story I’m currently writing. My protagonist is in a bit of trouble. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s in trouble, but it’s true. Sooner or later, my protagonist is going to have to make a decision. Whatever decision my protagonist makes, it will have consequences, and he’d really rather not think about that. He’d rather pretend the problem isn’t there. Or, if he must make a decision, he’d like it if somebody or something would intervene and make the decision easy.
As the author, I will not make this decision easy for my protagonist. I hate to see my protagonist suffer. I hate to prolong his suffering. But I will allow my protagonist’s decision making process drag out for the entire length of the book, because that is what’s right for this book.
The Insecure Writer’s Support Group is a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Janet Alcorn, SE White, Victoria Marie Lees, and Cathrina Constantine. If you’re a writer and if you feel in any way insecure about your writing life, click here to learn more about this awesomely supportive group and to see a list of participating blogs!
Planet Pailly 
You can also have the protagonist make the wrong choice, then have to deal with the consequences. Maybe Sally finds out one of her suitors killed her grandfather after she chooses him. Or she found out before, rejected him, but it later turns out the man she remembers as her doting grandfather was also a mad scientist experimenting on the suitor’s family.
But if the dilemma is interesting, having it last the entire book works too!
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Those are good options, too! In a sense, I’m kind of doing the “Sally chooses a suitor but then finds out he killed her grandfather” story. My protagonist made a mistake, or he feels like he made a mistake, and now he has to decide what to do about it.
It’s tempting for me, as the writer, to try to help my protagonist along in making this decision, to put something into the story to make this easier for him. But that’s not what’s right for the story in this case.
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That fits with the advice I’ve read. Avoid the temptation to make things easy for your hero. (I do think they can be overplayed, but most of us budding writers have to be more worried about underplaying it.)
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I agree, it can be overplayed. I remember once hearing “too much like Hamlet” as a writing critique. It’s the longest Shakespeare play of them all, because the main character can’t make up his mind about anything.
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When the choice is obvious, it’s not much of a stretch for the character. Both directions need to impact and hard.
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Agreed. Making those hard choices sucks in real life, but they make for much more compelling stories, I think.
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A writer once said that the essence of drama is: conflict; choices; consequences.
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I agree with that. That’s why, as much as I’m tempted to help my main character out, I’m holding back. If I make this easy for him, the drama of the story will fizzle.
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Choices can be tough and sometimes devastating. After all, we are because of our choices. Our characters are no different.
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That’s one of the reasons I’m writing this story this way. I want this character to reveal who he really is. If I make the choice easy for him, we won’t get that reveal, or at least it won’t feel the same.
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Sally Romance and Mr McHero are brilliant names – made me positively chuckle over my tea!
I’m naturally someone who likes to help and to untangle troubles – but in writing, I get to indulge in the flip side. I don’t do it enough though.
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I’m the same. I want to help, and I want to make things easier, even when we’re talking about an imaginary character. But I have to resist that urge to help when I’m writing, at least in this story.
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I took a course on character development and choices are one way to show the reader who the protag and antag are. Hard choices are the best and most compelling of all.
Good luck with the story. It sounds fun.
Anna from elements of emaginette
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Thanks! Yeah, that is kind of my goal with this story. I want my character to reveal his true self. If I make the choice easier for him, the reveal will lose some of its meaning.
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What a wonderful creative conundrum: the hero must choose. I like how you think, lady. Sometimes, there are no good choices at all, and what would he do then?
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It’s a tough spot to be in in real life, but it’s a fun thing to explore in fiction!
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That’s really neat when you have your protagonist have to make a difficult decision. Those make the best stories and enhances conflict in just about any form.
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That’s my thinking as well. There are things I could do to make this easier for my character, but I won’t.
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