Yes. Your book is basically about survival of the fittest; the strongest endure and the weak perish and if a kid dies, well that's how the cookie crumbles. There are hardly any laws whatsoever keeping the maniacs from doing whatever they damned well please. It's basically a story about a warrior race living under anarchy. Sorry, but from what we've gleamed, it sounds like a dystopian novel. I would not want to live in that society.
To add context. The idea is like hundred years or plus ago. There was a world war 3. That event is over and the dust settled. One nation survived by adopting this warrior's idealism. Other parts of the world are considered nice or at least some parts are. Not to harsh but not too loose. I imagine many people move to said areas. So it isn't that really supposed to be a hard place or a rock thing. Rather that in this fugure setting some people really do like a place that says with no conditions "If you can survive you are welcome." Also loose laws not no laws. Like one I see being a huge issue is no voilence in the area surrounding an airport. That kind of stuff would get other nations mad at them. So the rule is clear and the punishment is given without mercy. Yes I don't argue that. I was thinking it would be called a Dystopia but it seemed like a large point mentioned in one is inescapible which this isn't. At all. People are clear to leave as they desire, nothing stops them. Actually with the rule mentioned in the quote to bayview, living near the airport is almost gareenteed safety.
Utopia is not possible. You can't have a perfect society because not everyone wants the same things. You can't say utopia is total freedom either, because my total freedom will infringe on your total freedom. I want to sit on your couch naked and watch porn. You don't want that. Who's freedom do you take away? Mine? Well it's not a utopia anymore. We don't live in a dystopian either. Violence all time low, murder all time low, illiteracy all time low, poverty all time low.
Well, getting away from this topic of what constitutes a dystopia and back to the emotional writing that started the thread: People have stated that sometimes they've cried when one of their beloved characters dies. I'm not entirely sure I understand that. I mean, I know it's hard to kill off someone you love, but isn't that their purpose? Someone mentioned Sydney Carton, in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. He dies, heroically, in the end. But that is what makes him Sydney Carton, memorable character. That is what makes A Tale of Two Cities a memorable novel. If he does not die, he's forgettable and so is the whole story, and the book wouldn't be regarded as a classic that gets taught to high school students everywhere. Carton must die, and die the way he dies, in order to become Carton. The most obvious example of this is Jesus. Imagine if the Gospels told of Jesus hauling his own cross up the hill to his crucifixion. Imagine if he glanced around and saw, just for a moment, that the guards were all looking the other way. Imagine that he suddenly dropped his cross and fled, running into the hills and hiding, and nobody could find him. He would not have been crucified. He would also not have been worshiped by a billion people two thousand years later. He would not have been remembered at all. He had to die, in the way that he died, in order to become Jesus Christ. People love him today because of his sacrifice. No sacrifice, no story, no love. I feel that way about my own characters - not that they are religious leaders or sons of God or anything of that nature, but that, if they are to die, they must die to realize their potential; to become the characters I love. I have a character I love very dearly - a somewhat deluded and idealistic fourteen-year-old boy who sees his whole vision of the world collapsing around him as other characters keep relentlessly discovering more truth of his world and confronting him with it. He ends up committing suicide - almost an act of self-immolation - rather than accept the revealed reality. Sure, he's a bit dumb for doing that, unable to see a future for himself if the world doesn't turn out the way he wants, but I admire his commitment, his dedication, his courage, his sheer balls. If the story works, he is the reason for it, and his suicide is the reason for it. If he doesn't commit suicide, he doesn't become himself - he's a mere shadow of what he could have been, and I'd throw the story away. I don't cry when I work on his suicide scene. I revel in it - it is the punch in the gut that (I hope!) makes my story memorable. To me, if the character dies, he achieves a kind of greatness, but if he doesn't, he shrinks into nothingness. I don't cry when he achieves greatness. I imagine I'd cry if he shrunk into nothingness. Does that make any sense?
Holy crap. I felt this way, the characters that die in my stories, or even the traumatic things, happen because they have to happen. The characters and story would not be what it was meant to be. That being said, I have never thought of it this eloquently. This is the best explanation ever. I don't cry when my characters die or go through stuff, I am just thankful that I can put it into words so that the reader understands the other characters' emotions.
This makes sense. I wasn't saying they shouldn't die. Main point of the thread was to share moments writing got you emotional. In my case it like caught me off guard. I was writing a revenge plot. A plot about a murdered child. So in my mind the child began dead. When I started writing. I had to establish them. I never thought about them in context before. So writing them as this strong person so full of live and love and eager to prove herself to the world, only to die without a chance to do just that. It got me. It got me in a deep way. Does this make sense?
Just because something has to happen doesn't mean it's not sad, though. Right? Sad is sad. Honestly, I never thought the Jesus story was all that sad, because he knew and everyone who cared about him knew that he had a sure ticket into heaven. I mean, how much of a sacrifice is it to give up your life when you know you're going to be reborn in a better world a couple days later? It was a sacrifice to get tortured for however long up there on the cross, but the death itself? Big deal. I wouldn't cry over Jesus dying. But when a character doesn't have that certainty, or even that belief? They're dying. They're ending. That's it for them. So, yeah, necessary or not, it's sad. Do you get sad when you read about other people's characters dying? Maybe you're just not someone who gets emotionally involved in books. But if you ARE someone who gets emotionally involved, I can't see why it would be less sad for your own characters to die than for other people's to die.
I do get sad when I read about other people's characters dying. I think that's because I'm not their god; I'm not the one creating them and setting them on the path to their destiny - a destiny I also create. As a reader, I am simply discovering their story as I go, unaware of what the writer has in mind for them until I read it. It's not sad when I'm the writer. In a way, it's joyful - I feel like a proud father seeing his child graduate and become what he needs to be. Of course, my character doesn't die to me - he's still there in my heart, being who he needs to be. His death is sad for the reader (if I've done my job well) because the reader doesn't know the character's role in my universe the way I do until he reads about it. What would be tragic, to me as a writer, would be if my character did not fulfill his destiny. That would destroy the entire theme of the story and turn something I'd hoped would be powerful and meaningful into something cheap and worthless. Again, readers weep for Sydney Carton at the end of A Tale of Two Cities, just as Dickens intended them to, because Carton's death makes the story powerful and meaningful. I suppose it's possible that Dickens cried when he wrote the end of that book, but I guarantee he was proud of Carton and celebrated the fact that he fulfilled his destiny, making the story great. I bet Dickens' heart was soaring when he finished that book.
How can you know a "shit book" until you've read it though? People LOVE Joe Abercrombie...I don't. Brad Thor's reviews on Amazon are through the roof...I think he writes his books stumbling back from frat parties half drunk and making his own sound effects while he writes fight scenes (bang! bang! pew pew!). However, "Throne of the Crescent Moon" by Saladin Ahmed is largely unknown. I think it's the best fantasy book I've read in some time. It won't win a Nobel prize, nor was it particularly skillful, but it was fun and different ( and no dragons, for you dragon haters out there). Most of all, it was unexpected. Many of my most thrilling reads have come from the Kindle store for 99 cents (and good that they're so cheap, with how many damn books I buy).
I have never cried for any of my characters, but I have felt very bad for them at times. Every once in a while, you can trace back the protagonist's experiences, and realize that it's very similar to one of your own. I think it's a subconscious thing. MM
I'm currently on my first novel, its a post apocalyptic horror/drama novel. Of course this is already tragedy-porn and I haven't even outlined half of it yet. I do feel really bad for what happens to two MCs at the start. A mother and her preteen daughter is separated and the mother is in bad shape in the middle of a forest fire. After the mother gets rescued and doctored up, she doesn't even take time to rest to look for her daughter. There are also some side stories, for example, a soldier was devoted to returning to his wife halfway across the world only to find her decayed body and he kills himself. What would have been a romantic story ended up quite grim.
I don't cry while writing, but I do tear up while re-reading. It's not death scenes that effect me most though - instead it's close friends / relatives / couples fighting and potential break-ups that really get to me.
