So here's the thing: The male character of my novel starts off escaping the murder of his village. He's eight and he either starts to hallucinate that his people are there in the forest with him, or I might go the route of he ingests nightshade berries (accidentally) and starts to hallucinate because of that. This broken mentality stays with him for months until he discovers a magical method of suppressing it all (and then it all coming back majorly about eight years later). The female character on the other hand is a lot more robust, she doesn't suffer from the same pain he does. It is emotional, but she doesn't crack mentally like he did. She even has a person with her who shows her love and eventually helps her get past her pain. Now the problem here is I'm worried the male character is going to come off as pathetic as he's so traumatized he's actually hallucinating and having nightmares for months. He's found and raised by a race of folks who are physiologically emotionally distant, they show him no love nor softness but during his stay he discovers how they managed it and he begins to abuse this process (the magic thing I mentioned up top). He discovers this months after they find him. Now the female character's arc will appear every now and then inbetween the male character's story, and because she has a much stronger personality and never cracks like he does, I'm worried the contrast is going to make him seem pathetic. If it was just him you'd be following along with him the entire time, but if you switch to a strong character and then back to him (and this will happen constantly), I'm worried he's going to come off strongly as being pathetic. Once he discovers the magic cure, he'll have a stronger personality, but I'm worried that until then, readers will find him frustrating.
Are there other survivors of the same massacre who've gone through a similar spectrum of emotional reaction? Even if they're not POV characters, just the fact that the range exists beyond these two POV characters should make it more clear that the difference between the two of them is not about one of them being "right" (the "strong" one) and the other being "wrong" (the "annoying" one).
No other survivors, which plays a part as well (as each only has each other and their village, very primitive, usually have marriage rituals at 18, and finding the person you want to be married to for the rest of your life is something important to their culture and their youth. These two characters also planned to wed when they reached 18 and were the closest of friends when they lived with one another). When he ceases the magic cure (something CLOSELY related to the massacre of his people, he discovers this when he's 16) they are brought back to the fray with shocking clarity (the magic cure doesn't cure anything, it's a powerful mental suppressant), the female character is unable to relate to his inability to let go and even if he wants to continue on with life with maybe someone else (from his village), there's no one (he's not human, he's from a species that's divided down between his people and distant violent relatives).
My advice is to focus on writing both characters as nuanced and traumatized, not just strong one vs weak one. The strong traumatized type tend to have cracks in the facade. (One of the best examples I can think of is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) Meanwhile, the ones who tend to fall apart more still don't have unrelenting nonstop angst - there will be times when he's not actively upset, and maybe even the occasional moment of happiness. Where angsty characters get annoying is when they do nothing but angst nonstop - any character who shows only one mood nonstop is annoying.
Is your male character supposed to come off as strong? I think that's the big question here. I don't really think it has anything to do with the gender of the characters (which sorta seems... implied, in your post?), it has more to do with the experiences that they went through. Your male MC went through the same things as the female MC, right? But then they went on two drastically different paths. The female MC had someone who loved her and cared for her, and she was eventually able to recover. The male MC was introduced to a community that valued being completely stoic and suppressed emotion, even using spells to suppress more traumatizing experiences. So when he finally leaves and stops suppressing everything after eight years, it all comes crashing down on him again right? Nightmares, hallucinations... all that PTSD shit. In my opinion, having him not being a little (or a lot) broken after all of that would be completely unrealistic. Aaaand it appears that I've misread your post. Whoops. So, this boy is alone, after ingesting nightshade and seeing a very traumatizing event. Of course he's going to be broken. And, to me, that does not mean pathetic. If you want him to seem a little stronger, I guess, make him fight to get better and recover, maybe going to other villagers for help (and being rejected repeatedly) before eventually giving up and using the "miraculous cure". What you shouldn't do, though, is make it so that the female MC is completely fine after going through that tragedy. Even externally. I mean, her entire village, murdered. In the beginning, what would be realistic (for a character like her, I assume) would be that she puts on a smile around other people and lets out all of that pent up emotion when she's alone. And eventually she opens up to that person that cares for her and they help her start to recover. I think showing this entire process, from the event to the "recovery" and how the two go about it would be fantastic. They both start off hurting, but as time progresses they're both desperate for recovery. Female MC goes about it the healthy way, and actually recovers. Male MC tries to recover on his own, with a race of people who don't feel emotion, and "recovers"-- not feeling the emotion, like he wanted. And having that contrast between the two (Male MC's descent into utter despair and Female MC's eventual recovery) would emphasize both of their mental states. So, I said this before, having the female MC recover and turn out "stronger" does not make the male MC pathetic; it makes them more believable. I mean, I'd be concerned if the girl was the "pathetic" one and the boy was the "strong" one in these circumstances, in all honesty. This post was mostly just... rambling, lol. I hope I helped!
I would give him a different sort of strength. I feel like the female character in this story is strong because she got herself up despite everything, right? But I don't think the male character should be weak just because he hasn't managed to do the same yet. If you compare it with mental illnesses, I don't think I'd see someone with depression or schizophrenia as weak just because it's beyond their control. Strength isn't necessarily about repressing things, just as courage isn't about being fearless, but acting despite of the fear. I would make him refuse to 'bow down' to it. Instead of crying in a corner every time a hallucination comes, or shaking just at the thought of it, I would make him hate it with his entire body. I'd make him want to punch a wall every time it happens, with his hands over his ears yelling at the voices (if there are voices) to shut the fuck up, or something. These are just ideas, but he doesn't have to be pathetic just because he can't overcome something. I think it has more to do with someone's character than anything else. I get what you're trying to say, I know many characters fall into the trap of just ending up weak and pathetic because they're meant to grow later on, but sometimes they get written like such weak minded individuals, that even when it happens it either doesn't work because they just never had it in them, or I'm just not buying it. Just be careful about what kind of person you want him to be, he won't gain a new personality just because he isn't tormented by visions any more. If you think about it it's kind of like trauma. I think people have two different ways of dealing with this stuff. They either refuse to let it destroy their lives, or let it swallow them whole and do nothing about it. I don't think everyone would just do nothing about it just because they're scared.
The ones that don't wear it on their sleeves, fall, and they fall hard. They will turn into a pile of mush when everything is said and done by the end. Or they will lash out randomly at who ever happens to be there at the moment, and it will be over something not all that important.
Would you be asking this question if the male character was a female? Why are we not asking whether the female character will come across as 'too strong' or 'too powerful' for not being so visibly broken? Not trying to be belligerent. Just asking a question to see if there are different ways of looking at the issue. I think that this gives a lot of insight into why the two characters deal with the trauma in such different ways. In a society that quashes emotion, an individual - who is admittedly already a sensitive, tender type - is denied the opportunity to sit with the emotion and be honest with it for as long as it takes to work through it and find healing. Naturally, the end result of this means that most individuals who have experienced such emotional suppression will break at some point. Some, sooner than later. But they will break, becuase our human psyche can only take so much repressed trauma. On the other hand, you say the female character is already hard-wired to be a bit more of a 'robust' individual. Couple this with the relationship she has with someone who, just through their love and acceptance of her, help her to be honest with her pain and deal with it in a proactive way. Obviously this is going to be an empowering combination for the female character, and we will see her go on leaps and bounds towards healing. (something interesting to note, though, is that often it's the more 'robust' individuals who feel they 'should' be better and they go about life as they think they should be, in an appropriately robust way - especially if they feel they have to be 'good enough' for the person who loves them - and sometimes this can result in a bizarre, self-inflicted sort of repression. anyway, that's just a side thought.) The question isn't, will the female character's strength make the male character's struggle look pathetic. If YOU feel the male character is pathetic, it will come across that way. If YOU are rooting for the male character but you are honest about his traumatised psyche, you will do him the justice he deserves. Be honest about his brokenness, but if you are rooting for him then you will be ready to see and point out any efforts he makes to heal. When he chooses to take the hallucinegens to escape from the pain, don't view him as pathetic for doing so. Because you will, as the writer, perpetuate the idea that he is a pathetic pu**y, and that's how you'll make the readers feel about him. Maybe he genuinely believes he can find healing or insight or strength from the hallucinegens. Maybe when he slips into the other, drug-induced realm, he has visions of the massacres, and vision by vision, he is placing together an image of the attackers. Maybe he plans, after he's had enough haluccinatory visions to put together the full image of the attackers, he is going to go after them and avenge his village. Or maybe he believes that because when he goes into an altered state of peace and tranquility when he takes the drug, he believes that this is an indication that they are healing him, making him stronger - in effect, he thinks he is being proactive about facilitating his own wellbeing. I mean, he could be being willfully ignorant. And that could be an interesting angle for you to explore, too. Maybe he wants to believe that's what the drugs are doing, because he doesn't have the courage to face up to his trauma without the aid of drugs. Maybe the reader sees him trying everything to cope with the flashbacks and breakdowns, maybe the reader sees the people around him trying to squash down his emotions, and maybe he resists the drugs for as long as possible because he's afraid of not being in control of his own mind (after all, that's already something he's struggling with). Maybe when he finally breaks and takes the drugs, the peace and escape he feels takes him by such surprise and he is so unprepared for it (after all he IS a child), he instantly becomes hooked. The reality of addicition and not having the maturity to deal with substance abuse is very topical and relevant to today's world. Either way, the reader will empathise with his yearning for wholeness and wellness, and his yearning for his world to be put right again after the terrible things he's experienced. We won't think he is pathetic unless YOU think he is pathetic. The tone with which you write will inform the tone with which we read. And, at the end of the day, you can't dicate the impression readers have, anyway. There is a character in my WIP who, personally, I just chuckle at and want to pinch his cheeks because he's adorable and a little bit of a loser. I've had one reader state vehemently that she can't stand him, that he's a moron. I've had another reader mention she wishes he were real so she could marry him. So at the end of the day, all the writer can do is be honest about who the character is in the story, and readers will take whatever they take from that. It's your responsibility to be honest with the characters. Then you just have to sit back and let the characters be honest with the readers. Good luck and best wishes!!
Thanks for the advice guys! To give a bit more of an insight, the characters are from a race where the females are stronger and more aggressive than the males (in several cases females are even taller and noticeably muscular, think female weight lifters). The girl does have nightmares and fears, but the one raising her pushes her to be stronger and is there for her during the difficult times. The male MC after discovering the suppressant cure goes on to explore the world and learn new things. One o f the contrasts about their lives is that the female MC slowly through the years finds her place and her strength, and eight years later when it's rudely yanked out from under her, she's gained the strength not to be broken by it (though she does still have mental wounds). The male MC encounters instead encounters difficult times and weathers it with mental fortitude.....which then shatters completely when he discovers something sinister about the cure (and how it's related to the massacre of his village). He becomes hateful and angry, and honestly the female MC takes the limelight at this point (even though he's essentially the 'chosen one'). Several of the contrasts I was aiming for was that he is raised with loyalty, she with love. Each lacks the other (essentially), but it's the love that she is raised with that makes her able to succeed against the difficulties that life throws at her. @cherrya , I agree, I should certainly make him angry and resentful about how he's feeling as that'll certainly play into his personality years later. @ChaseTheSun , an interesting dynamic with the female MC and the woman raising her is that the woman thinks of her as an animal (and loves her like one can love their pet). It's a source of great pain for the female MC, but eventually during an especially painful event where this is emphasized, given the choice to run or stay, she chooses to accept being seen as an animal for the love she can't give up (she loves the woman like a second mother). @Cave Troll , the female MC won't start out strong against the pain, just stronger than the male MC. She does struggle, but it's with the love and strength of the woman raising her she learns to grow stronger and not be broken by her past. Ultimately when they meet one another later in life, after the male MC has ceased the suppressant, even the female MC can hardly recognize him when he's become so bitter, and he's angered by her getting over her past (he's also become a racist against humans, the very race of the woman who raised the female MC). I think one of my worries about how the character will turn out was from a particularly loathing review from one of my beta readers (who I should've been more careful to listen to, as his favorite fantasy is more wish fulfillment), the other two (I have a very small pool) did not vent any of the vitriol and were more understanding that the MC was still a kid. I'm rewriting the story currently (as the first draft I handed out had way too many issues that needed to be ironed out hard) and will be passing around the newer draft once it's finished to a hopefully larger pool of beta readers.
If your critique partners can't see beyond their own emotions and biases to see your story for what your story is - unique and deliberate in its own way - it may be time to either a) drop that critique partner or b) have a very honest conversation with him about his role as a critique partner. Critique partners can make or break our writing. Reminds me of this excellent video:
One of many writing rules I learned in the last few years is that a lead character is only a wimp if he/she is passive, and takes no action to achieve their goals. Even if a character is frail, foolish, prone to fright and cowardice, or has no skill, w hat's worst is not bothering to try and accomplish anything. I've read about protagonists who are pretty pitiful, except that he/she has a strong will, clear goal, and a plan. And acts on it. If that's done for the traumatized village boy, I wouldn't think of him as pathetic at all, even compared to the tough girl.
