emeralddodge:

katekarl:

generation1point5:

emeralddodge:

katekarl:

Character takes something for granted? Take it away from them.

Character loves something desperately and practically needs it to live? Take that away too.

My personal writing creed is “happiness is boring.”

If I may, from my own personal perspective on life and writing.

If people truly understood what it takes in life to become “happy,” they would understand the years of pain, the suffering, the regret, the struggle, the inherent and even natural violence in the acts that often stand as the price-tag for happiness.

If writers understand that happiness is at once a wonderful and fleeting thing, and that its impermanence is the cause of desires both noble and selfish, and how willing we are to sacrifice for it, whether we sacrifice ourselves or others (willing or unwilling),

If at last we understand that happiness is a temporary product of a life full of waves that crest below us and crash down upon us, and that the longer we live we are more likely to drown in life’s experiences than to consistently ride atop the waves,

We would say that happiness is many things, but it is NEVER boring.

I think what @emeralddodge is getting at isn’t that happiness itself is boring, but that having characters who are completely satisfied is. And even if they are satisfied, there should be currents of tension and fear of losing that happiness. Pure angst is also boring, as is pure grief or horror or romance or fear or excitement.

Like you said, the negatives are often the cost of getting the positives. One without the other is blergh. In my writing, whenever characters have happiness it is at the very least threatened.

My original point was that if they are taking something for granted, so is the reader. Nothing is sacred and taking it away reminds them that the danger the character is facing is real and makes their motives resonate more loudly.

On the flip side, if they desperately want and love something, I’m practically promising the reader that it is endangered. Taking it makes my threats ring true and when I threatened something again, they’ll really be scared I’ll follow up. It’s the reading equivalent of “how DARE you what ELSE will she do??”

Satisfaction is boring. Security is snooze-worthy 80% of the time in writing. But only fear/grief/angst is exhausting and, as you said in your tags, overdone.

Moral of the post: moderation in everything.

Continue shitposting, writers.

We would say that happiness is many things, but it is NEVER boring.

I know exactly what I meant, and I think you do, too. Fifteen years of honing my craft has taught me one thing: happiness is boring, and readers don’t want it. They generally want it at the end, but they won’t turn 300 pages filled with satisfied, happy characters. 

@katekarl, thank you for elaborating. You’ve described the core of tension and stakes, something I wish more writers understood. 🙂