Likeable vs sympathetic vs...I don't even know.
I am wrestling with an interesting conundrum in the story I'm currently avoiding writing. ( Collapse )
It's one thing to think of the most awful act a character can commit, and then plot out how other characters would react to it, while still writing that character as a sympathetic character, someone the reader is supposed to like.
It's another thing entirely when you realize that the perfect act for a character to commit, the thing that would not only make sense of all the half-formed story bits you've been collecting but would actually make it a stronger story than you anticipated...is an act that you, the person writing this story, find so repulsive, so utterly unforgiveable, that you have no idea how you can create a character who is sympathetic yet could commit this act.
This is the right thing for this story. It's a good idea. It's almost, almost, a plot-crystallizing idea, and goodness knows I don't get many of those. I'm just not really a good enough writer to write it. Yet.
Hmmmm. *ponder*
It's one thing to think of the most awful act a character can commit, and then plot out how other characters would react to it, while still writing that character as a sympathetic character, someone the reader is supposed to like.
It's another thing entirely when you realize that the perfect act for a character to commit, the thing that would not only make sense of all the half-formed story bits you've been collecting but would actually make it a stronger story than you anticipated...is an act that you, the person writing this story, find so repulsive, so utterly unforgiveable, that you have no idea how you can create a character who is sympathetic yet could commit this act.
This is the right thing for this story. It's a good idea. It's almost, almost, a plot-crystallizing idea, and goodness knows I don't get many of those. I'm just not really a good enough writer to write it. Yet.
Hmmmm. *ponder*