Aren´t we cruel gods?

[Merle]

I´ve always found that interesting, how a creator of a story is literally the god of that story. We create worlds for our characters to live in. We create our characters, even species, universes....

We end up creating that special person/group that will tell the actuall story (whatever that might be) trough their eyes.

Now, I´ve noticed that the more I like a character, the more I make him suffer. I dunno why. And not that I kill them off, and most of the times I don´t make it unbearable, just really really heartwrenching.
Maybe I just like to push this being that I´ve created to it´s limits and see how it reacts. Does it break? Grow stronger? Or even, fight back?
And at the same time, I reward them highly at the end. Give them what they´ve needed and more.
(this is generally, of course, not the main force in the story or why i write it - just a sidefect that often seems to happen)

I mean of course you need conflict to unfold but I just tend to make it so hard for them O.o I mean I hurt watching them suffer but at the end I also enjoy, me, the alknowing being in that world, enjoy the confort of being able to take and give...
Maybe that´s why ancient gods have been made so humanlike...because making horrible things happen if you have the power is very human? haha, I´m drifting of here...

Anybody else being a cruel god here? or just me?

[keii4ii]

I don't feel like the creator of my story/characters. I'm an observer, and they have lives and minds of their own. I feel like I'm retelling a story that I discover, rather than telling something I made up. I don't consciously do that "giveth and taketh away" stuff.

Of course, that doesn't mean I get the exact blueprint of my comic through some kinda series of visions. It's up to me to decide exactly how to retell the story. It's still the same story, only arranged or displayed differently.

[Merle]

Oh, that´s another view on it! I do let my characters go babastic, but I arrange most of the actual storyline beforhand.
Hm, It´s kinda mix of both....
Don´t you do a lot fo the arragements beforehand?
It starts with an idea of something or someone or just a feeling, that comes to you almost outta nowhere, but right after that isn´t there a big stage where you build things up and soley figure out big parts of the story before you let the characters bug in? Or how does it work with you?

[keii4ii]

Oh, I didn't mean I plan out the entirety of the story at the beginning. There's quite a bit of improvisation and figuring-out-on-the-go, for sure.

But even when I improvise, I don't go "I feel like making them cry/ laugh/ etc, so let's do it!" It's more like making up the missing piece in this part of a big puzzle. The shape of the puzzle is already there. I can't just make up any shape I feel like making, you know? And the picture that goes on the puzzle piece -- I get more freedom with that, but it too has to connect with the surrounding pieces.

[NickRowler]

My guide to writing....hold your character's sweet little heart in your hand. Then get a knife and stab it.

I guess I am a little cruel. However, I was diagnosed with depression as a child (I think I was about 9). So, I always had this sad way of looking at life. Common themes in my stories is death of people close to a character. Also, the concept of how people deal with grief in different ways.

But then again, I think my stuff is a little bit more hopeful than others. I also like the theme of family and created families. Orphaned characters usually have siblings or adopted parents.

I do also openly admit to editing my comic Crow's Worth so that there would be 4 less dead parents.

[Merle]

Oh, I think I know what you´re saying. You know kinda where you wanna get, but you can still write it any way you like it which may result into the same outcome but paint a diferent picture! Haha, this is hard to talk about theoreticly.
I don´t make them feel particualr emotions, more like confront them with certain situations everything but uplifting fitting their goals and personality traits - I put them in situatuions they never tought they would end up in and then let them go completly loose. Sometimes shaping the story as I go along with their anger, helpnessless, growing. And generally enjoying my creations facing hardship and sometimes even being suprised by their reactions.
(For example my most beloved character that i´ve had for ages, and who is generally mind strong and super emotional/ faithfull, whom I put into a situation where he was faced with the just the tiniest possibility of his lover dying, he did not fight to find the truth or even discuss it with her - no he betrayed her and alll her beliefs in the worst way possible to minimize the chance of a wolrd without her (I am still shocked lol) but he did still stay in character! He would do it that way over again, he is lead to being a coward he deep down is so afraid...)

@NickRowler Haha....yeah ;( Ah, killing of parents is a cruel move indead. Try making them the bad guys. That´s for some reason my beloved move.
Sorry to hear about your depression! If I´m not mistaken creating storys helps you processing depressing toughts? I´ve come across this and painting being very helpfull in such a situation...

[PassionQueen]

Wow all of these answers are very creative. I might as well write my thoughts on this too! ^^
Like how @keii4ii said, I also feel like I'm retelling a story. But after I start to tell my stories, I become the god of that story and universe, like @pearl1 said. I let the story flow and sometimes I like to change the flow of that story and sprinkle a few struggles for the characters. Most of the time, I sit before the screen drawing the story and letting it fall into harmony, waiting for the time that I can ruin/help the characters. At times, I do get bored of some stories and decide not to continue them, leaving the characters frozen in time. Hehe, that sounded a bit mean. XD

[Chopythes]

I too, like @keii4ii said: I feel like an observer telling the story.
Sure, I'm the one coming up with it and having these conversations in my head. But that to me, feel more like I'm listening in to other people talking.
(and reading @keii4ii telling their views on it, is EXACTLY how I feel like! That's... Downright scary, but also comfortable? Like, I'm not the only one in that xD)

However, it feels a little bit like having the theory down, and it's all about how to execute it.
The only thing I can do as an artist, is how to make the story interesting to follow along, to depict it in a "true" way.

Sure, sometimes I'm able to adjust the story to fit my needs, but usually that's not necessary.
I'm almost NEVER able to make my characters do something they don't want to do. It's really, really annoying because I know the story needs to take that road xD

I don't think I've ever managed to control my characters in a way they felt comfortable with... xD

[keii4ii]

You know kinda where you wanna get, but you can still write it any way you like it which may result into the same outcome but paint a diferent picture!

What I "like" is almost irrelevant at this point. It was super relevant back when I was making big decisions without anything to base upon: e.g. "I want to do a story set in an ancient Korea-looking world because I like traditional Korean aesthetics!" "I wanna put cat people in there because I like fluffy" etc. But now that the story has taken a life of its own, my priority is what is the BEST way to tell this story, rather than what I like.

But... I'd guess you probably wouldn't "like" to put a scene that's not "the best" for the sake of the story as a whole. Most of the time, anyway. So what you mean by "like" probably has quite a bit of overlap with what I mean by "best." There are differences, but subtle ones.

(Tangent: I imagine this might have something to do with the difference between people who make comics because they enjoy it, VS people who make comics because not doing so is unbearable when they have a story to tell. I fall in the latter. For me, this isn't about enjoyment. Not that I don't enjoy it... but it's not the driving force. And that reflects in the way I make decisions as a storyteller.)

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

I guarantee you, I'm a very cruel god. I like to give my characters a swift boot to the face before the story even begins. There is no easy path to the end of their journey, but one full of sharp rocks, pitfalls, and poisonous snakes. As dismal as their lives may seem, they will at least have each other for support because they know they can't quit until they reach the end. It is a strong bond and courage that will help them beat a god as cruel as me.

[MichelleAntisocial]

Yeah, I'm with you on this one. I am absolutely terrible to my characters especially the ones I really like (I mean, if you look at my comic you can easily see who my favorite is, by what an awful time they're having right now). This might be because I like stories where people have to deal with a lot of adversity.. I'm interested in how people handle themselves and others when things get tough and I'm trying to be very careful and make reactions to problems incredibly character specific.. I also get this really weird sense of camaraderie from creating characters that are dealing with similar problems to what I am (depression, anxiety, death..). Or hey, maybe I'm just really sadistic, who knows?

[SynergyEclipse]

That's how I've been writing the story for my comic. I have a script and an outline of events, much of which I improvised and wrote well after I started drawing the comic, but there was still some direction behind how I was improvising. I didn't know how to describe that, but the puzzle piece analogy you used fits. As I continue writing it, I make more pieces that fit the ones I already have.

[indagold]

I just recognize my work and characters as just a craft of mine. It's just a craft. I don't get attached to them or care if they die or not or have to suffer a lot. I just let it happen because I want something to happen that drives the plot along. I write a lot of tragedies and dark stories and my intention is to have some moral or meaning or purpose. I don't give two shits if my character dies and suffers a billion times. I'm very blunt and straightforward when it comes anything I create because let's face it, it's not real, it will never be real. I'd be more concerned if I did take some emotional reaction from dead fantasy characters I created honestly. It's much different when I view someone else's work than when it's with mine. I get attached to characters when I don't know their outcomes and I get to know someone I never knew before.

[hushicho]

Stories have my help for telling, but I find it fairly reprehensible to just put characters through all manner of torment for no good reason. I think it's something that tends to appeal to younger authors, and that's perfectly fine, but after a point, I've seen enough tragedy in real life and don't seek it out in my creative expression, nor in my leisure. If it really must happen in a story and I know it has to, that's a different thing, and we get through it and move on.

A lot of the time, people writing tragedy into their stories don't consider how long the reader can take that tragedy with them, and how it can cast a pall over everything that happens afterward. It's often unaddressed with the characters, which makes it seem curiously sequestered at best, or meaningless and a token inclusion otherwise. I don't want to deal with a tragedy in the first place, but I certainly don't want to have to deal with it potentially for the entire rest of the series, so I don't tend to throw it in unless the story absolutely won't move any other way.

If I am a god of their world, I'm probably something more out of the Lovecraft stories, honestly. I'm either insane and stupid, or chaotic and my best intentions are incomprehensible (and sanity-damaging) to the average person!

[Mocha]

When it comes to the stories I'm currently writing, I feel more like an observer who's simply watching how the characters react and interact with each other and their environments, then speculate how the story will play out based on that and map out the story accordingly.

I'd say I only really feel like I'm playing god when it comes to my older works that I've abandoned or completely rewritten. In that case it feels like I'm trying too hard to fix and manipulate something I don't have the inspiration or energy to properly work on, so the story ends up being some weird non coherent chimera that only vaguely resembles a story with some kind of structure.
Eventually I just completely give up on. So yes, I suppose I am a bit of a cruel god. The worlds that those stories took place in have probably all gone to an apocalyptic state by now since they lack any resolution...

[NicolasStegmayer]

Hmmm no, i don't think i am "cruel" to my characters. Of course, they suffer, but that's because there is a need to be a struggle in the story. But i'm not the kind of writer that makes the characters suffer for no good reason. Some of them have actually pretty good lifes, with their families and stuff... some have it more challenging, but nothing to serious.
I mean, i Think that some people confuse being cruel to the character with struggle. The story needs the struggle, without it, there is no story, or the story would be preeeety boring. But, having a character suffer for no reason, having but stuff happening to them all the time without anything in exchange or that can make him advance and grow as a character doesn't make sense. It's easy to make bad things happen to a character, what's difficult it's to come up with solutions and a way that the character can become better with it

[mariusthered]

yes the god of swipe city is very cruel (and also the mayor!)

so far I have made a guy kill his own brother.
A crazy man kill his step sister and later his mother
a boy loose his dad (lost not dead) and get framed for things he never did
kill a girls daddy because of her pranks

and much much more
But it's so much fun (evil laugh)

and soon death will come again to swipe city!

[Zetsubonii]

For my story, Jim's Days, each character seems to have something bad planned to happen or even have happened to them. Cheshire, the deuteragonist, is deaf due to a traumatic event in her childhood (not yet in the story), while Jim's living in a world where he's misplaced (not yet shown, but we're almost there).

I think, over all, we are cruel to an extent, and the best way to describe what any character would do to their authors is best made in the Deadpool Kills series where Deadpool himself murders the writers, artists and all working to make his life a living hell :U

[Vanesalisa]

sort of I did made one of the main character suffer Luke Cassidy from Hollow Creek like he ran away from home , his mom is missing , he and his dad had a fallout and also suffer seizure that involves blood coming out of his ears and mouth...
but if you want to make a good story you have to suffer your character bit so readers would like "what happens next !"

[joannekwan]

I dunno, I'm more on @keii4ii's boat, where I see myself as a recorder and reporter of my characters' stories.
I don't particularly like making my characters suffer I just like letting them figure out stuff on their own, I can't bring myself to be like Lemony Snicket and throw one unfortunate event after another at my protagonists, I love them too much. They're like my children … that are good to me.