"The Writer is a Sadist!" -- Dark Characters Discussion

[CalConstantine]

Hallo Folks!

Who all here enjoys a good dark story?

I was going through some old blog posts on writing from a long time back, and I realized, based on how I am story boarding my own comic, I'm a bit of a sadist towards my protagonist. And I wanted to bring up the conversation with some fellow folks on how they treat their own characters.

What I mean by that is that, I don't want things to go 'good' for my character most of the time. I don't want them to succeed all the time. In fact, I want them to suffer. Why? Because I feel as one of the writing points you can do, suffering of the main character makes them more relatable. Feel more real if they, the hero, comes so close to a goal, only to fail. Hard. But when they do succeed, it is all the sweeter.

This isn't without saying that they don't eventually through other means achieve a goal or a means to an end, but the struggle is there, and personally, I find it is one of my favorite plot devices.

Does this mean killing off a character or two? Potentially. Does it mean the character goes through bouts of depression, anger, desperation, even darker subjects? Certainly.

My question to you all: What are your thoughts on the 'Dark' character, and putting your characters through Hell? Do you enjoy and feel that their suffering makes a good story, or do you approach story telling from another angle? I realize not all comics will deal with things like sorrow, anger, and loss, but some do, and some of those stories, as I've seen on a few comics I'm following, a few have given me a chill down my spine.

(Also, maybe a shameless way for me to lure out some fellow dark story tellers, and sub them >.>)

[efdvorsky]

I appreciate a character for trying more than succeeding. The hardships shouldn't just be there to punch or punish the character but challenge them, and I think that's the major difference. Whether they succeed or not is a different story altogether.

I personally enjoy breaking characters and hoping they come off stronger than before, realizing mistakes or aspects of their personality they can improve on, or even dealing with loss, yeah. A friend of mine and I call it the Don Bluth rule: you can make something really depressing but as long as the character overcomes it and has at least a bittersweet or happy ending, it's fine. But even then there's the whole gray area of WHAT is a happy ending, especially through all the hardships from before. Ya know? |D

For Cosmic Fish, for example, there will be a balance of that. It's very character-focused and some have a time limit until they turn into vicious monsters while others deal with different hardships that might seem unforgiving at some points, but there's always time to bring out the good parts of said hardships. The silver-lining. It might even feel like the universe might just literally be out to get some characters and some can overcome it and some won't. Yet tomorrow always comes.

As a writer, I'll get nothing if I'm just there playing god and killing left and right, it's a poorly-written power-trip or even a cheap way to tug heartstrings or get rid of characters I'd have no idea what to do with them. I don't recommend this.

I think the importance is keeping a balance in maintaining the character relatable in certain aspects more than just the challenge and you can keep the readers reeled in the story.

[thesisterscomic]

What are your thoughts on the 'Dark' character, and putting your characters through Hell? Do you enjoy and feel that their suffering makes a good story, or do you approach story telling from another angle? I realize not all comics will deal with things like sorrow, anger, and loss, but some do, and some of those stories, as I've seen on a few comics I'm following, a few have given me a chill down my spine.

Suffering without purpose is, to me, bad writing. You never want to be a sadist to a character, you want to give a character life. Life is not roses, nor is it sunshine and farts, nor is it mere survival. It is a terrible cocktail of all that, thorns included, and you'll like a bit of the taste but probably not the whole beverage. A dark character whose parents are dead, has been raped, has been prostituted, has killed at an early age could be compelling; though rarely is that the case. Often it is edge for the sake of edge (which can have a place too).

But it's a matter of perspective. A child hero or a child soldier? The ramifications of taking a life at a young age, or being subjected to ones first real bout of human cruelty. The rocking of the boat until it tips over or your fellow sailor beats you to death with the oar.

A dark character to me, shouldn't be put through Hell. They should walk into it obliviously, while doing everything in their power to avoid entering Hell. They don't see the Hellmouth until they've toppled down into the abyss. And it's the death by little cuts of if they can come back from it. The sacrifices that build up, the little death by inches of losing who you were to be who you are and fearing that who you are might not be who you'd like to be. Or even who you have to be to survive this.

Suffering has to be a human endeavor to taste sweetly. The hand of the writer has overcome the hand of God when it comes to hubris, and this might be due to how our world often has the bad guys win. Nobody knocks them down, but themselves, and the damage is done.

Sorrow is something you have to feel deeply. It might not ever drive your character to cry, but it is why under their skin they're screaming. Anger can and often should be inward; the character only hits his friend because he can't undo something interior and the frustration manifests and that cancer of anger grows. Loss should always have ramifications.

The man on the pile of corpses is the villain, the legend; his victims are a statistic. The corpse of a close friend and the fact that nobody ever found the killer is the death of trust and the ever present elephant in the room. A man who chokes someone out is scarier than a man who spirit bombs a crowd. The man who chokes someone to death could get close enough to do it.

Suffering without that bit of human integrity is sadism for the sake of sadism. We've all been there at various stages, nor am I accusing you of this. I'm sort of talking in general on the subject. A hero who fails at their goal has wasted countless pages; a hero who succeeds but loses something to their integrity makes the victory bittersweet; and that's real life.

You can pay off your student debts, but that 10k is gone from your bank for something rarely worth the amount. You're free, but it is bittersweet when you see that 10k is a lot to spend but little to have.

I like a good dark story, but rarely are they dark for me. I've been through the wringer; who hasn't nowadays? I think I get more disappointed when I see something that could appeal to me in theory, die upon execution. I remember a gay little comic about two serial killers in NYC. They had to be cute. They had to be funny. There was no depth. Killing was just a quirk, not the hollowness and lack of human empathy coming to boil over. I remember seeing it and thinking "Oh the art is nice, but these characters belong in an anime not hacking people apart." I forgot the name of it; perhaps it has improved.

I like to think I'm telling something of a human story (really one about family and death by inches), and calling it dark has that unfortunate tag of being edgy nowadays due to an oversaturation of "I was raped/orphaned/hurt and now I don't feel anymore" stories. I'd love to see more proper, dark work; but that takes time and twists and turns.

Bone, for example, is an amazingly dark comic once the Lord of Locusts puts its plan into action. There are haunting scenes. I wouldn't label it dark by today's standards. Though perhaps I'm just burnt out on labels.

Give my comic, The Sisters a shot if you'd like. Things pick up plot-wise during the Long Night; and it's been a ride ever since. Whole point of the antagonist is sort of a death by cuts nasty, even if it won't be clear til next week. He's a case of spoiled integrity, someone who has had to do things to survive and now he has to keep doing things to slither through life before fear catches up to him. The main characters are all broken to some degree, though it is only openly spelled out for the middle child; the youngest is starting to catch on later and the eldest is clearly an alcoholic without having to go full drunk for the sake of spelling it out.

I'll check out your work when I'm not at a NJ truck stop. It's interesting to talk about these sorts of things. And while these are my thoughts, by no means are the mono-dominant. Just my perspective having worked on dark stuff before, been through dark stuff before, and working on something in the field at the present.

[Thesleepypencil]

My thoughts on Dark storylines is this: For a comic artist with bright colours a child like humour. I sure put my characters through hell.

I don't believe in dumping bad after bad. What i do is small little things, have the characters slowly grow as people. Then hail mary pass destroy them with something and watch as they use the skills or lessons they have learned to get out of it. And generally my characters don't ebd a story unscarred in someways (though that's what i think grad adventures go hand inhand with. Scars)

It's never the suffering that makes the story. What people read for is to see how the character deals and grows in the face of something so awful happening to them. At least that's what I like.

[zelkats]

There are two kinds of characters that always catch my attention: those who are funny as hell, and those who go through a lot of suffering. I always strive to make stories that make people laugh their asses off or cry their eyes out. I've not tested the latter with readers enough, and I'm kind of afraid to because I don't know what reception I'll get XD;; I've a lot of dark (and sometimes depressing) stories under my belt that I've been meaning to flesh out.

I have a deep appreciation for dark stories and characters because they kind of acknowledge that the world isn't full of rainbows and sunshine. Many parents and teachers seem to urge their kids to suppress natural, negative emotions such as anger, sadness and grief, telling them that every bad thing happens for a reason (which is bullcrap IMHO). So, it's kind of refreshing to see characters rage or breakdown because of understandable, unfair circumstances --- it's relatable to some extent.

These characters also get to rage or grief and suffer in ways we can't because they're fictional, so it's interesting to push their limit sometimes. Perhaps that's where we become sadistic XD ... Who knows, we might be channeling some of our emotions through these characters.

[AnnaLandin]

Preface - my comic is a mixed bag of a lot of things, but Grassblades ultimately tells the story of one man's recovery from severe trauma, so there is a lot of darkness in there. It's not dark ALL the time (I take time out to tell super-dry dad jokes and draw adorable little girls picking flowers, etc.), but there's an undercurrent.

What are your thoughts on the 'Dark' character, and putting your characters through Hell? Do you enjoy and feel that their suffering makes a good story, or do you approach story telling from another angle?

Suffering, as with all things in a story, needs a purpose. Suffering in and of itself does not a good story make.

It's perfectly possible to tell an entire story super-well without the character ever suffering. There's a difference between suffering and overcoming obstacles. The point is to give the character something that hinders their progress, something they need to work around or work out how to overcome, not to cripple them just for the sake of putting some suffering in there.

To use my own main character, Masahiro, in the most non-spoilery way possible. He's lost his left hand from the wrist down - which used to be his dominant one, meaning he now gets by using his non-dominant right hand for all things. There's also a pretty nasty magical infection thing going on, which leaves him with one heck of an uncontrollable magical anger problem. A lot of his character arc is centered on dealing with these issues - how he tries to get around them, how he fails, how the problems get worse over time, how he desperately searches for some way to cure himself, etc.,etc. - but while they're the center of his character arc, they're not the entirety of it.

The suffering is motivation and complication, but it is not the end-point. He's not suffering for the sake of suffering - he's suffering because it's giving him reason to get up and go somewhere in the story.

Look at it like this - if you suddenly pull the rug out from under your character right as they're poised to succeed, it doesn't always make them more relatable; sometimes, it just frustrates your reader. Make sure you do it with purpose and then build on it - piling failure after failure, or suffering after suffering, on a character, without letting them have moments of triumph every now and then makes for a pretty predictable and boring story, IMHO.

[shazzbaa]

As a storyteller I've always disliked the writing advice of "be mean to your characters." I think better advice is "don't pull punches."

[ErithEl]

I used to write really uplifting, holding-onto-their-humanity type stories...and then I moved to LA and started working in retail. Now everything I write it dark (but more realistic).

It also doesn't help that over the past couple years I really got into Game of Thrones and Hunger Games, which are both series where sh*t happens to the characters and you see a lasting effect on them as a result.
This is something I've been trying to do, since I feel like stories where massive, epic, end-of-the-world disasters occur – and then at the end the characters are back to the way they were in the beginning. To me, that basically negates the whole story and any character development they may have gone through.

Personally, I do like to put my characters through a lot. I like throw them into situations where they will be given the choice to either wither or stand up. I like stories about characters finding their inner strength in the face of darkness and suffering.

I'm gonna be perfectly honest, though, I'm actually a little afraid of how my readers will react to certain parts in the future of Burning Bright. I just keep telling myself if there are readers who can handle comics like Daniel and Unsounded, then they can handle anything!

[WednesdayAsh]

Conflict is the catalyst for story, its resolution an ending makes.

By definition all protagonists "suffer", even in comedies (perhaps more so in comedies, as their suffering is absurd).

Darkness of a character here than is defined in terms of seriousness and how its played out rather than suffering itself. The more serious the protagonist regards her suffering, the more tradionally "dark" it becomes. Literal darkness here obviously plays a factor in how "dark" a story is.

Than you have dark comedies, where the "darkness" is implied in the writing contrasted with the "bright" art. Think Cyanide and Happiness. Which brings me to the next point.

There can be no dark without light. Thats why for me overtly dark stories can be hilariously bad as it is as severly unrealistic as the overtly bright and saccarine.

A balance is needed between darkness and lightness for it to resonate and not turn parodic.

Death and destruction is easy, true darkness (and lightness) in other forms must emerge in a character for one to be truly whole.

IMHO anyway.

[KSlinger]

I'm of the mind that drama, darkness, suspense and in-comic cruelty are fine in the grand scheme of things. If your character has a dark past behind them or painful future lying ahead, that's actually really interesting and makes me want to learn more about them, and I especially love it when it's possible to see the affects of these events on characters during the more mundane times as well. Being able to spot a character with PTSD before I've been told what happened to them makes me feel bonded to them, in a way. There's something special about being able to read between the lines like that and to be able to tell when a character is acting strangely because they have been exposed to something that still hurts-- not because they want to, but because they can't help it.

That said, I don't enjoy comics that are nothing but character torture. Unless your comic is literally set in hell, I'm going to switch off very quickly if all I see is weeping, screaming and general hysteria. It's the equivalent of trying to approach a dog that's gone feral: there's nothing that can be done here and there's no room for change. Give me a character whose shoulder I can put my hand on when they fail, not a hysterical shrew who wallows in self-pity.

On a more personal note, in West, the most traumatic events in the story have already been and gone. What we explore there is the fallout and how different people deal-- which, of course, requires some explanation of what happened in the first place. There are also some things in future that I'm really, really not looking forward too, and I do wonder at times if they're too dark, but then I remember that there's also a lot of fun and silliness in there as well. Like some real stupid shit. And love. So I'm not that awful, really. Just a little bit.

I'm actually more worried about the plot lines being overcomplicated and confusing-- but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

[mariusthered]

I enjoy writing Dark characters,

I write a Drama Web Soap called Talesfromswipecity right from the start the characters are dark, even the good ones show elements of darkness.
Example: Character Steve Lawson, is shown in a scene trying to throw his ex baby sitter and lover out of the house, when she tries to blackmail him he gets angry and throws her to the floor ( then later agrees to pick up the affair where it left off) dose this make hi a bad character? no just not a very honest one even if his wife is cold and unloving. but on the flip side of Steve he's a great dad and a very loyal cop.
but I have also written the opposite of this in a character Named Stanley Francisco. mob boss and former Hitman. he is a dark character with a cool head, but I have also written a scene that show his caring side.

I think as humans we must show out weaknesses in darkness to be believable.

[MichelleAntisocial]

Hmm.. I put my protagonists through a lot, regardless of what I'm writing. Stray Cats is pretty dark in particular, but it's really just about two different people dealing with complicated problems and dark pasts in their own ways. If you really want to break it down, the entire story is about learning to trust again after trauma.. things are going to continue to go poorly for Grey and Sabot for most of it, but their reactions and attitudes will change as they get stronger and grow as people.

What I'm trying to say is that a good story is a good story (not that I'm saying mine is). I'm a lot less concerned with the tone of the story (whether it's incredibly dark or heartwarming) than I am with that it's engaging and smart and has characters that I appreciate.

[epiale]

I've never been a fan of suffering for the sake of suffering, and have absolutely dropped stories that use the main character as a punching bag because it just didn't sit well with me, but I'm not exactly kind to my characters either. Hell, I scratched an earlier version of my comic because I ultimately decided it was too pointlessley messed up.

I often see the argument that super dark stories are more "realistic", but I'd honestly argue that isn't the case. How many people do you know who watched their whole family get murdered, were sold into slavery, are treated cruelly by literally everyone, etc? Life is a balance of light and darkness, in story writing it's a matter of finding a balance that creates a good, immersive story.

In my current comic Catihorn there's a pretty wide range from comedy to some really dark shit as the story progresses, but none of it was done with the intent of being just pointlessly cruel. Every bit of darkness has a reason for being there, with the ultimate goal being interesting characters going on an interesting journey in an interesting world, and growing and developing all the while. Sometimes that means being nice, way more often that means putting the characters through some horrible experiences.

So I guess while darkness does naturally tend to permeate my stories, it isn't really the goal to shove as much suffering as possible in there. Sometimes letting your characters experience a bit if joy can be just as interesting. : )

[Nipponphile]

What is a story really about? I think in the end it's not about what the character goes through, it's about how they grow and change throughout everything. How much they've learned and shaped and grown throughout everything. That's whats unique about people -- how much we change throughout our lives. Giving that same quality to our characters make them seem alive too, and the more dramatic the change the better the story will be until at the very end the reader can step back with a breath of awe like "look how far we've come."

About killing characters off, have you ever noticed that Hollywood movies don't like doing it? It's almost taboo, and God forbid killing the protagonist at the end. But that always took away the excitement. Sitting there wondering "Will they survive this?" that edge of your seat holding your breath feeling kind of goes away when you know it's impossible to lose them, and even in the darkest pit they're "safe". That's why I think it's important to kill characters off, because they might not be characters the reader asked for or wanted, but they'll become characters the readers will cherish that much more knowing they could lose them at any moment.

[BraveHeartTatsumaki]

My characters in Final Light suffer a lot, specially Hikari and Hiroto. All my characters had or are having problems in the past pretty sad that leads them to become what they are in the comic nowadays.
With Hikari I play more about her suffering, because I want her to become a hero, but how will she be able to save someone if she doesn't know what pain is? And that also would give her motivation to not want to see anyone suffering as she did. Maybe I might get too cruel with their past, specially with Hikari, some people might call me that I overexagerate the suffering xD but some of the things she suffers are things I've seen, lived or heard, so kinda makes them be pretty real.
But also the suffering is kinda part of the story, everything started because of pain actually, in my story there are some beings called Dark Souls which are material negative beings who are feed from the negativity around.
I don't enjoy making my characters suffer, BUT I do like to later because of a "X" situation I can put the character's acting in different ways or just leave it as how he/she is, it's pretty helpful.

[kazukitakamura126]

I personally like writing more serious stories because I am a serious person myself. However, I think if you are going to make a character go through something tragic it should change them for the best or for the worst. I don't like to make my characters miserable I want them to grow into better people or into a great villain depending on how the problem affects them. As far as death you should give context to each character's death so it doesn't lose its impact or demean the character's value.

[phen]

Dark characters coming from new writers tend to take on a bit more than just a "dark" side. Like what's been mentioned here; orphaned, prostitution, prepubescent or adolescent homicide. They're too dark, they have an insatiable urge to put themselves in harm's way and the universe itself rains upon them because, darn it, they're dark! It's an attempt to explain why the character is troubled without a lot of effort. That's not to say it can't be interesting but undue torture by continually pitting the character against the odds makes it read unbelievably. I like to link it to good music pieces -- everything in movements. Crescendo, rest, climax, crescendo, rest, decrescendo. Pace the character's experiences out in good time.

For There's No Such Thing as Jason -- I.T., which is predominantly a psychological narrative, there's an abundance of anxiety and a very somber flashback but the ultimate dark character is rather vague. I'm still experimenting with ways to approach dark characters (this thread is a huge help with everyone's insight!), I hit on A LOT of common tropes so hopefully it still feels fresh!

[Lapiz_Ztudio]

I have here my main character in Redemption . he was a demon, but he's a kind demon willing to help those who in need, even though he was disgusted by so many people, abandoned by the world, hated by his mother, he keeps on doing kindness, even though he suffered a lot, he believes that life is a gift. But no matter how dark his path, he keeps moving forward, believing that there's still hope and a small ray of light for him. he disliked violence but he can't control himself when he's own his demon form. It's a pretty dark actually, because there's a lot of violence and action, and it shows how cruel reality was.

[kazukitakamura126]

I like the premise of a kind demon, despite the theme being done to the point of being cliche. Despite that fact it shows not all creatures that are perceived as evil are evil just like Rin Okumura from Blue Exorcist or the Pit bulls of real life.

[kazukitakamura126]

Sometimes it is important to put your characters through trying obstacles that readers may find uncomfortable. As long as their is context readers are willing to understand why the author made their character go through such hardship. My drama comic In The Midst a few questionable events happens to the characters but, they are there to help them improve as people.