How Horrible/Miserable Can I Make It For My Main Character In The Beginning?

[TheMoonStain]

Serious question. As I was once told that you need to hold off on having horrible things happening to your main character in order to establish the stakes of the setting and then when you've lulled the reader into a false sense of security. Then you hit them with the misery porn or the violence or the extreme gruesome content.

Is this always true? And if so whats the bare minimum I need to establish the main character before I begin having messed up stuff happening to them?

 

[XianPiete]

As the author, it's your story to tell. There are no rules for how you should write the tale of your own creation aside from making sure that you are able to get your points across. I feel like a writer who follows too closely to a formula for success will most likely produce mediocre work.

 

[bidoblob]

You can make it however you want, and especially when you've only been told once that writing has to go a certain way, you should consider the legitimacy of such a claim.
For example I, as a person, dislike horrible stuff happening to the MC in general and can only accept it in small amounts or as a background setting, and can't care whether it is before or after I get to know them.

 

[lnv]

Serious question. As I was once told that you need to hold off on having horrible things happening to your main character in order to establish the stakes of the setting and then when you've lulled the reader into a false sense of security. Then you hit them with the misery porn or the violence or the extreme gruesome content.

Is this always true? And if so whats the bare minimum I need to establish the main character before I begin having messed up stuff happening to them?

How you treat your main character depends on what kind of story you wish to tell. Do note that in general, people who read web novels are less fond of tragedy than typical readers.

Treating your main character cruelly early on has ups and downs:
1) People who start reading the story will get used to bad things happening and tamper their attachment to the character while knowing how the story is in general.
2) If you don't make it clear early on and have it happen mid story, it will have more impact, BUT, the impact can go 2 ways, some may feel the thrill, while others may feel betrayed and drop your story.

Generally, if you want to tamper your character but don't actually plan to write a tragedy, I suggest doing it early on.

As a side note: Do know that no reader will like a main character that the author themselves hates. If you are having your MC go through tragedy and are enjoying their suffering, then you wouldn't be able to portray that aspect very well and the quality will drop. Don't make a character suffer for the sake of suffering

 

[Jemini]

As everyone says, it really depends on what story you want to tell. That said, my favorite series in the world actually has the horrible stuff happen in the prologue, it gets pretty bad in the first few chapters as well, and then the rest of the first arc of the story is all the MC working to pick himself up and build a good life for himself after all that tragedy. Having the tragedy early on actually gets the reader more attached to the idea of the MC just having a good life and more sympathetic with him for wanting revenge on those who tormented him.

Here's a link in case you are interested.

The Death Mage Who Doesn’t Want a Fourth Time - Novel Updates

www.novelupdates.com

 

[TheMoonStain]

As everyone says, it really depends on what story you want to tell. That said, my favorite series in the world actually has the horrible stuff happen in the prologue, it gets pretty bad in the first few chapters as well, and then the rest of the first arc of the story is all the MC working to pick himself up and build a good life for himself after all that tragedy. Having the tragedy early on actually gets the reader more attached to the idea of the MC just having a good life and more sympathetic with him for wanting revenge on those who tormented him.

That was the general idea I had in mind.

 

[Jemini]

That was the general idea I had in mind.

Well then, I'm always of the opinion you should see how someone else did it in order to inform your own writing. (Preferably how several people did it in order to avoid you picking up bias, but that's not entirely necessary.) So, yeah, I would suggest at least reading the 1st arc of the series I linked there. It very well might help you.

 

[TheMoonStain]

How offended would people be if I went into detail about what I planned to do to my character here?

 

[TheMoonStain]

As a side note: Do know that no reader will like a main character that the author themselves hates. If you are having your MC go through tragedy and are enjoying their suffering, then you wouldn't be able to portray that aspect very well and the quality will drop. Don't make a character suffer for the sake of suffering

What if the suffering is done with intent to improve/change the character?

 

[Sabruness]

depends on what your aiming for with the story. For example, large parts of the first arc of my primary story are 'break the cutie' moments to develop my protag's descent into functional insanity. As a contrast, the second arc only has one major moment at a similar level but quite a few moments where the balance is flipped and my protag is the one perpetrating the violence and misery.

 

[Jemini]

What if the suffering is done with intent to improve/change the character?

What do you mean by improve/change exactly? If the horrible stuff that happens to your character is VERY early on in the story, like the prologue bad stuff mentioned with Death Mage, it's really more like establishing their character since that acts as something of an origin story. Yes, it does also count as changing their character, but they are being changed from something that was the case before we really got to know them.

Oh! Can't believe I didn't think of this before. Rising of the Shield Hero is another example of having the bad stuff happen right at the beginning. That would be another resource to check out. Goblin Slayer sorta kinda has that as well, it's more world setting than character setting though. I guess both are good examples of what can be done with early horrible stuff though. As such, both are worth checking out since each does something different with the concept.

 

[Llamadragon]

Nah.
I’m reading Taint right now and I think it’s a nice example of ”starts at the tragedy” done well. It starts off with a little girl waking up in an unfamiliar cave that turns out to be a dungeon filled with demons who wants to eat her face and things just get worse from that point on. The stakes and settings are established pretty quickly during the first few chapters, through her inner dialogue and memories of her family members, so they’re definitely there, but it’s not where the reader starts.

 

[DaoFox]

What if the suffering is done with intent to improve/change the character?

to put it simply. if it WASN'T for the sake of improving the character or setting an important plot point... there would be no valid reason to include it to begin with.

there's nothing wrong with opening on something tough or hard -- though it does narrow your reading audience steeply -- as long as you write it well and it works/balances with the rest of the story you are telling.

Just make sure the reader can see that its necessary. If people think "the author could have skipped this scene entirely and the story wouldn't have changed or been any worse for it." then you have a problem. your aim is to write the scene such that they understand why its important enough to be in the story at all.

the aim is to write only the essential and leave out anything that is unnecessary or irrelevant. like info dumps that flesh out the world but contribute nothing to the plot advancement, they can go and readers won't have any worse an experience with your story.

 

[Sloth-of-Bangkok]

I believe it is a balance of both. Too dark, you alienate your audience. Too light, the audience wouldn’t sympathetic. A bit of both needs.

One of my main characters eats this. She was exile out from her home. Her entire family pretty much turn against her. Her father is responsible for the entire debacle. All because she has different powers set. But I also show not everyone is a major asshat. There are some people who see her as a friend. The main team aims to recruit her into the gang. A family guard who is not a jackass. A family friend who pulls enough mettle to get her exile instead of death and regret he couldn’t do more.

And despite all that I couldn’t get more activity

 

[Jemini]

I believe it is a balance of both. Too dark, you alienate your audience. Too light, the audience wouldn’t sympathetic. A bit of both needs.

One of my main characters eats this. She was exile out from her home. Her entire family pretty much turn against her. Her father is responsible for the entire debacle. All because she has different powers set. But I also show not everyone is a major asshat. There are some people who see her as a friend. The main team aims to recruit her into the gang. A family guard who is not a jackass. A family friend who pulls enough mettle to get her exile instead of death and regret he couldn’t do more.

And despite all that I couldn’t get more activity

There are quite a few things that go into getting activity on your story. Three really important things are your title, your synopsis, and the 1st paragraph of your 1st chapter (or the prologue if it has a prologue.) All three have to be something that hooks the reader. I actually tested mine before I posted it by showing it to a friend. I literally had them read only the first paragraph before she had to head home. I knew I had a winner when she demanded I email a copy of the entire (at the time unposted) prologue of the story to her.

Of course, you need to keep up that level of writing throughout. However, you need those three things to be as high quality as you can get them in order to attract readers in the first place.

(In my case, it was only my title and my first paragraph I got right the first time. I had to edit my synopsis to get it to its current state which is far better than the previous version. Still, it got pretty good views even with only 2 out of the 3.)

 

[TheMoonStain]

For example, large parts of the first arc of my primary story are 'break the cutie' moments to develop my protag's descent into functional insanity.

That's the idea for my protag. Although it's not so much 'insanity' as it is being broken and molded into a completely different person.

I believe it is a balance of both. Too dark, you alienate your audience. Too light, the audience wouldn’t sympathetic. A bit of both needs.

I dunno. Quite a few books and anime I read and watch can get INCREDIBLY dark at points. Berserk makes no bones about how awful it's setting is right out of the gate. 12 Kingdoms was so dark at points I had to take a break from watching it it made me so depressed. Which to be fair. Is the reason I seek out stories like that. I get catharsis of some kind seeing characters I care for going through horrible things. It's really the only thing that makes me feel anything visceral when I read books or movies anymore.

 

[Jemini]

I dunno. Quite a few books and anime I read and watch can get INCREDIBLY dark at points. Berserk makes no bones about how awful it's setting is right out of the gate. 12 Kingdoms was so dark at points I had to take a break from watching it it made me so depressed. Which to be fair. Is the reason I seek out stories like that. I get catharsis of some kind seeing characters I care for going through horrible things. It's really the only thing that makes me feel anything visceral when I read books or movies anymore.

Wow. If you got depressed watching the anime, don't read the book. I read the book first. It was absolutely gut wrenching. When I went ahead and watched the anime after that, I just found it far less visceral since I had already become desensitized to the events due to the FAR more intense way the same events were portrayed in the book where your imagination is able to run wild with it.

 

[Sloth-of-Bangkok]

That's the idea for my protag. Although it's not so much 'insanity' as it is being broken and molded into a completely different person.



I dunno. Quite a few books and anime I read and watch can get INCREDIBLY dark at points. Berserk makes no bones about how awful it's setting is right out of the gate. 12 Kingdoms was so dark at points I had to take a break from watching it it made me so depressed. Which to be fair. Is the reason I seek out stories like that. I get catharsis of some kind seeing characters I care for going through horrible things. It's really the only thing that makes me feel anything visceral when I read books or movies anymore.

Yes, berserk is dark but there is something you root for. We Casca to go back to normal. We want Guts to have a happy life. If the world is a hundred percent asshats and the MC going to die anyway, why care. You can make it dark but there must be a semblance of hope. Hell, in a coming arc of my novel, I plan to introduce a character, make her lose everything a hundred chapters down the line in the most horrific way possible to prove a statement, and then have her get everything she lost back and more by learning the life lesson.

She got the happiest ending possible (she got insane super-power, true love, best guys in a thousand mile and freaking unlimited cash in a bank with a kid in a way) and end of better than where she started but how she got there was a tale of humiliation and self-reflection (the detail will be a spoiler).

 

[Sloth-of-Bangkok]

There are quite a few things that go into getting activity on your story. Three really important things are your title, your synopsis, and the 1st paragraph of your 1st chapter (or the prologue if it has a prologue.) All three have to be something that hooks the reader. I actually tested mine before I posted it by showing it to a friend. I literally had them read only the first paragraph before she had to head home. I knew I had a winner when she demanded I email a copy of the entire (at the time unposted) prologue of the story to her.

Of course, you need to keep up that level of writing throughout. However, you need those three things to be as high quality as you can get them in order to attract readers in the first place.

(In my case, it was only my title and my first paragraph I got right the first time. I had to edit my synopsis to get it to its current state which is far better than the previous version. Still, it got pretty good views even with only 2 out of the 3.)

Can you check the prologue might be too difficult to change but the synopsis could be adjusted
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1735/horizon-dawn/

 

[Jemini]

Can you check the prologue might be too difficult to change but the synopsis could be adjusted
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1735/horizon-dawn/

Continuing conversation in PM.