Writer When to take an L, When to take a W?

[Aloy Vizsla]

TL;DR How to salvage really depressing characters?

Hi chaos! I've been on the site since 2018, minus an extended break, and in that time I've noticed a pattern. A friend actually helped me realize on accident while talking about his own character.
We have both run into a problem; Our characters have been experiencing nothing but never-ending trauma for at least 3 IRL years of writing...

Now I know that all writers like to abuse their characters a bit. Especially in the head. It's fun writing some juicy drama! Or a heartbreaking and tragic tale. But what happens when your characters get nothing but abuse and trauma? Losing all their limbs invasion after invasion, losing loved ones, family drama, home planet is blown up, favorite faction is disbanded, but it never stops?

In our case; It get's boring. The character you've spent years developing and maybe even dragging through a single coherent storyline all that time, becomes a depressing little lump of squandered potential and nonstop angst. It get's old...

If you write them like this on purpose? Great! have at it! watch 'em burn...! but that wasn't the intent here. not his character, not for mine, and I'm pretty sure we're not the only ones either.
For us, it just so happens that our stories have organically or in some cases, via external\OOC situations that somehow impact IC storylines, led our characters down this path. And in this particular case, it's happened to characters that we just can't let go of yet. In my particular case, it would actually be very anticlimactic for Aloy or her daughter Tae'l Vizsla to just die in a random invasion to end the cycle. Even if wasn't, I just can't seem to build up the muse for another character, and just giving up and shelving an OC just doesn't feel right to me. Not in this case, at least.


So what I want to ask chaos today is; When should you offset that grim tone of constant loss with some kind of "win" for your character? or at least, some kind of positive force applied to their story.
And equally important; How would you go about it, if it were your character?

Or, if you've been in this situation yourself and found the solution, how did you do it?




(Needless to say, semi-serious and on topic replies only, please)

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Most of the situations you mentioned are outside of the writer's control, and they do indeed suck, especially if you have a string of bad luck with one particular character that translates (often poorly) over into IC trauma and suffering. A character whose life is a complete mess can be very boring to write after a while, especially if you're also dealing with the frustrations that come with factions disbanding, writing partners leaving, OOC drama, and you character's homeworld getting invaded/conquered/annihilated.

In those cases, I've found it's best to move on - whether you get rid of your character or simply put them on the backburner for a little while, it may be best to just take a break from writing them. I suppose some writers have only one main that they want to keep writing indefinitely, but I'm not like that. If I tried to only write one character for years, I'd get burnt out pretty quickly.

Maybe try to give your character some closure by ending things on a positive note - I know with one of mine, I actually wrote her as having a happy ending where she married an NPC, had a family, and retired to live a peaceful quiet life...

Right up until I decided to start writing her again, and immediately killed off her family for story reasons. Trauma and suffering had become interesting to me again at that point, I guess.

 

[Captain Jordan]

I have had varying success with characters over the years, and though I don't boast quite the menagerie as others do, I've still had my share of failures in the same vein as Aloy Vizsla .

The biggest way I wrestled back some control was to start saying "no" to the threads that would just put my character right back in the same, traumatic situations as before. An invasion, for example. Either that, or find a way to join them along the edges of the action, even if it's not a listed objective, to write something that could be meaningful to the story and positive to my character. For those characters that simply cannot stand being around tragedy without spiraling, though, the mere act of being involved in those stories might not be capable of being positive.

The other way was to do what I hated the most. Just put the character away and write someone else. It took me far too long to find a niche for Daiya to flourish, and I had many false starts (at one point I even retconned or even reboot her stories). As bad luck would have it, I ran into the opposite problem with Jerek Zenduu at about the same time, so now he's largely put away and hoping for a new niche to catch his interest. That one was the hardest, his story was turning into a positive note but the OOC timing didn't line up for myself or my writing partners until it was too late. I don't know, maybe I'll reboot him as well.

That's another option to consider. Prune your character's backstory, skip them ahead in time or simply reboot them with the stories you'd like them to have. I'm known for being a stickler for continuity, particularly with my characters, but sometimes there's no real path forward but something drastic. Maybe that will trigger a new path, or at least give you some room to clear their past of the traumas that weigh down your writing so much now.

I'm definitely the writer who won't kill off my characters. I expect the ones I've abandoned are still out there, making stories that no one has written or read yet. Someday, I tell myself, I'll write them again so a lethal ending would be worse than leaving it loose. So I'm not one to advocate for killing off characters. Perhaps consider offing one of their circle of contacts instead, or some other aspect of the character (ship, armor, position) that would allow you to write a story bringing them back from that setback.

Above all, I wish you good luck. Sometimes it comes down to that in roleplaying.

 

[Matt the Radar Tech]

You are literally the architect of your character's story.

Change it whenever you want.

It is - and can be - that simple.

 

[Aloy Vizsla]

You are literally the architect of your character's story.

Change it whenever you want.

It is - and can be - that simple.

I figured it couldn't hurt to get advice still, seeing as every architect has their own flavor and sometimes it might look better than my own first draft

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

I enjoy hurting my characters. Lots of dev when it serves a story purpose. Tests their limits, forces them out of their comfort zone, reveals what they are made of, in good and bad. Also my choice...just like it's your choice not to do so as well as to dictate the manner in which dramatic events affect them. Trauma is just one of many.

As for factions, I don't get invested in them. They come and go, as it should be. I only involve myself in what they're doing when I believe there's an angle that suits my character. Usually by showing up in an invasion on whichever side makes sense for them.

 

[Matt the Radar Tech]

I figured it couldn't hurt to get advice still, seeing as every architect has their own flavor and sometimes it might look better than my own first draft

Nothing wrong with seeking advice, more power to you.

You want to know the issue? You're not exploring real character development.

What does that mean? It means you're too focused on one particular avenue of plotting, in this case trauma RP, which has resulted in you likely exhausting 99% of character response or growth. 3 years is a long time to be on the same roundabout. Also, tying a character to a specific faction never ends well, they need to be able to function beyond a faction - as an individual - as well.

Does the character feel stagnant? Well.

Does the character always fall into the same/similar plot arcs? Well.

Does the character feel comfortable to a fault in most instances? Well.

If you plan to present a developed and believable character, well... sorry to say, but just like real folk, everyone has good and bad days. So how about injecting some good days? Offset the endless trauma RP, the premise of which I personally find dull and one dimensional, and put the characters into some other scenarios that - dare I say - require them to exhibit more than depresso espresso emotions?

Sometimes the best character development is seeing what personality is revealed in varying circumstances.

Mix it up.

You never know... you might actually find muse in a new and unexpected direction, when you're forced to explore other personality or reactionary developments.

That's all I have.

Ta-ta.

 

[Aloy Vizsla]

I think I should clarify that the examples I listed don't all apply to my characters or even my friend's character. Just various examples I thought of