Wounds/Deaths

[Tarin]

Some of the responses on the thread about cancer got me to thinking about the many nasty things I've forced my characters to undergo.:eek::p Anybody want to share the illnesses/wounds/deaths they've subjected their main characters to?

How about the manner in which you've dispatched your villains?

[Marie Evergreen]

My Villian fell to his death off of a high bridge, accident? suicide? murder? Guess you'll have to read the book to find out. He he

[Tommie Lyn]

In my first novel, My MC received a wound in battle, lost a lot of blood and was weakened. His wound subsequently became infected and he almost died (they didn't have penicillin in 1745).

Marie, my villain also fell to his death (gotta watch those high places).

What about your MC and villain, Tarin? What all did you put them through?

[Gravity]

One of my villians (there were several in the story) was slung off a burning helicopter skid as it was rising and impaled on the spike of a lightning-blasted oak. I always try for gooey deaths! :eek:

[David Meigs]

... share the illnesses/wounds/deaths they've subjected their main characters to?...How about the manner in which you've dispatched your villains?Hmm, this is TOO much fun to not comment.

Among the deaths I’ve subjected my antagonists to include being eaten by giant snakes, eaten by half human reptilians, eaten by cannibals, eaten by zombies, decapitated, spontaneous human combustion, blown to bits, killed in duels, and oh yeah, eaten by giants... to name a few.

As for my protagonists, they usually live a long life, but a few have died of neurological diseases, cancer, influenza, human sacrifice, and more than one race related murder.

I'm sure I've forgotten a few... :rolleyes:

[pajarita_deDios]

Hmmm....Lets see, in my WIP...

Poor Blanca is badly beaten.

Maria is jumped in an alley and slammed into the concrete face first. Later she is shot...

[melw]

my WIP isn't quite finished but the villian is going to proably be shot. Does anyone has someone who is villian turn into a good guy? As one of my villians is now a nice guy who i like, but didn't earlier

MEL

[righter1]

*wicked grin*

I've imagined doing about everything to my characters as I have a pretty wide wicked streak, and a no-holds-barred attitude with my writing. Currently, with my current WIP, I've been told by a friend that I should soften what I did to my MC at the end of the 2nd act. My MC was raped. Right now, I'm softening it so she's very badly beaten and is rescued before more can happen.

In other stories I've written with these characters that will be down the road, of the ones I've completed a first draft for, my MC has had a miscarriage, her husband accused of murder, her husband shot. In her past, her fiance was murdered.

With villains, I usually want them to be brought to justice, so I haven't considered much else. But, in the story where my MC's husband is shot, the same bullet hits the villain... I haven't decided if he'll live or die... And, since I don't intend to work on that story for a while, I don't know what will happen. :D

[Tommie Lyn]

Does anyone has someone who is villian turn into a good guy? As one of my villians is now a nice guy who i like, but didn't earlier
I still don't like the villain of my first novel -- but after developing his personna and how he came to be that way, I felt sorry for him.
My MC was raped. Right now, I'm softening it so she's very badly beaten and is rescued before more can happen.
The sister of my MC in my WIP was raped. I had a very difficult time coming to grips with that and writing it. I hope I'm not cheating the reader, but the MC, who has been tortured with a knife by the rapists, is clubbed on the head and doesn't regain consciousness until the act on his sister is almost finished, so he doesn't see everything (and, therefore, I don't have to write it).

But, he, his brother and his sister track down the rapists and exact revenge. The sister tortures them and the brothers kill them. I couldn't write that scene either. I cop out by saying the rapists' screams that were echoing through the woods were soon ended.

[Phy]

As I mentioned in another thread, my MC's best friend threw him off a cliff into waters filled with jagged rocks as a result of a sinister smear campaign.

[MissyKay]

Some of the responses on the thread about cancer got me to thinking about the many nasty things I've forced my characters to undergo.:eek::p Anybody want to share the illnesses/wounds/deaths they've subjected their main characters to?

How about the manner in which you've dispatched your villains?

Before I answer, I want to point out that my story is an alternate reality fantasy. Lots of badies to work with.

So, injuries...

Main character, Jael: bitten, beaten, clawed, punched, strangled, tortured, and almost drowned (all in book 1:))

Gideon: clawed, bitten

Daken: pummeled, bitten, knocked unconscious

Hmm....

This sounds bad, doesn't it. Okay, maybe I'll stop there. :D

Too violent???

[Lookin^Up]

In my early writing days, I never had a protag get injured, just as the Harts on Hart to Hart never were. That changed as I became an adult, and realized that's not realistic. So in Savage Worlds, Midik is shot in the leg and Prokta receives a graze in their first shoot-out, and Fondlo's wrist is injured and Xida is lamed in the second battle. Other characters down the line are punched, drugged, struck in the back of the head, or stabbed.

Disposing of villains, I get even more creative. In SW, two are shot, plain and simple, while the third is converted. My second story also has 3 villains: one goes completely crazy, another is crushed in his spaceship, and the third is sold to cannibals. Yum! That's why I was thrilled to see all 3 villains in Spiderman 3 be vanquished by 3 different and creative means.

In other stories, a few villains are converted while most meet grisly deaths. One story, titled Flaming Ice, is named after a gem that, when put under outside pressure, becomes a massive crystalline fire low to the ground that burns everything in its path. Most of the villains in that story were consumed this way, while another was shot, another was sliced through, and the head villain? Swallowed by a giant python.

[righter1]

Gosh, looks like I should get a bit more inventive with the way I dispose of my villains! Everyone has really described some interesting things... and here I was, feeling shy about sharing what I'd intended to do with my MC!

[psychoceramic]

IN my wip (which i just started)..MY bad guys are Killed, murdered and commit suicide.
My good guys go through being shot and murdered and long hard night with no sleep.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

My main character is 'knocked unconcious' and as a twisted Rite of Passage/Coming of Age, people insert many fine steel needles (with curses etched into them) pushed beneath his skin (almost all over his body). They poison his body slowly from the inside out. His clock is ticking...
(Yes, it's gross but it's not just for shock value, it does have a point).

[dulcigal]

I do believe I top all here: In my current novel, I had to kill off an emperor. Twice.

Really, though, I hate doing bad things to my characters, be they good or bad. Makes me sick and it's really hard for me to write, but I push through anyway.

So, my laundry list: a character's hand was broken, an MC got almost whipped to death, an MC's father had brutal injuries through prison torture, an exiled empress was killed by an implanted explosive device with enough charge to blow up a planet, another man had a disease that aged him rapidly, an MC's arm broke in a botched staff-fighting match, and plenty of shooting and lethal staff fighting all around. I've had to kill off my heroes and my villains, brought some back from the brink, one came back from the dead, one faked his death. Quite a few give their lives up for their friends, some for their enemies. One woman turned into a vegetable for saving a young boy's life (but he came back to revive her years later).

And through all that I've learned that life can be cruel, but that cruelty can be overcome by love and grace. I've felt every one of these wounds - and I'm someone who sneezes when I write about a character sneezing. Emotionally felt them, I guess, sometimes physically, and it's almost hard to list the carnage here because it feels like a body count of my best friend's family. But I think taking my characters through these wounds and deaths has helped me to understand life a little better, to understand humanity, and to be able to write moments of joy with a compassion and insight I would not have otherwise known. Conversely, it's helped me to understand other's pain in real life with more compassion because in some way I've experienced it too, and THAT is worth it all!

[Tamera]

In the novel I'm writing now, my main characters' entire family is killed by the end of chapter 2. One is killed in the Civil War. The rest are murdered by Quantrell's raiders. Except for the mom. She cuts her arm on a nail while lunging at Quantrell and then dies from infection. Depressing, huh?

[Lookin^Up]

Any non-writer reading this thread would think we're such a sorry sadistic lot! LOL :p

[tlm]

Any non-writer reading this thread would think we're such a sorry sadistic lot! LOL

Hey, I am beginning to think it, too! tee-hee.

Really, though, I hate doing bad things to my characters, be they good or bad. Makes me sick and it's really hard for me to write, but I push through anyway.

Yea, I feel the same way. I usually don't have a villain, other than life in general.

If I can find a publisher interested, I am planning my next work to have a main, male character return from war with battle injuries. He is thrown from an explosion, but has serious injuries to a leg. I am considering an amputation. His other comrades in arms are dead, so he must also deal with survivor guilt.

In the future I plan for a main character to be caught in a mine cave in (1940s).

Those things seem pretty mild after what I've just read. lol

[Tarin]

Hmm, let's see... Injuries I've inflicted on main characters: car wreck (broken leg, punctured lung, bruised heart), explosion (coma), knife wound, spinal meningitis, fall from a horse (dislocated shoulder), and, of course, various beatings, gunshot/arrow/sword wounds - depending on the era in which I'm writing.:D

Villains' manner of death: Explosion, gunshot wounds, stabbings, one guy got chopped in half with a sword, and another fell (a popular method!:p).

[Tommie Lyn]

Villains' manner of death: Explosion, gunshot wounds, stabbings, one guy got chopped in half with a sword, and another fell (a popular method!).
My MC lops off hands and cleaves a head in two with his broadsword in the Battle of Prestonpans.

[righter1]

I do believe I top all here: I have killed an emperor. Twice.

That's okay... I have designs on doing mass murder to US Senators, House Members and various members of the State Department... all fictional, of course.

Really, though, I hate doing bad things to my characters, be they good or bad. Makes me sick and it's really hard for me to write, but I push through anyway.

The toughest scene I ever wrote was in the first draft of my current WIP, when I actually wrote the rape scene. It was awful--powerful, but it made me sick to my stomach to write. When I was thinking whether it would be something I'd want my mother reading, that's when I started to think of ways to pull back.

And through all that I've learned that life can be cruel, but that cruelty can be overcome by love and grace. I've felt every one of these wounds - and I'm someone who sneezes when I write about a character sneezing. Emotionally felt them, I guess, sometimes physically, and it's almost hard to list the carnage here because it feels like a body count of my best friend's family. But I think taking my characters through these wounds and deaths has helped me to understand life a little better, to understand humanity, and to be able to write moments of joy with a compassion and insight I would not have otherwise known. Conversely, it's helped me to understand other's pain in real life with more compassion because in some way I've experienced it too, and THAT is worth it all!

I think you point out some very valid points here, Dulci. How can you NOT be sympathetic towards these characters, and conversely, real life people that go through similar circumstances, when you've been in the trenches with them, so to speak. When I write the few violent scenes or the heated arguments, I feel every gunshot, slash with a knife, or words of hurt. Sometimes, I wonder if I feel too much of it... In the last few years, I've begun crying over acts of violence that I know no one in the story... just see it on the news... Like a girl that went to the high school down the street from my house that was kidnapped, raped, and murdered earlier this year. When they did the press conference announcing they'd made an arrest and when they found her body, I was nearly sobbing, just because I could so picture everything that had happened to her in vivid detail. I wonder if I weren't a writer if I would have had a different reaction.


Lookin^Up said:
Any non-writer reading this thread would think we're such a sorry sadistic lot! LOL
This is probably true, but if they looked harder, they'd see the true compassion that lies in us. Let's face it, most of the time, we don't let our fictional perps get away with the bad stuff. That doesn't always happen in real life--too often, they do get away with it. Sometimes, we have more justice in a book than we do in real life!;)

[Tommie Lyn]

Really, though, I hate doing bad things to my characters, be they good or bad. Makes me sick and it's really hard for me to write, but I push through anyway.
Same here.

When I drove to Georgetown, South Carolina to trace the route my MC took when he escaped to the mountains, it made me sick to see the swamps he was going to have to slog through, barefoot. I felt horrible doing that to him (especially after what I had already put him through), but I had no choice.

[whitehawke]

lol. I half drowned one mc. Then threw him in a water trough. I smashed him off his horse on a cold, stormy day. Threw him down a rock covered hill, let him die from his injuries and the bitter cold. Sent him to hell. Brought him back from the dead. Half drowned him again, drugged him and tied him up, held a knife at his throat, smashed him up in a chev truck, threw him from yet another horse and then let him miss the rapture. :p

What a sadistic bunch we are. :D :p

[writegirl1949]

In Death in the Desert, the main cause of death (and the reason for the title) is a slow one -- dieing of thirst. Other deaths come in the form of shootings and the hijacking of a school bus.

I'm not much into out and out violence so that is about as bad as it gets.

Blessings, Francine

[ProfessorAlan]

My hero gets roughed up a little by the police in the first scene, then his house was bombed, and then he was nearly poisoned in the hospital while recovering from those injuries. Later, he gets kidnapped. Then there is a gun battle at the end.

[Lookin^Up]

Never had a villain fall to his death. Hmm ... overused? I wonder ...

The most heart-rending decisions I've had to make in my writing is having to kill off really likable protags. The last two books in my series are about war in the Saternis universe, and I found myself doing away with no less than five wonderful characters who readers could identify with. That's what makes war stories--the good ones--so poignant. (And this from a man who usually loathes war stories! :eek: Go figure.)

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Actually I have both pleasure and pain in wounding and killing my characters. I enjoy coming up with interesting and unusual methods but am very sad that they do die/get injured. You want them to always be happy and have nothing bad happen but that doesn't exactly make for a good story.

[righter1]

Oh, I have to add one that I completely didn't think about! My MC is a type-1 diabetic (juvenile onset). At the end of my WIP, the bad guy, who knows that she's type-1 and has insulin around, ties her up and tries to give her an overdose of insulin to kill her. Except bad guy doesn't know that there's different kinds, or what those would be, and gives her the slow acting kind for overnight, so my MC is rescued by her boyfriend in time. :D

[Merry]

Oh, you guys are just mean. I never...ever do anything bad to MY characters! Okay, I killed Mike Malone, but he got better! and then there was that guy who woke up in the tomb...and...there was that one I sold a long time ago about the guy who dealt in severed... Oh, forget it, I'm as psycho as the rest of you.

[dulcigal]

Hmm, I was thinking about this again and something struck me - I don't think these things are so painful to write about because WE do them to our characters (because most of us would never want to do them to a character - any character) but because it's what the character's life dictates. Alot of this stuff comes as a surprise. Many times, these injuries are the culmination of our character's choices, and it's really hard to watch these story people we care about wreck their lives (or give up their lives) on our literary graces! Even the villains are hard to watch crash and burn, when you spend enough time making them human.

I don't think we're a sad sadistic lot. I just think by finding out how our characters (who, like it or not, are all some part of the author) would react to each situation given, we're coping with life and figuring out what it all means the only way we know how - by story.

[righter1]

Hmm, I was thinking about this again and something struck me - I don't think these things are so painful to write about because WE do them to our characters (because most of us would never want to do them to a character - any character) but because it's what the character's life dictates. Alot of this stuff comes as a surprise. Many times, these injuries are the culmination of our character's choices, and it's really hard to watch these story people we care about wreck their lives (or give up their lives) on our literary graces! Even the villains are hard to watch crash and burn, when you spend enough time making them human.

I don't think we're a sad sadistic lot. I just think by finding out how our characters (who, like it or not, are all some part of the author) would react to each situation given, we're coping with life and figuring out what it all means the only way we know how - by story.

Well said, Dulci!

[Ransom v. Unman]

I do believe I top all here

All right, gauntlet thrown, gauntlet picked up...

My WIP opens up with the MC losing voluminous amounts of blood through a massive chest wound. His counterpart is pincushioned through the torso with open bullet wounds.

Characters in my WIP are electrocuted, have their skin torn off, are hung by meathooks as they are sacrificed to the TV gods, are set on fire, hacked & slashed by swords, axes, maces, spears, magic brass knuckles, railguns, arcane energy, lightning bolts, plagues, animal attacks, point-blank artillery fire, eaten alive by werewolves, ghouls, zombies and other such creatures, have limbs ripped off by aforementioned diabolical creatures, are ripped in half as the darkness within them rends them into two separate entities, radioactive attacks (radiation poisoning, cancer,) sensory deprivation and mutilation, being buried alive, ravaging, and well, all the other things that come along when demonic, unholy forces wage war on the living.

Some people are literally "annihilated" by evil creatures - their very existence is wiped off the face and memory of the world save to those who are spiritually in-tune enough to realise that the victims have disappeared.

And Dulci, one of my main characters problems is that he can't die. So, he winds up receiving several of the aforementioned treatments and living through them only to have them happen again.

Now, as grim as all that sounds, I go out of my way to avoid gory details, and just use these mostly as ways to express the horror and terror of the situation in which these characters find themselves.

One of the worst scenes is when the MC's evil side (which has been torn away from him) tries to rape another strong supportive character, and the MC finds himself torn between fulfilling his ultimate carnal desire, or destroying the one person he probably cares for more than anyone else in the world.

In other stories I've written or am working on, I've had characters die from exposure to extra-terrestrial elements (lungs burnt out from inhaling nauseous gasses, pummeled by rocks and high-winds, etc.), from being incinerated and turned into balrogs, from being tortured for a week by the souls of those whom the character enslaved, from suffocation after being caught in the rubble of a building during the Dresden firebombing, from being suffocated by their mother after "Watchers" have convinced her that her son will turn into the next Adolf Hitler, from being flayed and cremated alive by angry peasants...

There's probably more.

And that's just the lethal stuff. You'd be amazed what you can subject someone to that they'll live through.


I don't think we're a sad sadistic lot. I just think by finding out how our characters (who, like it or not, are all some part of the author) would react to each situation given, we're coping with life and figuring out what it all means the only way we know how - by story.

Thank you, Dulci. If anyone's sadistic, it's Tarin who wants to know all those horrible stuff about our characters in the first place. :p

I'm not sadistic... Just, maybe, morbid...

[Tarin]

I think Ransom wins the award for meanest author... :p

If anyone's sadistic, it's Tarin who wants to know all those horrible stuff about our characters in the first place. :p

Aww, c'mon, admit it - you enjoyed reading this thread as much as I did! :cool::D

@dulci: Good points there. Except I don't think I've ever regretted chopping up a bad guy... well, except for the effect it sometimes has on other characters. My bad guys are often emotionally connected to my MC's, so their deaths, however necessary, are rarely easy. But they're still satisfying!;)

[Ransom v. Unman]

I think Ransom wins the award for meanest author... :p

/bows... anxiously and nervously

Aww, c'mon, admit it - you enjoyed reading this thread as much as I did! :cool::D

Yeah...

Yeah, I suppose I did.

:o

On another note, I realised at lunch that I was completely forgetting about another major project that I've been in and out of working on for a good many years. The intended format is for comic book, so it won't see publication for a very long time.

It's about an American civil war that take place about 100 years from now, and so I'll just let it suffice to say that the realities of warfare are harsh, and I can probably double the list I wrote above if I were to chronicle all the physically and emotionally terrible things that go on in this story.

/sigh

Too much Tarrantino... or perhaps Clive Barker.

Whatever... :rolleyes: :p

[Tarin]

I can probably double the list I wrote above if I were to chronicle all the physically and emotionally terrible things that go on in this story.

Ach, now you're just showing off... :p

[Ransom v. Unman]

Ach, now you're just showing off... :p

No, now I'm trying to build interest.

I'll show it all off when it gets published. :D

[silumenye]

In my WIP (anyone notice that that could also mean Work I'm Planning?) my MC starts the back at the point of death. He is in chains, running a high fever from knife wounds to his chest, side, and leg. His wounds are infected because they have gone untended. He has been severly beaten, kicked. Later on in the book, he has the butt end of a spear rammed into one of his broken ribs. Still later, he gets a scratch from an assassin. I almost shot him with a poison arrow, but decided to have a little mercy. Shot his brother instead.

[jacks girl]

Sorry guys no bad things going on here. Life sucks bad enough to read about bad things happening. I don't like to kill off anyone but then again i do romance. LOL. I think may be someone broke a nail once. LOL LOL just kidding about the nail. I have people getting shot but they get better.

I love my characters i can't hurt them.... how's that for sappy romance gue (is that a word)

[righter1]

And that's just the lethal stuff. You'd be amazed what you can subject someone to that they'll live through.

If anyone's sadistic, it's Tarin who wants to know all those horrible stuff about our characters in the first place. :p

I'm not sadistic... Just, maybe, morbid...

Crickey... I don't even get close to that, Ransom, and I write murder mysteries! To think, I've been being shy about putting more of my stuff in the workshops for critique because I thought it'd be 'too much' (besides the fact it's a pain in the you-know-what to take out all the swear words since I'm writing for the secular market and don't have a problem using them whenever I deem it necessary.) If you're putting any of this in the workshops, I guess I shouldn't hesitate so much!

On the horrible stuff to characters, I haven't mentioned the horrible things I've done to the victims of my murders... So far in this book, I've had one shot to death, one stabbed to death, one raped, tortured, then shot to death, and then another attempted rape where the intended victim happened to be a brown belt and kicked said murderers butts (then said murderers decided it was time for my MC to pay, so they went to torture her.) But, I don't think this can compare to you, Ransom! I feel like I've been put to shame!!!

[AnnWinters]

In my current WIP I created a character to further the plot, and he soon became one of my favorites. The original plot was that he had to die to again further the plot. I really struggled with killing him off. When I finally got to it, the scene was so tragic, I cried each time I read it to edit/rewrite.

[Ransom v. Unman]

Crickey... I don't even get close to that, Ransom, and I write murder mysteries! To think, I've been being shy about putting more of my stuff in the workshops for critique because I thought it'd be 'too much' (besides the fact it's a pain in the you-know-what to take out all the swear words since I'm writing for the secular market and don't have a problem using them whenever I deem it necessary.) If you're putting any of this in the workshops, I guess I shouldn't hesitate so much!

On the horrible stuff to characters, I haven't mentioned the horrible things I've done to the victims of my murders... So far in this book, I've had one shot to death, one stabbed to death, one raped, tortured, then shot to death, and then another attempted rape where the intended victim happened to be a brown belt and kicked said murderers butts (then said murderers decided it was time for my MC to pay, so they went to torture her.) But, I don't think this can compare to you, Ransom! I feel like I've been put to shame!!!

The worst thing I've put in the workshop so far is "The Soulsucker of Anuema". That one more hints at things than it does actually show them, which is how most of my stories go.

Don't feel too bad. Like I said, war is a terrible thing. War with vampires only makes it worse. And don't worry, I'm writing for the secular market too... I don't think the CBA would touch most of my stuff with a ten foot pole.

Well, maybe if Phy was running things...

[pajarita_deDios]

I'm not sadistic... Just, maybe, morbid...

Nothing wrong with a little morbidity sometimes... :D

[Lookin^Up]

Is it my imagination, or are these reply boxes getting smaller???

The reason I injure/kill my protagonists is because the plot calls for it. If I'm writing a war scene, for instance, that almost demands that someone gets hurt, at least. If I'm writing about a riot, which is common in Savage Worlds (not in other stories), it would be unrealistic to let people go without a wound of some sort.

On the other hand, if Christian characters get major injuries on a regular basis, as I've seen other authors do, the reader has a right to scoff at God's protection for them, so there must be a balance. Even so, some believers can be injured or killed, because God's protection does not always mean keeping them whole and alive. That's a harsh real-life reality that one can see, even in Scripture. For instance, the priests of Nob were only trying to help David's men; they didn't deserve to be slaughtered.

So even though we're listing the various injuries rapid-fire, what we're not listing is the details of how these events came about. Then it would probably look less sadistic and more realistic. It certainly would in my case.

[silumenye]

Well, in my case, my MC is a Christian. He ends up the way he does because he gets betrayed by an enemy. But it really is God taking him to a place where he needs to go.

[HisSweetie]

In my early writing days, I never had a protag get injured, just as the Harts on Hart to Hart never were. That changed as I became an adult, and realized that's not realistic. So in Savage Worlds, Midik is shot in the leg and Prokta receives a graze in their first shoot-out, and Fondlo's wrist is injured and Xida is lamed in the second battle. Other characters down the line are punched, drugged, struck in the back of the head, or stabbed.


One of my character's is grazed too. What does a graze look like?

My MC's bike is tampered with, so she gets banged up from the accident that ensues. Most of my characters whether friend or foe have been punched or shot, stabbed or poisoned, often to death.

The hardest scenes I've had to write: The rape and murder of my MC's best friend in my first novel, which I wrote as delicately as possible. Don't want to turn on any sickos, but I didn't want to shy away from writing a powerful scene either. And also, a child who's abused in the supernatural thriller I'm working on now. I don't show much of the abuse, but it's horrific all the same. But I've thought about how she might overcome her antagonist with her "abilities". I think I'll have him fall from the roof of a building or something. He deserves a pre-descent before his actual one.

One of my in-the-past little girls is chased into a well by two boys.

I haven't had anyone get eaten yet. ;)

That's it I think. Pretty dull.

~Amy

[Lookin^Up]

As I understand it, a bullet graze looks like a red streak on the skin that would usually ooze blood, not as serious as when a vein is severed. But it should still be treated ASAP, or infection will set in.

[HisSweetie]

Thanks. That's what I thought.

[Tarin]

On the other hand, if Christian characters get major injuries on a regular basis, as I've seen other authors do, the reader has a right to scoff at God's protection for them, so there must be a balance. Even so, some believers can be injured or killed, because God's protection does not always mean keeping them whole and alive. That's a harsh real-life reality that one can see, even in Scripture. For instance, the priests of Nob were only trying to help David's men; they didn't deserve to be slaughtered.

Not sure how far I'd be willing to take this in my own writing. I don't not agree with it... but I do know that God never promised to spare his followers from pain and death - even horrific death. One need only read Foxe's Book of Martyrs to see that. Not to mention the Bible: Job and Paul immediately come to mind. Certainly there's a line to be toed here, but I don't think it's a major issue. Bad things happen to good and bad people alike. God has promised to sustain his followers - but not necessarily spare them.

[Ransom v. Unman]

Bad things happening to good people often has a way of making them more good...

Or at least it allows their martyrdom to perhaps inspire their cause.

[righter1]

Bad things happening to good people often has a way of making them more good...


I personally think that it's interesting to see how characters (and real life people) will respond to the bad things that happen to them. Will they slough it off and move on? Will they become angry and bitter? Will they wallow in self-pity and the sympathy that others give them? And, I think the outcome is what keeps our readers coming back and continuing to turn pages. :D

Also, I thought of some other awful thing I have up my sleeve for my next project... My MC will interview a family in connection to the murder of a woman at her church and discover a very young girl (I'm thinking between 10 & 13) who's very pregnant. Of course, I'm going to utilize this to advocate an issue (enforcement of predator laws and stiffer penalties for those who prey on children). But, I'm not sure I'm looking forward to writing that scene, especially since my MC's best friend, who's a few months pregnant herself, will in all likelihood be present, or will at least hear about it. *shudders*

[Lookin^Up]

. . . a very young girl (I'm thinking between 10 & 13) who's very pregnant.
Hmm ... that would be before and during puberty. I'm thinking you should up it a bit to 14 or 15.

[Ransom v. Unman]

Nowadays, 10 year olds can get pregnant - thank you very much food industry throwing steroids and nuclear ions into everything we eat... :rolleyes:

[righter1]

Nowadays, 10 year olds can get pregnant - thank you very much food industry throwing steroids and nuclear ions into everything we eat... :rolleyes:

Exactly. But, you also have to remember that I'm politically active, and the hot-button issue as I've come of age is abortion in my state. I've heard a ton of stories about girls getting raped at very early ages, then the abuser take them to clinics to get abortions and the clinics have 'don't ask, don't tell' policies when it comes to asking the girls--when the abuser isn't present--who got them pregnant.

But, that's getting a bit off topic. I'll let someone else take the reins so this doesn't get way out there.

[Lookin^Up]

I didn't know that. But then, I'm not a girl. :D