Star Ranger4 Wrote:Certainly the above interpretations are correct, but my take on it is that "You have to go through hell to get to heaven".
It refers to the belief that great stories are about people facing a challenge of some sort and overcoming it; many feel that the more daunting the obstacle, the more satisfaction is found in the accomplishment. Ergo, the harsher you are to your protagonists, the more roadblocks they overcome along the way the more the readers cheer for them when they do. Assuming that you've been doing your job right and your readers are empathising with your protagonist.
No you don't. Angst and/or torture of your characters is absolutely not necessary to have an engaging story. It's more often writers being lazy and not coming up with another method to engage the reader. I'm not saying make it easy on the characters, but anguish for the sake of manipulation is not good writing.
--------------------------------Je ne suis pas une Intelligence Artificielle Turing. Je suis Charlie.