How to manage getting depressed by what my main character goes through?
I'm writing a war (sci-fi) novel. The MC dies in the end. It's not as thoroughly depressing as "All Quiet on the Western Front", but Remarque's work is definitely one source of inspiration.
Now, partway through writing, I find that writing is too painful for me to continue. It's not that I'm writing a particularly depressing passage - on the contrary. At this point my MC is eager and full of hope. What gets to me is the projection of the story: there are many ups, there's love and camaraderie, but the ultimate trend is down, until finally, inevitably, the MC is killed.
I desperately want to write this story, but at the same time, I find myself unable to sit down and continue writing it. It's not a writer's block: I have whole scenes sitting in my head, dialogues, you name it. It's that every scene I write brings my character one step closer to his inevitable death.
How do I manage this/get through this, and continue writing? I want to write this story - not another, and I don't want it lighter and softer - I want it to tear at the reader. (Of course, the reader, unlike me, would not know the end until it happens.)
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Here's a slightly different approach. Write the story in such a way the MC's death has something to compensate it, such as your character becoming irredeemable by dint of their actions of personality, or them dying to save someone else, or his death leading to a noble cause or vengeance against the killer.
Now, it's not normally a good idea to tell you what should happen in your story. But here's the twist: that's not what I'm telling you to do! When I said to write in a certain way, I never said those "sweet" parts of the text you write have to be in the finished story other people get to read. (In some software, such as LyX which I use, you can hide anything you like very easily without even using s separate file, because the finished product is outputted to another file type for readers.)
What's more, the parts that are just for you don't need to be well-written, so you can write them very succinctly. Now, my advice may sound awfully crazy, but the one upside is you can execute it in all manner of ways. For example, if you think you want to spend a while on hidden parts, e.g. because it makes you feel better or it's good practice, go ahead. And if you think some of the resulting plot points could go in the finished product after all, either now or in a redraft, that's also fine.
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Even if there's nothing uplifting or redeeming, the protagonist's death will have a positive interpretation - you've thought enough about his life to tell that story. It's not death itself that's a problem - it's the idea of a meaningless death, and if your story has brought home the futility of war your character has not died in vain.
I've seen boys raised on war films stop while reading All quiet on the Western front, and I could see them thinking "Wait, what? You mean it's not all glory? Where's the slow motion bit? That's what war's like? Stuff that."
You know your character's going to die, but here's the biggest spoiler of them all : Everyone does, in the end.
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I'm not sure that you do get through this. A story is an experience. To write the story, you have to live the experience, emotionally at least. When a story does not ring true, I think that is usually because the writer chickened out of really putting themselves through the emotions, of fully immersing themselves in the experience of the story.
I remember hearing it said of some poet or another than when a visitor asked the poet's daughter where her father was, she replied, "Daddy is upstairs, hurting himself." She meant, writing.
Some writers seem to do it to lay to rest the fears that haunt them. That seems to be the case with Stephen King. Sometimes, in other words, the writer experiences the story and its emotions and all the pain and fear that go with them, and can only escape from them by writing them down.
For others, it would seem, the difficulty is that they would (like most healthy people) turn away from the things they fear and focus on the good things of the moment. Writing then requires that you force yourself to imaginatively visit those things, in detail, and for a long time. If you have a choice about whether to do this or not, that is going to require a lot of courage.
Maybe the question you should be asking, therefore, is how to find the courage to put yourself through the pain of finishing your story.
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Write the ending. Do it now.
You can revise it later, or scrap it and write it over, but get your tears out of the way. I think you dread writing the outcome; face that dread and write it. Make it a done deal in your life, you won't dread it as much while writing.
I am a discovery writer; I often don't know who will live and die even amongst secondary characters. However, the biggest problem with discovery writing is always The ENDING, so I always keep some ending at the end of my writing document, in detailed notes (i.e. it is not crafted in prose, but the notes tie up my loose ends).
If I am writing along and find a twist or logic demands some char act in an unexpected fashion (to me), I demand of myself I revisit that ending and see if it will still be viable. If not, I must either find a new ending and commit to revising the whole story to fit with it, or abandon the char's action in favor of something else plausible, or kill the scene I was writing and find an alternative that fits with my ending.
I say that in service of this: Write your ending so that end-point is in your mind as you progress. Unlike me, perhaps do more than notes, do as much as you must to have your own cathartic release of the MC; so you have already experienced that death and finality. Then your other writing is like historical writing.
We know John Kennedy died and how, most of us have seen his murder on video. But we can still enjoy his speeches and appearances on video, his laughter and happiness, his embarrassments, even knowing the tragedy that awaits him. The same is true for other historical figures; I've seen video of John Lennon laughing and laughed with him. My advice is to turn your character into a historical figure for yourself, and it will be easier for you to write about his triumphs and failures, happiness and sorrows and embarrassments and angers. Write the ending.
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