All praise and accolades however are welcome at the current
address. BTW, a few spoilers for various books, movies, mangas
and fanfics are mentioned so please be careful.
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                   On The Necessity Of Cruelty And Pain:

     An Examination of the Use of Physical and Psychological

        Abuse of Fictional Characters for Various Reasons

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Since I'm somewhat maligned, or praised, or both, or whatever, in this
essay, permit me to offer another perspective on the topic.

First, this essay should really have had a "SPOILER" tag on it.  You've
given away things about Fushigi Yugi that I'd really rather not have known
yet.

Second ...

It sometimes concerns me that there can be a very dark side to inflicting
pain on our characters: namely, when the author _enjoys_ it.

For example (and please hear me out before you start throwing things), I
have often taken considerable delight in planning out new hell to put my
characters through.  In SM4200, for example, there's the feud that almost
drove Rei and Makoto to kill each other; there's the battle that ends in
Haruka's death; there'e Michiru's emotional disintegration, culminating
in her suicide strike on the enemy.

I enjoyed planning all those story details.  I took great pleasure in
laying out all the steps that led up to them.  Is this a kind of
vicarious sadism?  It's not something I'm proud to admit.  But I do it
again and again.

I should add that the pleasure goes right away when it comes time to
actually write the scenes. :)  Then it becomes blood, toil, tears and
sweat.  I like Haruka, I really do; but when I wrote her death, it all
came pouring out of me in a rush, and when it was finished I looked
back and thought, "Yeah, that's pretty good."  And _then_ I started to
notice how dreadful I felt.  I couldn't write any more for _weeks_
after that.

So I think that that, in inflicting cruelty and pain on characters, the
impact on the writer shouldn't be ignored.  When I'm writing from a
character's viewpoint, I'm seeing through their eyes, and feeling what
they feel -- joy or laughter, or rage, grief, fear or despair.  I suspect
that it's probably the same for most good writers.  I've never asked them,
but I suspect that Mike Noakes is going through all the anger and confusion
with Ranma and Akane in "Choices", and Nick Leifker's probably been right
there in all the painful decisions in "Clothes Make The..." or "Iris".

And thus, there's another reason for doing it, inflicting all that shit on
fictional characters.  That reason is that, after going through all the
dark places with these people, it's such a marvellous joy to see them
emerge again.  Defeating the pain, working through the hard decisions,
and -- we can hope -- growing up in the process.

My characters in SM4200 have got some dark roads still to walk.  But
when they get to the end, and it's all over, they will be very different
people from the ones that began the story.

And maybe I will be, too.


Angus