The Delicate Art of Torture – A Study in Conflict and Character Building

(A warning to any who read this, this post is rather long so be prepared to sit and really think about what your reading here. ^_^)

Now, if you are a writer, you’ve probably guessed what this blog post is going to be about from the title, right?  And if you are not a writer, then you probably have no idea what I’m talking about and have most likely conjured horrible bloody pictures in your head of writers using pens and pencils to stab people, flailing keyboards around like bludgeons, or else something of a similar nature to barbarianism. 

Oh please… *rolls eyes sarcastically*.  Trust me here; the art of torture requires so much more finesse than that.  >:)

Of course I’m talking about the writing process and a writer’s relationship with their characters.  It’s a very delicate balance, you see, that between creator and imaginary creation.  While the people in our stories do not have physical bodies, for say, they are very much alive in our heads.  However, until we start actually writing about them, they are usually floating around in white space waiting for something to happen.

The trick is in making something happen to them that is actually interesting.  In order to do that, a writer needs to infuse their story with conflict.  Personally, I feel that the subject of conflict is a sticky one to approach, but basically conflict is the element of the story that makes reading the story interesting.  Just recently I read a really awesome post on the subject here:

http://lydiasharp.blogspot.com/2012/01/back-to-basics-every-scene-must-have.html

That posts breaks it down nice and simple, and really drives home the importance of conflict – not just in your story, but in every scene of your story. 

Now as many writers already know, there is usually an overall conflict in any story to begin with.  I find that this is normally what the story’s overall plot is based off of. 

For instance:

1)  The girl is in love with the guy but can’t have him. (or vise versa)  

2) There is an evil magic ring that corrupts people placed in the hand of young hobbit, and a dark lord is rising up in the east.

3) A girl finds out that she has inherited the ability to read characters out of their books from her father, but what happens when her father accidentally reads a villain out of his story?

Etc…

These are all good examples of a conflict central to the story line, but there should also be a form of conflict within each and every scene of the book; something that drives the story forward continually, without leaving the reader in a lag of interest.  This is, I’m finding, not only very important for a writer to adhere to, but it’s also rather difficult to do well because it means that EVERY scene must have a goal… a set point in the plot that you are writing towards. 

If this all sounds confusing, try thinking of every scene as one thread in a tapestry.  A single thread may seem small, and on its own it doesn’t appear to be of much worth: it starts at a certain point… it ends at a certain point, and it doesn’t change colors.  Where that thread is tied off, another thread is tied on, its life span much the same as the previous one.  However, when the weaver is finished with her work, and we finally get to see the tapestry as a full picture, the life span of those two little threads suddenly makes sense.  They were aiding in the overall creation of the tapestry, strung out and woven tightly (which of course means “with tension” or in this case “with conflict”) between other threads in order that the purpose of the whole picture might be fulfilled. 

What wouldn’t have made sense was if these threads were tied on, and then just hung limply down instead of being woven in (like a scene that has no conflict in it… it doesn’t drive the story forward but just “is”).

What my friend Lydia states in her blog post is simply that without a goal, conflict is not possible.   And since conflict is what drives your story forward and makes it interesting to read, you want to have some form of it in every part of your story.  To do that, you must realize the goal of a scene (or, if you prefer, the importance of the scene and how it parallels with your plot) before or as you are writing said scene.  You can be an outliner or a pantster – in this case, it really doesn’t matter – but sooner or later, you are going to have to realize your scene’s goal.

Now, you are probably wondering at the moment what this has to do with the title of this post, but I promise that I’m getting there.

You see, I find that a great way to encourage conflict in my story is through the delicate art of torturing my characters on a regular basis.  Such evil actions can be planned out ahead of time, or they can be written in at a minute’s notice, but in my opinion, torture definitely presents itself as a form of conflict.

For example, the very definition of torture is as follows:

1.  to inflict pain on somebody: to inflict extreme pain or physical punishment on somebody 

2.  to cause somebody anguish: to cause somebody mental or physical anguish

3.  to distort something: to twist or distort something into an unnatural form 

If none of those definitions ring of conflict to you, then I don’t know what will. ;)

However, inflicting torment on a character is a sensitive business for writers.  If done wrong, the reader could be taken out of the story because the situation feels unrealistic, or (in the worst of circumstances) a writer’s characters might turn on him or her and cause a bloody massacre of said writer’s inspiration.

Of course we want to try to avoid such drastic and bloody measures on the character’s part, so it is the writer’s job to learn how to exact their planned persecutions on the character without the character ever thinking for a moment that all of his or her troubles in life become the fault of their writer.  

But how can this be done in a graceful manner?

Well, it is a tricky business to be sure, and to fully do the subject justice, I must touch on a theme that may seem completely off subject.

World and Character building.  Especially Character building, in this case.

For those of you who have been at this for a while, what I’m saying may seem “old hat” to you, but I wonder… have you ever really considered how close your character really is to the situations that you put him or her through?  I mean, of course it is happening to them, but what do you suppose they believe is the reason it is happening?  Obviously we are trying to avoid having characters guess that it is really our fault that they are going through so much trouble, but what is the excuse that their minds make in order to deter them from thinking of us as the writers?

If you think of it this way, it might make sense: the entirety of our world is based off of the rule of cause and effect.  For every effect, there is a cause.  In order to make our stories seem real to our readers, a writer must apply this same rule to their stories and the worlds that exist there.  BUT… just as every effect must have a cause, so must every cause match its effect and vice versa.

For instance… you wouldn’t want your dog character to step into a puddle of water (the cause) and then suddenly die (the effect).  It wouldn’t match up.  If the water was just ordinary water and the dog was just an ordinary dog, as is the case with this example, then there should be no reason for the dog to die by simply touching a patch of random, normal water.

You might, however, have your dog step into a puddle of highly radioactive muck (the cause) and then turn into a super hero (the effect).  This would make sense in a story, both to the reader and to the characters, as radioactive muck is known to be toxic, in many cases deadly, and in the comic books often all-empowering.

To apply the cause and effect rule to people and the dealings of people rather than a dog is a lot more difficult though.  This is because each person has a unique story behind them that may drive their actions in a scene.  

An example would be something I’ve written into my story, “Song of the Daystar”.

In one of the scenes in SOTD, I have a very complicated meeting between Commander Olan and his brother, Caellahn, where they are discussing a movement of believers in the kingdom of Alayia.  My main character, Curron, is listening in and tries to escape without being discovered, but changes his mind when Olan grabs his friend in a drunken state and is harassing her. (Nothing overly drastic, I assure you.)  In that instance, Curron decides to stand up for his friend and gets himself thrown in prison where he awaits his trial and his death.

The question that I’m sure you are asking by now is, why would Curron’s actions warrant him death?  According to the summary above, it would seem that Curron didn’t commit a crime worthy of death… not exactly, anyway.

And the answer really does have to be as complicated as my characters are (besides the fact, of course, that Curron tries to slam a heavy mug over Olan’s head… <_<)

You see, it’s quite obvious by now that by me having Curron thrown in prison and sentenced to die, I am applying a writer’s “torture” technique to him.  But in order to do this and make it feel reasonable to the reader, I have to give each of the characters involved a background that would warrant their actions… and, not just warrant their actions, but also support their actions since it would seem that many different character backgrounds are based on each characters’ unique personality.

For example, in my story Commander Olan is not happy that his brother has returned(as is made quite evident in a fight scene that happens just before Curron is sentenced).  In fact, Olan hates his brother because Caellahn was his father’s favorite son, though he was also the youngest and illegitimate.  Also, Olan has a strong (almost instinctive) sense of following the rules… any rules set… which in this case and sense put my MC in danger.  He also doesn’t like my MC, partially because he feels that Curron’s very presence is a breach of the king’s law (for multiple reasons, of course), and partially because Curron reminds him of his brother, Caellahn. 

Caellahn, on the other hand, doesn’t have trouble with his brother so much as he had trouble with his father.  He recognized the fact that his father’s favoritism was the cause of his brother’s hatred, and once he became a believer in his younger years, he resented his father’s choice of having an illegitimate son, even if he was it.  To that end, he left the fort in an attempt to outrun his troubles, his past, and his heritage, and eventually his adventures gained him a name among Alayia’s believers.  However, he did come to forgive his father in due course, but has not yet been able to win over his brother.  Caellahn is a loner, and much more erratic than his brother, with a strong sense of right and wrong despite what the law has to say about the matter.  He can see what Olan hates about Curron (mostly that Curron reminds olan of him), and so, feeling guilty for at least part of Olan’s hate for the boy, he steps in to protect Curron, thereby furthering Olan’s wrath.

In the mean time, Curron is a young boy who doesn’t yet know where he stands one way or the other.  When he was ten he watched as his guardian was hung for her beliefs, and the event has scarred him deeply, making him doubt the way of Anahdor.  And yet, however clouded his beliefs are, he still has a young and naïve sense about him that makes him sensitive to right and wrong, and ultimately loyal, once a person had actually gained his trust.  On that same note, because of Olan’s hate for him, his guardians awful death, and the terrible treatment he has received since then, his trust is not easily earned… and that becomes both a hindrance and a blessing within the contents of the book.  He definitely has a strong sense of protectiveness that is triggered when he sees another person being wrongly mistreated, especially if he knows and is fond of that person. 

It is during such a moment that Curron decides to step up to protect his friend, thereby triggering Olan’s hate for him (based on his hate for his brother, and his inward need to uphold the law at all cost), which in turn triggers Caellahn’s need to protect Curron (partially because he recognizes the reason that Olan is targeting Curron and feels guilt), which further stokes Olan’s wrath at his brother and at Curron who reminds Olan of his hated brother, thereby causing him to throw Curron in jail and sentence him to death as a punishment to Curron and, by effect, Caellahn as well.

I’m hoping this is all starting to make sense now.  You see, it is the conflict within each character’s life and background that drives forward the conflict within the scene, which in turn ultimately drives forward the conflict of the whole story and allows me to throw in more obstacles and tortures for my characters without having to worry about Curron stepping out of the tale to berate me.  In the same way, it is how the world is built (in this case with the King’s Law driving forward most of the conflict in each of these characters’ lives) that adds to the conflict in both the scene and the story. 

And, because all of these problems are within Curron’s mental and physical background and makeup, I find that he doesn’t often question my motives because he understands the hardships within the context of the story and the backgrounds of the other characters.

In essence, it is the world of the story itself which averts my characters’ wrath from me.

This post is getting a bit long now, so I’m going to try and stop very soon, but I would like to end on this note: the world as we know it is a very complex thing.  Everything within our world, including human lives and our histories, are governed by a set of unspoken and unwritten rules.  Scientists have pondered the nature of these rules for centuries, though of course there is no scientist who ever lived or is now living who could fully understand the complexities that God created and is holding this world together with.

In a sense, one might say that the very nature of humanity is conflict.  We are often fighting each other, hurting each other, even running away from each other.  From sibling rivalry to all out war, one could even say that humans are masters of discord, especially among ourselves, and as complex as the world around us may be, our very nature is even more complex.  After all, you don’t see monkeys or any of the other animals going around building cities and making world changing discoveries in technology.

The point is that while we writers can never hope to make our worlds as complete and complex as God made this one, we still must work to make our worlds as believable as possible.  To that end, we must create and write, not only our worlds, but our characters and the other inhabitance of our worlds with some sort of complexity in mind, including common rules that those worlds and people are built and live by.  Only by following what we know of this world can we ever hope to create our worlds with any sense of reality.  It’s true that we may never be able to hope for our creations to live on into eternity or take on an actual living and breathing life of their own, but that is not our goal after all: a writer’s goal is for the stories that we create to take on only some brief semblance of reality for the few precious hours that readers enjoy our books… and once we have reached that point, that’s when our characters truly step out of the white static of our minds and actually come to life… if only for a moment.