In my series, I have this villain who is an absolutely soulless, bloodthirsty assassin. She doesn't flinch at killing dozens of people and she's never failed a mission. She's hardcore and she's cruel--and she likes to think she has no soft side.

But the thing is, she's also insecure, because she's only human and it's not like there's much she can do about THAT. So as the series progresses, she starts to grapple more and more with the ultimate evil, the thing she fears most of all--her conscience. 

Obviously this sort of point doesn't only apply only to villains--if your protagonist's worst fear is losing everything, make it seem like they will. If their ultimate goal is to protect someone they love, dangle that person just out of their reach. Don't let them win easily--don't just make it hard for them to attain the goals, but turn around and use the goal itself to make their lives harder.

It would be ridiculously easy for me to make one of my characters the scapegoat and let everyone else drift along. But I can't do that, for balance reasons. Esma, my protagonist, suffers, but I also have to make sure that my side characters go through pain and trauma as well. Otherwise, it seems like the entire universe is out to get that one person (if you're writing a book where that's your goal, of course, feel free to avoid this step, but I recommend still not making one person the only one who suffers). This makes it super easy for your protagonist to be holier-than-thou or be a loud sufferer, and neither of those are fun traits to read about. 

I have one character who's sort of the happy-go-lucky, cheerful, optimistic type in each of my stories. I have to--it's like my version of comic relief. In the Pentegreens Series, that would be Derek Ternarnthien; in Watched, my other WIP that I've talked about here some, it would be either Jeannie or Bryce. The thing I have to watch out for is that I don't let that person slide through the conflict unscathed. They have a better attitude, perhaps, than my train wreck characters, but that doesn't mean they get off easier. In fact, Derek may well be the character who suffers the most in the end...*sniffles* *cries*

I'm definitely not one of those authors who shies away from killing the important characters. At the moment I'm counting on my fingers the number of important characters who die in the Pentegreen series and there's, er, eight or nine of them. *chokes and backs away* My goodness, I'm outdoing myself here, and that's not even counting characters who I plan to kill in the Watched series and the super-secret project. I think Sweat and Gold is the only story I've written where the stakes were something other than death. So...yeah, if death is something that fits your story, don't shy away from it! Go for it! Kill people!

But please, please, please, if you're going to kill people, make sure it has a purpose. Give them a reason for dying. Otherwise, it just feels LAZY. I'm thinking of Mockingjay at the moment--I know most people who are interested in the Hunger Games have probably read or seen it at this point, but I won't name any names here. I'll just say that two people die in the last book, and they are THE WRONG PEOPLE, someone else should have died both times, and IT WAS STUPID AND USELESS. It didn't make me sad, it didn't break my feels--it just made me ANGRY. Both times. 

Moral of the story: If you're going to kill someone, kill them the way the Important Character in THG book 1 dies (y'all know who that is.) Do NOT kill them the way people die in Mockingjay. 

I'm one of those people who needs to see both the painful bits, where the stakes are high and there's lots of screaming and blood and fighting; and the calm bits, where the characters get a break. In one of my books, there's a scene towards the beginning where three of my characters are running from bounty hunters through the woods. It's (hopefully) a tense scene, and there's a lot going on--but then I give them time to rest and recuperate and sass each other afterward. 

I did this same thing with pretty much the first third of my third Pentegreen book (whoops). The ending of book 2 is pretty brutal on a couple of my characters, and they needed a chance to recover if they were to get through what I had ahead for them. So they get time to cry and be emotional and hug it out and form new relationships that weren't there before, but then they're off and running again, and that's how it should be. Balance is key. 

That's about all I have to say on the subject...what do you guys think? Do you enjoy torturing your characters? (I think we writers are all sociopaths xD) Do you have any advice on this particular topic? Are you very anxious about my characters now? Chat with me in the comments below!