At one point or another we all feel defeated and that includes our characters as well. What we choose to do in the eye of defeat is what distinguishes us from others. Do your characters stand tall and fight back, or let the feeling over take them? If so how long does it take for them to recover? Days? Months? Years?
Why were they overcome with the feeling of defeat? What caused them to get to that point? In books like for example the twilight saga (spoiler alert even though mostly everyone in the world has either read the books or seen the movies lol) where Edward leaves Bella and she goes into a deep depression for months. Or in my current novel my main character actually has multiple times where she faces the feeling of defeat.
We all know what is like to feel like we can’t accomplish something, no matter how hard we try. As writers we know that all too well. But we choose to rise to the occasion and shove that feeling aside. Some take a little longer than others but they still get there.
That is the same for characters, they all have that moment of lost hope. The feeling of letting the darkness take over their drive, their will to go on. No matter the book, there is always that turning point. Are your characters tough enough to go through the defeated process quickly or tough in the way that it takes longer to overcome it?
How quickly do you overcome your feelings of defeat whenever you get them? And how alike are you and that character facing that adversity? Personally I think my main character is a bad ass but she even breaks down from time to time. To be honest though, she probably would stand up to the challenge way sooner than I would be able to. My husband may be overly nice and disagree with me but I feel like it is the truth to the situation. We always try to absentmindedly make our main character a little tougher than we are don’t we?
Falling into a deep depression just because your character feels defeated is never a good thing, so what or who pulls them out of such a situation? There is always that hope, the help that comes along to get them to start climbing back out of the hole of depression. It causes them to stand up and realize, ‘hey the water isn’t even that deep, I can stand’.
Help your character over come their defeat, and maybe even help yourself along the way. When you yourself feel defeated and just need a little encouragement, think of what you wrote to help your characters. If you can help a fictional character overcome a bought of defeat in their fictional lives than you can help yourself pull though. As writers we create, destroy and then bring lives back from the ashes of adversity, so we can do whatever we put our minds to.
Thank you for reading my blog and until next time….JUST KEEP WRITING.
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Tiffany’s Writing Journey 