I wrote my first novel Ninjas of 512, in just three days. While that figure makes me sound pretty masochistic, I’m here today to talk about the flip side of masochism and why all writers need to be sadists when it comes to their characters.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading great books, it’s that even the most beloved characters must suffer. They have to be thrown at what John Cusack’s character in Do not say anything describes as a “dare to be a big situation”, because then we get to see what they’re really made of, and whether they’re heroes, villains, or just yellow-bellied cowards. Some of them might curl into a ball and suck their thumbs at the first sign of trouble, while others will draw their swords, strap on their shields, and charge into the fray with all they’re worth.

Obviously, this last type of characters are the most interesting, because even if they end up giving them their asses on a silver platter, the important thing is that they tried. They took action and did something to deal with the current situation. Even if they’re just metaphorically fighting demons, rather than slashing their throats with a fancifully carved katana, readers want to see characters grappling with unpleasant situations in an attempt to overcome them, rather than calmly accepting their fate. After all, we want to root for the little guy, beat the enemy, be there to see them rise to the top, right?

Okay, but here’s the catch: This means we writers have to be the bad guys throwing all those horrible problems at our favorite characters. We are the spiteful gods who kick them when they’re down, the ones who keep throwing them back into the deep to sink or swim, or the idiots who inflict insurmountable hardships like Sisyphus’s ever-falling rock and Prometheus’s perpetually devoured liver. .

In short: we have to be sadists.

This is something that is difficult for me. When I like my characters, I want them to win. I want things to be nice for them and I want their lives to be nice. It’s because I identify with these made-up people and I don’t want them to suffer. They are my friends, after all, and who wants their friends to suffer? Idiots, that’s who.

But guess that? Reading a nice little story about people who are kind and never have to deal with any pain is boring! For characters to be truly lovable, you need to start hurting them, and fast. The sooner you get to the parts where bones are breaking and hearts aching, the better, because it means action is taking place and therefore growth is possible.

If you don’t hit your characters, they won’t learn anything about themselves. And if you don’t make them learn anything, then who cares whether or not they live happily ever after? They are cardboard characters, little puppets scattered around the stage, not real human beings.

As Nietzsche said, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. So, in case you’re trying to deal some real damage to get your characters moving, here are some of my favorite ways to torture my characters until they spill their guts, grow some spines, or just fall apart:

• Go for the kneecaps
• kill someone they love
• drive them crazy
• Delete your jobs
• frustrate their friendships
• Humiliate them professionally or personally.
• Force them out on terrible dates
• Ask them to have good dates, but then deny them sex or love.
• Endorse them a crazy
• Seat them next to the most boring asshole at the party.
• Cross your wires for some confusing messages and hilarious misunderstandings
• frustrate your dreams
• bankrupt them
• Hit them with lightning or other natural disasters.
• go for the jugular
• send them to the hospital
• Give them inoperable cancer or other deadly diseases.
• Put Them On Mission: Impossible
• Dry up your water supply
• Take away their technology or ruin their devices
• Create a futile chase
• Insert a false clue
• despise your love
• slowly poison them
• Make them believe that they are seeing ghosts or hearing voices.
• Add them with daemons
• That their family members abuse them psychologically or physically.
• tear off the roof
• They were jailed for crimes they never committed
• Get them chased by dangerous criminals.
• Sponsor a round of disapproving glances
• Encourage your loved ones to express their dissatisfaction with their chosen lifestyle.
• Marry them to spouses who don’t understand them.
• suffocate them
• attack their egos
• plague them with wounds
• Burden them with inconvenient truths
• Forcing them on a physical or spiritual journey they never wanted to take
• create the apocalypse
• Unleash the hounds (or zombies)
• Let your coffee machines explode
• Allowing animals to inexplicably attack them.
• insult them
• institutionalize them
• Make them obnoxious, or unusable, or both!
• Make them a burden to their friends and family.
• make them late for work
• Reject them over and over again
• And they always, ALWAYS pile more problems on their heads the closer they get to victory.

If you are the god of your scriptural universe, be the god of the Old Testament who is spiteful, vengeful, and completely unpredictable. When in doubt, send a plague of locusts. Or worse: snakes. (Hey, even tough guy Indiana Jones hated snakes.)

You must be the cheerful sadist, always twisting your characters in the wind, hanging them over a precipice, strangling them to death. Give them hell and see how they react. Don’t be afraid to take it to another level. You never know what kind of heroes you’ll develop until you start filling them with problems.