Letting Your Characters Fail

I think sometimes as writers we become so invested in our characters that we don’t want them to really fail. We want them to be good and nice, to be sympathetic to the reader, and we want them to get what they want at the end of the story. That’s what good fiction is about, isn’t it?

Well, maybe partly. But good fiction is also about readers going on a journey and learning about themselves. And I believe that all of us, even those who are the most deeply good, have moments where we fail. And when I say fail, I don’t mean that you don’t get what you want. I don’t mean that someone says no to you. And I don’t mean that you realize that you aren’t good enough yet.

Real failure is when we fail ourselves, and I think that is part of every story. When you realize that it was because you were stupid or mean or scared and you sabotaged yourself. Watching your dream fly away, or your beloved walk off with someone else, because you did the wrong thing—that is real failure.

I think of the fairy tale about the two sisters who see the fairy in disguise as an old woman. The one sister helps her and she ends up with diamonds coming out of her mouth. The other sister doesn’t help her and ends up with toads coming out of her mouth. Well, frankly, I think the story of the sister with the toads is the more compelling one. I think that’s the universal story of life. We make a stupid mistake and we pay for it. Sometimes forever.

It doesn’t mean that the story has to end badly. You can still have a character who triumphs at the end. But if you don’t have a moment in your story where your protagonist truly fails, because of some character flaw, I think you’ve got to rewrite your story. The flaws of your character are the texture of your whole book. And without those flaws, the triumph at the end is much less powerful. My shorthand for this when I do critiques is calling it a “Disney ending.”

Don’t write a story with a cheap ending. Make your readers and your protagonists work for that ending. Make everyone (including yourself, most likely) believe that the happy ending isn’t possible. Because when things are darkest, that’s when the small light glows brightest.