For various personal reasons, I've been thinking about the human tendency to lash out in retaliation. To take revenge for a wrong (whether actual or imagined), and to focus all resources toward that end. Such single-minded dedication makes for dramatic fiction. It is, after all, a form of self-sacrifice for a greater good -- the righting of wrongs, the punishment of the wicked, the service of justice. It also presents a wealth of possibilities for action and for exaggerated emotion.
It's also a natural and, dare I say, universal human impulse. When someone hurts us, our first and automatic reaction is anger. I think this is true, no matter what our religious beliefs, our social conditioning, or our meditation practices. These things influence how we express our reaction, but I don't think they can eliminate it. We want to strike back. Anger can be immensely helpful in energizing us to life-preserving action. It also has the result of temporarily numbing both physical and emotional pain. In the natural course of events, however, this reaction is quite brief in duration. We humans -- and the characters we create -- run into problems when we become frozen at this stage. Then we start thinking, "I've got to make her pay," or "That'll teach him." Then we start planning out our revenge, distorting our lives to creating suffering in others.
In fiction as in life, actions have consequences. As writers, it behooves us to understand the difference between natural consequences and created or artificial consequences. If Character A is an habitual liar, the natural consequence is that anyone who's had dealings with him will become distrustful. People may also be angry and resentful if they've been harmed in other ways. A created consequence might be someone slaughtering A's favorite guinea pig and hanging the carcass outside A's door. The distinction here is not only one of appropriateness but of scope. Cheating at poker has natural consequences within the game (and its financial obligations); fire-bombing the cheater's home town escalates the conflict to a new level.
It's also a natural and, dare I say, universal human impulse. When someone hurts us, our first and automatic reaction is anger. I think this is true, no matter what our religious beliefs, our social conditioning, or our meditation practices. These things influence how we express our reaction, but I don't think they can eliminate it. We want to strike back. Anger can be immensely helpful in energizing us to life-preserving action. It also has the result of temporarily numbing both physical and emotional pain. In the natural course of events, however, this reaction is quite brief in duration. We humans -- and the characters we create -- run into problems when we become frozen at this stage. Then we start thinking, "I've got to make her pay," or "That'll teach him." Then we start planning out our revenge, distorting our lives to creating suffering in others.
In fiction as in life, actions have consequences. As writers, it behooves us to understand the difference between natural consequences and created or artificial consequences. If Character A is an habitual liar, the natural consequence is that anyone who's had dealings with him will become distrustful. People may also be angry and resentful if they've been harmed in other ways. A created consequence might be someone slaughtering A's favorite guinea pig and hanging the carcass outside A's door. The distinction here is not only one of appropriateness but of scope. Cheating at poker has natural consequences within the game (and its financial obligations); fire-bombing the cheater's home town escalates the conflict to a new level.
