An Angst/Tragedy Writer's Problem

You spend days, weeks, and maybe months, perfecting an outline. Perfecting a plot. A plot that will hold a lot of meaning and purpose, with a huge message that you want your readers to think about. A plot that moves your emotions. A plot that makes you think about life. A plot that ends in what may not be a happy ending. But you're fine with that. It's all about the message--the point you want to get across.

You spend days, weeks, and maybe months, perfecting the characters. You need them for your plot to have the biggest impact. So you draw them like a creation. You carve out an image for them that resembled parts of you. Their personalities, hopes, dreams, families, friends... You create their world, but not without leaving traces of yourself in them. They live and breathe in you, and the bits and pieces of yourself come to life in them too. And so they move, they walk, they talk and interact. You watch over them like children. And later you become surprised; what used to be just a story with a message, has turned into a story about these little imaginary beings you have created. You grow attached to them. They laugh; you laugh. They cry; you cry. You've made them so lovable, so relatable. You think about them night and day. They are wonderful people. Imperfect, but that's how they grow.

However...

There's the plot.

It lingers in your mess of papers and drafts--in that world of chaos that your thoughts have induced.

You know how it goes. You know.

The characters you have made--the lovable little entities of your new world--were nothing but a means for a bigger picture.

You've led them like innocent lambs, and they just went along, not knowing that you were leading them to the slaughter.  

You look at them again, thinking, Why? Why would I do such a thing to them? I can't possibly... I can't possibly do such a thing! Their imperfect but precious little lives, their future hopes, their life-long dreams... you planned to end them from the start. It was the point of the story--the point of the plot you worked on for days, weeks, and even months. And what a cruel plot it was.

I am about to reach that point... that point when I'm scared to write what happens next. I'm scared of losing the characters I've grown to love. I'm scared of breaking my own heart--the same heart that I've placed in the very words that painted this new little world into life.

But I can't turn back now. The plot is set. I cannot change it just because my own emotions are starting to betray me.

Art was never easy. Art, in it's purest form, will always have struggles. And this very struggle, no matter how great the toil of a creation's birth, makes it beautiful in the end, no matter what anyone says otherwise.

You see, not all tragedy writers are heartless a$$holes who write just for the sake of upsetting readers.

Never mind me being emo here in this blog. I'm just procrastinating a bit while writing my story XD