Secondhand grief when writing

I seem to have developed my story telling to include loss, illness and sadness. It has to be - because I write fiction which is all about overcoming adversity.

But isn’t it hard when a character has become someone so real that you feel for them and like them? My heart is grieving as I give my character pain and heartbreak, or as she or he struggles to make sense of life. Not nearly as badly as when one of my sons or daughters goes through grief or disaster, but akin to that feeling. It is a good thing that with fictional characters, I can walk away from those feelings when I am not writing.

When writing a fictional crisis my first inclination is to write the characters coping in the way that I do when there is a disaster in my own life. But then I have to pull back and rewrite how they would react. If my character is feisty, would she become angry - even furious - that life has dealt her such a blow? If he is an introvert, he may self-blame and become depressed. What would happen next?  They could rise to  the occasion and find strength to go on, or sink into despair and slowly find some sort of resolution. 

And I need to consider how others around them would react. Some will join her in her grief. To reflect true life, there are always some who say things like ‘this is all in God’s plan for you’, or tell them that they have to pull themselves together or overcome it in some way. It’s possible that Christians can be told to rejoice in their tragedy. Maybe the character might come to that way of thinking in time, but in the immediacy of diagnosis or loss, this can feel not only like an insult but an assault on their level of faith.

And now I’ve written that, I realise I have neglected to be realistic in my own writing. I am editing the sequel to The Dangerous Dance of Emma JJ and I need to rewrite or at least add to the script. My character is surrounded by people who understand what she is going through. I have written in too much empathy and not enough conflict. Maybe that comes from a need to protect her because I feel for her.

There is another reason I have kept her from more harm. Writing is a fine line between reflecting true life and keeping readers interested enough to finish the book. 

That is the challenge to be faced. While I want my readers to feel secondhand grief for a character that they have become to like, I need them to finish the book feeling that there is hope.