Today's Topic:
Cry Babies
This week's hot topic came to me during my weekend reading, while I was rolling my eyes and seriously considering deleting a book I was only thirty pages into. It drives me insane when a strong character, be it male or female, does an abrupt 180 and turns into a snivelling, whining cry baby. I can love angst and inner turmoil as much as the next person, but when the crocodile tears come pouring down a character's face for no good reason, it's the beginning of the end for me.
What do you think? Are there too many character's boo-hooing in romance?
8 comments:
I agree. I love a strong, yet sensitive character, but i hate the "watering pot" type. I think that it is fine for a hero/heroine to cry when a major event has occured or if they have done something that they are very upset about, but for them to cry constantly or at the drop of a hat... there is no faster way for me to lose interest in the story.
oh boy,
This just makes me nervous. I've written some characters who cry, but I'm not sure if they would be construed as watering pots or whiners or merely characters with angst issues?
I have the same problem when I'm reading because I hate when a character wimps out and goes from strong to weak and whiny.
I have characters who cry, too, but I'd like to think they have cause when I show the waterworks. It isn't tears that I object to, but the overuse of them. It seems like some characters leak at the drop of a hat. :)
As with any character traits presented in fiction, it's a balancing act. I purposely spoofed the whole "teary eyed uke" archtype of yaoi in my series Blue Ruin by pairing my sensitive uke with a dacryphiliac seme. (Dacryphylia would be the fetish for tears, as my uke learns courtesy of the Internet! LOL) My uke intentionally squeezes those tears out at times because he knows it will get his partner turned on. But yeah, for those more serious scenes I agree that an author should help the reader understand *why* the character is crying, so the reader can cry along with the character, not point and laugh and roll their eyes!
I agree. I hate to see a character go from strong to crying without a compelling reason.
I have one scene where my heroine cries in Night's Journey. I really had to wrangle with it because that was the last thing I wanted for her but in dealing with the loss of a friend, she needed to grieve.
It's definitely a balancing act.
It's even tougher when the characters are male. When does a man break down and cry and why?
I have a scene in a book where a main male character, after being beaten, has a brief moment dealing with his physical injuries, self-doubt and situation.
But, he quickly brings himself under control and deals with it all.
Repetitive crying jags, whether male or female, are SO unattractive. Eventually, you just want to slap them and say "Get over it!"
Repetitive crying - nope. But crying is a very strong tool when put in the right context. Always after a big event. If the crying seems uncalled for I'd think about uping the event factor to justify it before I'd take it out.
It comes down to timing. There are times when even the strongest character/person (imaginary life or real it makes little difference) can and should succumb to tears. However, I hate a constant cryer, or someone falling apart at the wrong moment. Even worse, sometimes when they give in to tears they then can't seem to stop for the rest of the book. Or in a series when a character does a complete U-turn and becomes something they just weren't in the beginning, that's just as bad. Characters should grow not regress, unless it's for an extremely good reason. Tears can be a very effective tool but they need to be used wisely.
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