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Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding a scene to a story? How did you decide to write it or not?

Conflict is the name of the game, though, isn’t it?

Oh, wait. You’re talking about personal storytelling angst that goes into the work of the plot making sense.

There have been a number of scenes and characters that I absolutely fell in love with, but just couldn’t make them work, despite my Tetris skills.

But I sense this question speaks to a different side of the story.

I’ve known that certain characters had to die–it was not just necessary to the plot, but I had specifically designed the character to die. I knew the character’s end result was death from their very inception. The heroic deaths from awesome fight scenes are easy to write. You may not like it, but you have the feeling of completion–this character died for a reason

The scenes that are hardest are the more common deaths–the ones that just happen. An accident. A heart attack. An ill-trained child soldier. A man killed for doing the right thing instead of the easy thing.

I have a lot of reservations when it comes to writing those scenes. The banal deaths are some of the hardest to write, to witness. I’ll slave for weeks over the scene, examining every word, every sequence, every reaction–writing, editing, re-writing, deleting, writing again.

Those scenes are hard. They’re gut wrenching. I’ll squirm and wiggle every which way to avoid them, knowing in the end it has to be done.

But it has to be done right. Just the right amount of shock, a touch of panic, pain, rage, loss–done right, it hits hard every time it’s read, even a one-shot character.

Done wrong, and at best it’s called clumsy or ham-handed.

Scenes of personal, intimate violence can be just as hard. How much is too much? Is this enough description or do I need more? In reality it would be far worse, but this isn’t reality, this isn’t a gratuitous scene just to satisfy a hard crowd that enjoys sadistic realism. This is a harsh scene that I can’t get away from, a key scene to show how far a character has fallen, or why they make the choices they do. Can I get out of writing this scene? Is it really needed? Can I just handwave this thing off in a sentence or three or just cut it out entirely? Ohgodwhatifmymomreadsthis?

All the scenes I’ve roughly described are ones I agonize over. Some I find a way to wiggle free and not go through the scene. Others simply can’t be cut, as much as I would like to, because the plot locomotive doesn’t run well with only one track rail and three wheels.

And my mom has already told me she can’t read my writing anyway (because I’m “not old enough to write about those things”), so I know I don’t have to worry about criticism from that corner.

Check out the Insecure Writer’s Support Group to see more writers dish about their concerns, their solutions to various problems, or their personal stories that are just a little bit too much information, but you can’t stop yourself from reading them.