Q: Do you ever feel bad for what you put your characters through?
A: It’s funny that this question comes up in conjunction with this story because this is far and away the cruelest I’ve ever been to my characters. This story has a high body count (actually, this is only the second story in which I’ve killed a character), a narrator with a pretty high degree of self-loathing, and three other characters who confront past traumas. But I like to think everyone except Colin (sorry, Colin) got a happy ending, somehow. In everything I write, I want there to be an element of hope or redemption, so while my characters may go through challenges, they survive them and conquer them, and hopefully inspire readers to keep conquering the darkness their own lives.
Laura Duerr’s story “What Lies in Light”
in Metaphorosis Friday, 13 December 2019.
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