Q: Do you ever feel bad for what you put your characters through?
A: I sometimes feel awful for what happens to my characters, but I don’t feel responsible. I like to think of their trajectories as inevitable. However, I’ll occasionally stay up late at night trying to think of ways to unhurt people who don’t exist. I think if I don’t feel bad, then I didn’t write the character well enough.
Tony Clavelli’s story “The Sound Barrier” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 8 April 2016. Subscribe to our e-mail updates so you’ll know when new stories go live.