“We need to flee the country,” I told my husband early one Saturday morning.

“Have you robbed a bank?” 

“No, but there’s a suspension bridge park I want to go to.”

“Are you sure?” He was right to sound dubious.

“Yeah. I want to get out of my comfort zone.”

After we moved up near the Canadian border in 2014, “Flee the country” became a regular weekend phrase around the house. 

We would wake up Saturday morning and take off across the border for new international adventures. 

One of the places we discovered is the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. 

Because a 450-foot suspension bridge, cable-wired cliff walks, and bridges high up in the trees sounds like a great place for a person who has an extreme fear of falling from great heights, right? 

As you can tell from this picture, my husband loved it.

I spent the day white-knuckle-panicked and adrenaline-screaming-heartbeat terrified of all the things that could go wrong to send me into the canyon. 

All too often I see writers fail to make their characters uncomfortable because it makes them uncomfortable. 

Writers want to protect their characters. Especially the ones they fall in love with. 

But all that physical struggle and emotional trauma and mental anguish? That’s what your readers want. 

They may feel like real people, and the emotions they evoke may be real, but your characters aren’t real. 

Your entire novel should be about characters who are struggling and uncomfortable and who are never going to be the same again at the end of your story because all that hardship has transformed them.

Discomfort forces growth.

We don’t change when we’re happy, satiated, and comfortable sitting on our couch.

How do you make your character uncomfortable?
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• Don’t give them what they want.

• Take what they have away from them.

• Give what they want to someone they don't like.

• Put obstacles in their way.

• Make their situation worse.

• Now make it worse than that.

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This doesn’t mean your character can’t ever have nice things and a comfortable life, but they need to earn them.

Embrace your character’s discomfort. 

Does thinking about making your characters make you uncomfortable? 

Whether you’re living or writing or both: get out of your comfort zone. 

That suspension bridge definitely forced me out of my comfort zone.

I wish I could say the views from the suspension bridge were amazing, but I was too busy staring at the feet in front of me and holding the bridges up with my mind.
(Psychic structural engineering is exhausting!)

What’s one thing that you’ve been trying to avoid writing because you don’t want your characters to suffer? 

What would happen if you wrote it?

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Hello!
My name is Jocelyn.

Story warrior, book lover, day dreamer, gardener, and creative. I help serious writers roll up their sleeves, get their novel ready for publishing, and reach readers. When I’m not elbow-deep in the story trenches, I’m outside world-building in my garden and battling weeds with my three criminal mastermind cats.