How come the group of kids never seem to run out of the haunted mansion? How come the person in an unwinnable fight still fights on to the bitter end? How come the person in a destructive and abusive relationship never leaves it? There are a lot of possible reasons (and as writers, we should consider them all), but one of them is that these people are in too deep.
This is one of those points of surreality. I read a story and I see people making stupid mistake after stupid mistake. Why don't you just say screw it, leave this whole scene, and start again somewhere else? The irony is that these kinds of things really do happen in real life. Sometimes we don't even know why we do it. We can't identify that we're in too deep, we just know that it would be easier to keep going than to cut and run.
If you are trying to be realistic with your writing, it is not a bad thing to have a character like this. But for the sake of the reader, explain it. Subtlety is nice. We don't need it announced that the person is in too deep, but to find a way to show it or have it come up that alternate possibilities exist but are refused would make it more believable and more powerful.
About Me
- Kevin Bahler
- I am a writer. A writer is one who writes. By the same logic, I am also a thinker, an observer, and a puzzle solver. I am a graduate from the State University of New York at Cortland with a degree in Professional Writing. The idea of the program is that one studies all three aspects of writing as a whole: Creative Writing, Technical Writing, and Rhetoric. The knowledge I have gained in those subjects is put to use in every aspect of my life. The worst thing a person can be is boring. I am most interested in people who can pique my interests. An example is people who can correctly use the word 'pique'.
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