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@dragongeek I’ve sorta felt that way as well. I want to give readers an emotional experience, but don’t want to flood them with melodrama.

I’m glad you mentioned showing vs telling because it’s super important. And feeling the emotion yourself can totally help you figure out how your character would express it. 🙂

@jenwriter17 Ah, I really like what you said about writers making characters act in inconsistently. Readers feel cheated because they know the character. I love how you put that.

I think writers can risk making readers excuse bad behavior by evoking pity. We want readers to feel for and love our bad guys, but we must make sure they don’t start making excuses for his behavior because of something traumatic that might have happened to him in his past. What a villain does is his choice. It’s evil. We can have readers love our villains and feel sorry for them, but we also must make them ache because the villain is making the wrong choices.

The same could be applied to antiheroes and even protagonists. 🙂