The saying goes power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The fun about being a writer is I get to have the power. I get to have the absolute power. And the more corruption, the better the plot! Debra Dixon in her book, Goal, Motivation, Conflict writes: Remember The Perils of Pauline? Nothing has changed since the movie serials. Today's reader still wants to see Pauline tied to the railroad tracks. We want to see the train coming.
Amen, sister. We do want to see that train coming. But we also want to see the dashing hero come in at the last moment and rescue Pauline. If somebody smooshes Pauline's guts all over the place, I am not a happy reader. Unless, of course, Pauline DESERVED IT! But, if she is the heroine, she never does.
I was talking with my critique group the other night about this. How I love my characters too much to let something really terrible happen to them. In the books I have so far, the antagonist is always circumstances or tragedy. Not a person. Oh, there may be some minor bad guys, but they might as well be the guys on Star Trek with different colored shirts on. They have a couple of lines, but you don't really love them and you aren't too sorry when the alien monster blows them up.
So maybe I won't ever write that great classic novel. Those modern ones always seem to have someone you love die. I HATE THAT!
Man, if I wanted pain, I wouldn't write fiction. I'd just turn on the news.
Well, I'm off to Tai Chi so I can be at peace and decide who might have to bite the bullet in my gang scene. Would it be believable if nobody got hurt or killed? Or would it just be like that dumb Dynasty episode where machine gun fire tore through the church, everybody appeared dead for the season finale, and then the next season nobody died but that woman who is in that vampire movie.