Character torture 101

Writing lesson of the day: If you’re already going to burn your character alive, there’s no need to do any other awful things to them. No matter how realistic and well-thought-out those things are. Burning them alive is sufficient. Truly.

Especially in a short story.

I thought I’d already learned this lesson with Bones, of course, where my editor explained that given all my protagonist already had to go through, there was no need to make her suicidal, too. The story, he assured me, already had tension enough.

A little of this sort of thing goes a long, long way.