: Re: How to make a grieving father less vengeful and see reason? I have a character who, maddened by the suicide of his son, chooses to destroy the company the young man worked for, holding them

@Berumen699

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Before we even consider redemption, you should consider the credibility of your character.

We consider any murderer to be deranged and in need of either correction or assistance. For a non deranged person, to be able to kill another human being, for whatever reason, takes a significant amount of emotional effort. As far as I know, most grieving parents do not go around killing people. They do not even plan on committing murder. In fact, when such things happen, they easily make it to the sensationalist pages of international news.

That is just to say that premeditated murder is not an easy walk. To make the premise of your climax believable you will need to present a profoundly deranged character, one that has snapped out of the normal rails of social behaviour. Until the reader knows that he can willingly and consciously harm another human being, they will always suspect that a final doubt leading to redemption is at hand. Anger and grief alone do not warrant action.

That being said, can your character redeem himself? Yes he can. A member of society that snaps into a murderous spiral inspires mental weakness. In fact your character is driven by the events, dominated by the environment surrounding him, and, from what you have told us, he does little to nothing to imprint his own decisions to the plot. Leverage this lack of will-power and you can have him repent at any time, cry over his misfortunes, and even apologise for his intent. No issue there.

"I could have shot him, but my eyes filled with tears for the ominous act I was about to do. Deep in my heart I felt a voice. It was like the cry of a young boy, and it begged me to give that very forgiveness, which had been denied to my son."

et voilà.

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