: Re: Can there be too many obstacles in a character’s path? My current WIP involves a deliberate miscarriage of justice. I started out with three main characters: J - a young girl who is effected

@Odierno164

While most people would advise you with the same old: it is in the execution.
I will agree but have to add several things.

Time. The Lannister brothers go through an insane journey that is still being continued in the books. Kaladin from The Way of Kings goes through hell and back. I won't bore you with more examples. So what is the common thing that makes me consider those stories excellent and makes us all, or at least most of us, agree on that? Time. Not only in world years but also in pages. In both worlds the characters are not the only one and, GRMM has more but it is the same idea, and there are many other POV chapters that take us into different directions and make us forget all about character X. But if you have 3 chapters to put your criminal through and the guy is just going through all that then I'm sorry to say that I will roll my eyes out and consider it cheesy. But spread it out and it gets better.
Yes. This is more of an opinion and most people will have different thresholds. But even if you base stuff off reality you can't just add more and more and more torture to the character. The last book I read like that I still consider really terrible because of that. You can't just hurt and hurt and hurt the character. Call it whatever you want. People don't expect that and I would advise not to be corny.
Law of diminishing returns. Say you write a female character and she is raped in chapter 1. This is a major point and, if the writing is even average, we would be sad and shocked and angry and just devastated. Now in chapter 2 she is also raped. You finish chapter 3 with another rape. And by chapter 12 she has been raped like 10 times. Well. By chapter 12 I have become desensitized to her rapes. I don't even care how will the rapes are written or how emotional the thing is. The volume of tear jerking here is too much. This is not me. We all know the Mary Sue is bad but the reason it is bad is because a Mary Sue falls into that category of too much of X can be Y. That could be too much of a good thing can be bad. So really use your hurt or obstacles with reason. Don't just torture the character continuously.
My scars prove my worth. Cheesy quote aside this is a simple and great way to actually make your obstacles count. X Kept a vow and so he went to jail. But his girl broke up with him and he lost his job. X choose to run into the burning building to save the little girl but he got 3rd degree burns and broke a leg...etc. again much like the bodily scars the character has to collect all sorts of scars as a result of their journey. If even a game master would tell that you must have consequences in the world then it is the same with stories.
Obstacles that fit the genre. I won't get into genre now but basically you should not write a story with elements from other stuff and obstacles thrown in there from all over the place to give extra redemption or whatever. Getting framed and shot and all that is enough. Don't try to add him having to solve a global zombie crises and calculate the needed materials to build a space elevator.

Lastly I'm not against anything. Merely point out to stuff in theory that should be addressed and noticed. It is all about what you wrote after all.

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