You are my favorite author of speculative... â€� Carol Berg Q&A

Jo asked Carol Berg:

You are my favorite author of speculative fiction. I just want to say why, why are you so hard on your main characters? They struggle against merciless circumstances, souls tortured. I'm not asking for anything different from you, I'm just gasping here. I have to ask - for us readers and maybe for the characters a little too - why do you do it?

Carol Berg Hi Jo, Yes, I am a bit hard on my principals. And honestly, I am a nice person! But I've got to say, it drives me crazy when I read (or watch) stories of men and women who reshape the world in the face of terrible villainy, yet emerge unscathed or unchanged. Or when strong characters make hard decisions, decisions that violate their most fundamental beliefs, on the spur of the moment. Strong people don't change easily. The stronger the person, and the more certain they are of the rightness of their course (like Seyonne fighting the demon war or Lucian and the pureblood way of life, or Anne de Vernase with her righteous disdain for magic and the uses of power) the more difficult it would be to make that person do the last thing he or she would ever do, which is often what's needed to change the course of the world. Sometimes I have to do a lot of convincing. The stories I write demand that those choices be hard. Yet, even though I often have to be cruel and leave them battered in the end, I like to think that I also leave them with hope and ongoing purpose and a sense that their ordeal was worthwhile. Thanks for asking - and thanks for reading!

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