Blog Tour :Cath Staincliffe Do All Protagonists Have To Be Tortured Souls?

OK, I confess, I want to make my characters suffer – and then some. Storytelling is about conflict, struggle, about jeopardy and overcoming obstacles and if a protagonist is not tormented by those challenges then they’re not going to be very interesting or very realistic. My characters live the nightmares I fear, so they may not necessarily be tortured souls at the outset of a book but as the trauma unfolds with it comes grief and rage, frustration and fear.

My professional detectives are not misanthropic alcoholic loners (though there is the odd broken marriage in the mix) but women with a network of friends and family around them. Nevertheless in their working lives they carry great responsibility and that can be a lonely place. DCI Janine Lewis, in Blue Murder, has the necessary skills to carry out her job with the appropriate distance required, she has empathy for the victims she represents but she isn’t haunted by them – she’d never last the course if she were. The struggles for

Janine come from crises in her family life – and sometimes battles with her colleagues. Janine is always trying to be a good enough mother as well as a great cop. On the other hand, Sal Kilkenny, my private detective, often does get too emotionally involved in the cases she takes on, and it costs her dearly. Sal too faces angst at home, in the demands of caring for her daughter Maddie and the clashes she has with housemate Ray.  Thrillers and crime novels invite us on a journey that can be frightening, exhilarating and moving. We follow the protagonist into situations that we hope would never ever happen to

us. In The Kindest Thing Deborah Shelley reluctantly helps her husband Neil end his life, and stands trial for murder as a result. In Split Second a young man intervenes to break up a fight with devastating consequences. In Blink Of An Eye a family is torn apart by a terrible road accident.Horrendous situations that could befall anyone. While in Half The World

Away estranged couple Jo and Tom Maddox are reunited in a desperate search for their daughter Lori who has gone missing in

China. I have a son living in China and we stayed with him while I researched the book. I can think of few things worse than the notion of him suddenly

disappearing, few things harder than the hunt to find him. All that distress I give to my characters and then I pile on the pressure: the struggle to communicate in a foreign language exacerbated by cultural differences, the polluted heat haze that chokes the city, the hostility of the Chinese police to the family’s involvement. With each turn of the screw, you could say I’m torturing the characters. But I think even the bleakest story I’ve written has some sense of humanity, of reconciliation or hope, to temper that suffering. When people tell me that something I’ve written has made them cry, that’s the highest accolade, that’s what I want to do. And that means causing my characters (and perhaps my readers) no little anguish.

The Crime Warp thanks Cath for her enlightening blog piece.  Check out our review of Half The World Away http://thecrimewarp.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/book-review-half-world-away-by-cath.html and  the interview with Cath by our very own Romancrimeblogger http://thecrimewarp.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/author-interview-cath-staincliffe.html

Visit Cath's Amazon page to see the full range of her books http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cath-Staincliffe/e/B0034NRTFO/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1430905860&sr=8-2-ent