I've always had difficulty being mean enough to my main characters (though I try). This go around, my main character will be in

• physical danger from bullies, giants, squids and an evil twin armed with a knife
• emotional risk from caring about others (heightened by his having lost three families in his life--his original family and two adoptive families whose worlds he believes were destroyed)

He (Chase) is a boy who has mostly grown up on his own; he is cautious, frightened and yet strongly desiring escape from the House of Many Doors.

The other main character is Thea, who may or may not be Chase's sister. She will face dangers and risks similar to Chase's; but I am currently thinking of having Chase's evil twin stab her (of course, only after Chase cares about her).

For those of you who are at least this far in your planning, what jeopardy and hurt are you planning for your main character(s)? Help inspire me to be harder on my main characters.

Most of my character's conflicts are going to be emotional. First off, he is not a biological child of his father's, and not by his mother's choice, either. He's going to struggle with his identity and allegiance, building a web of lies around himself in an effort to fit in. Then, his girlfriend is going to dump him, and he will attempt suicide.

It has a happy ending, I promise!

I'm putting a bulldozer through a huge glass window.

My main character is going to face gun battles, demon attacks, and possibly death in a desert. At least that's what Ihave planned. There may be more as I go, but that's the pain I have in store for my darling character.

My poor Jordyn.Her wishes will backfire.Everything she does will fail in some spectacular way, will be stalked, go deaf, be caught between two cursed Jinn,and will finally be tied to her pole and have her house set aflame. Death by being burned at the Exotic Dancing Pole!!!

The ending will be happy, I swear. ^^

I've got two main characters. One of them is going to have to face the possibility that she's been doing her job the wrong way, possibly for years, injuring the very people she was trying to help; the other one is going to get stuck in a moral quandary where she has no good choices to make. And along the way, they'll be threatened by politicians, stampeding cattle, a renegade killer (and his family), and the perils of being cast adrift in a very tiny boat on a very large ocean.

I'm making mine sign up for something he doesn't really understand. He gets to slowly watch his (physical and concept of self) humanity be ripped away.

We should form the "It has a happy ending, really!" club.

Well, I'm basically going to be writing a bunch of interweaving horror stories set in the same world, so people are always threatened by the darkness, monsters, supernatural forces, psychosis, etc.

I PROMISE NO HAPPY ENDINGS, SO THERE! (In fact, I'm pretty sure I can guarantee the opposite for all but one character.)

My story is set in a world where everyone is born with a soulmate. For one of the couples, I'm planning on killing off half the pair. The angst-fest is going to be great.

He will learn at the climax that the folks he's been conspiring with to return the church to its true self actually just want to blow up the world.

She's to learn early on that the friend who invited her to this strange and hostile country has disappeared, and therefore his letter of passage isn't worth much.

now if only they had names ...

One of my main characters, Rhiannon, is gonna die, and her little brother Yasu is forced to watch and doesn't even get to say good bye. He also has debilitating headaches and visions/dreams about wars where people die and he can't same them. Can you say "Hello, word-count bolstering."?

Another one, Yaviel, has her uncle die in front of her as well, even though she tries her best to save him.

And this isn't even the worst. I had another book idea where everyone is screwed up, but I decided to do this one first. Maybe next year...

Well, the novel revolves around the reactions to a death of a woman, so overall the theme is pretty somber. One character has lost her grandmother and is living in her grandmother's house while they try to sell it, so she's constantly reminded of what she's lost. The other one, though, I feel terrible for because I've really isolated him. Both of his parents have been away for weeks and are rarely home (and will soon get a divorce, but haven't announced it yet), he was very close to the woman who died, and he's just found out that he has no chance with the woman he loves. Later I'm going to get them together and almost immediately break them up with some good old-fashioned betrayal.

I keep saying it's the opposite of all my other novels, because usually I take well-adjusted people and break them, but this time I'm taking broken people and trying to fix them.