As a reader, I can’t count how many times I’ve closed my eyes, clutched a book to my chest, and wailed over the horrors a beloved character is being forced to endure. I dare say we’ve all shouted, seethed, or at least mumbled under our breaths about what kind of an author would do such terrible things to a character who deserves so much better. As a reader, I hate watching characters suffer. As an author, I hate watching my own characters suffer, but I’ve come to (begrudgingly) understand why it’s such an important part of stories, and YA stories in particular.
In my novel, Reign Returned, the book begins with a tragedy (mild spoiler alert, although I’ve talked and written about this elsewhere so it’s not exactly secret): Kyra’s father is killed during an unprecedented earthquake. She’s holding his hand as he dies, and even though she’s an incredibly gifted healer, there’s nothing she can do to save him. Inevitably whenever someone mentions the book to me, they say something along the lines of, “But how could you do that to Kyra? That just broke my heart for her.” And I nod and agree with them, because it broke my heart to put her through that.
Kyra’s father, Arakiss, is everything I think a father should be like. He’s kind, thoughtful, has a strong relationship with each of his children, expresses pride in their accomplishments, and lets them know he loves them even when he doesn’t condone their choices or agree with their behavior. He can often be found dancing in the kitchen with his wife, and his patients adore him, so much that when he dies, the entire realm goes into mourning. He’s the father I wished I could have had growing up, but since I didn’t, I gave him to Kyra.
And then I killed him and upended her entire world.
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist spiritual leader, famously said, “No mud, no lotus.” He even wrote a book entitled, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering. The beautiful lotus flower only grows in one specific location: the mud. Without slimy, gloppy, sticky, crusty mud, there can be no lotus. In the same way, according to Thich Nhat Hahn, without suffering, there can be no understanding or compassion.
The universe doesn’t ask us what kind of traumas we’d like to experience…things come our way and we face, prepared or not. Suffering is terrible, but whether we welcome it or attempt to escape it, the experience unquestionably provides transformational opportunities.
Kyra’s father was her rock, her anchor, her everything. She needed to lose that in order to discover herself, to see what she was truly capable of, and to have the motivation to move forward doing the right thing no matter the cost. Could she have discovered those parts of herself without losing her father? Possibly, but just like a muscle doesn’t grow stronger without being used, humans rarely leave their comfort zones unless they’re forced to. And by definition, we don’t welcome something that’s forcing us out of where we feel safest and happiest.
So, should we be glad when terrible things happen to us? Of course not. They’re terrible, and there’s no need to sugar-coat or pretend otherwise. I will never be one of those people telling someone to find the good in a gut-wrenching situation. I never told Kyra to look on the bright side or see the positive or trust that everything happens for a reason. I let her grieve and scream and cry. She didn’t know how she would keep going, but just like everyone who experiences tragedy, she found a way…feeling numb, shuffling slowly forward, tears filling her eyes, she kept going even though part of her wished she’d died with her father.
It’s important to show suffering in YA novels because suffering is a part of life. Teens know this, even if adults often (unhelpfully) disagree with them about traumatic a situation really is. By seeing characters endure horrible things, readers realize they aren’t alone in experiencing awful things. But more than that, they see how suffering can transform a character into the realm-uniting, world-saving, fearless leader they ultimately become by the end of the book. It’s this process, this change, this transformation, that gives us hope. If a character can do it, so can we. We, too, can find ways to transform our suffering into strength, allowing a lotus to bloom from the depths of the mud we find ourselves in.