Now, I’ll say, I typically believe Karma to be a real thing.  Not that I think there is a mystical force out there, keeping a check to see the universe weighs the same as a duck, but I do full well believe that the way you act dictates what opportunities come your way.  Buy someone a beer, good chance they will buy you one back.  Let someone shelter under your umbrella, and they’ll offer you a coffee.  Etc, and so forth.  But what about all the random, nasty stuff?

Well, I think that is really just unbalanced.  Example.  Let’s say you made a mistake in associating with someone for a time.  They cause you all sorts of pain as you associate with them, and even after you break the association and do everything you can to not let them affect your life, this person still manages to cause drama and heartache.  Not that I’m talking from personal, recent experience.  Nope, not me.  Nuh-uh.

See, it always seems that we get far more crap for bad than we get gold for good.  And, oh crap, I’m going to start talking about writing.  Yeah, it needs to be like that in stories too.  I have read far too many stories (or fragments of stories cause I couldn’t make myself finish), where the author tried to change the balance of Karma.  That is to say, tried to make the universe less of a cold, unfeeling, uncaring, prick.  Either by giving less crap for bad or more gold for good.  And yeah, that is one fantasy that belongs in your head while you shower or sluff off at work and not on a page.  And I’ll just end it there, cause right now Karma has thrown me a boulder to deal with, and boy does my back hurt holding it.  I guess I’ll just go watch some more Lost or something. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

And yet, you really sit down and think about it, and the sheer realization of how the stress of situations should affect a person are never directly expressed in a lot of writing.  Yes, people crack under pressure, or show anger, but it is always in a second-hand sort of way.  You don’t hear about the random panic attack that blind sides them out of nowhere.  You don’t hear about strange shortnesses of breath and exhaustions out of nothing.  No, the direct effects of stress are glossed over, and we get the next layer.

Why?  Well, I’d imagine part of it is the author not wanting to feel that his or herself.  I can’t speak for every author, but I can tell you, whatever my characters go through, I feel.  When I write it, it is real for me too.  I write about my character thinking his wife has betrayed him and left him for dead, my heart feels stabbed.  I write about an addict who is jonsing for a fix, my hands get the shakes.  So, why on this green Earth would I want to give myself the effects of hideous high stress?

Still, it seems like authors, myself included, could actually bring up the direct effects of stress more.  You don’t face world-threatening situations with only a slightly ill temper and maybe some heartburn. Alas, not ever hero is (or should be) Jack Bauer.

And to the real life part of stress, yes, I hate it. Who doesn’t?  It never helps you solve a problem, and in the end only feeds itself because the problem is all that harder to solve.  And yet, we still feel it, even certain bartender friends of mine who deny it.  So, what can I say? Have a beer and find some friends to help you laugh.  It doesn’t fix the problem, but it helps in an indirect way by giving a break from that back-muscle-killing, stomach-upsetting, sleep-depriving stress.