How much is too much?

If you can raise the stakes in fiction, you are suppose to do it. This piece of advice is given in almost any book you read about writing. But my questions is, how much is too much?

All throughout high school and my time at Western Washingtion University (WWU), I was into anime. Anime is Japanese animation, and while it is more commonplace than ever in the US today, back in the late '90s/early noughties it was just starting to boom. I became president of WWU's anime club (AIYA!) and even had a high ranking volunteer position in Sakura-Con, the Northwest anime/culture convention. The point of all of this is that some of the highest stakes in stories can be found within the storylines of anime and manga (graphic novels). If something could go wrong for a character, it usually did. I still remember one title--Fushigi Yuugi--that had heartbreak, rape, manipulation, you name it, all woven into the storyline. At the end you still sat wondering if something else could go wrong for any of the main characters. If something wasn't being done to a character, then usually their own angst would kick in, making it even bleaker.

In most anime the story would bounce back up, but it wasn't guaranteed; anime and manga endings were not always happy. Bad things could happen, and sometimes characters couldn't get out of it. Like life, the end result was unpredictable.

However, the emotional ride was so intense it makes me wonder if the same can be done successfully with fiction. With the exception of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, I have yet to see many authors really make their characters suffer as much as possible. Let me make something clear here: Characters shouldn't be tortured for the sake of being tortured. Pushing a character to the brink, on the other hand, is something we all should try to do more often. If the stakes are so high that failure could truly be disasterous or life-changing, then readers become more invovled and drawn in.

I'm not an expert on this by any means, but it's something that I've learned from anime and manga that I hope to be able to implement in all of my stories. Perfect, happy endings aren't all that interesting, no matter how much readers may yearn for it. Writers need to remember to make the storyline as intriguing as possible and granting every fan's wish for one or more characters usually won't accomplish this.

Finding the line between "the limit" and "too much" is a bit trickier.