Thank you, Dostoevsky

Svidrigaylov lives the basest, most debauched life of any character in Crime and Punishment, then goes and shoots himself. In my gut I pity him, and even though we aren't supposed to make this sort of supposition about people, I can't shake the feeling that after death he was probably led to infinite suffering.

But then I remembered that he is fiction.

Freshman year I threw the book against the wall several times. I was frustrated with Dostoevsky for creating characters that seemed so real then making them suffer so much. (My story writing was always weak because I didn't have the heart to make my characters suffer.)

But they are fiction.

So I can make them suffer all I like.

And therefore tell a story.