If there's one thing I relish about writing, it's making my characters suffer. Happy people with no challenges don't inspire page turning. Movies operate on the same premise. For instance, Far from the Madding Crowd, based on Thomas Hardy's 1874 novel of the same name, gives viewers the enduring question from beginning to end: What bad thing could happen next? And after that, what new horror could happen? The story is fraught with suffering and disappointments and love unrequ