March 30, 2020
How do you feel about killing off one of your major characters?
If you’ve read my Free Wolves stories, you know I’ve killed off quite a few characters. Minor ones, mostly, but I’ve thrown in a major one here or there. Villains are easy to kill off in those books because it’s true to a wolf-shifter heritage. Staying ‘civilized’ is more of a challenge. And I’ve seriously injured my main characters, but they’ve pulled through.
In my Harmony Duprie Mysteries, I’ve set about writing stories that don’t necessarily include anyone dying. Yes, I’ve had a murder or two, but they were off-camera. The stories are relatively light-hearted, and don’t contain a lot of gore. We’ll get back to them later.
In the first book I wrote (the one that went through about four revisions before I decided the plot was flawed and it would never be published) I actually killed my main character in one version. It made sense for the story, but I knew that readers would hate me for it. So, I switched up the story and gave it a happy ending.
But I cried hard as I wrote my heroine’s death. And cried harder when I wrote her funeral. And cried more when the hero (her lover) scattered her ashes to mingle with those of her late husband. In the revised version, they got to stay together as they aged, a no-tears, happily ever after ending. It was a good ending, but I thought the original was better. (Can’t say I liked it, but it was better.)
Now, let’s go back to Harmony. I’m currently editing the fifth book in the Harmony Duprie Mysteries, (The Samurai’s Inro) and I’m worried about her stories getting ‘stale.’ I love the character but she needed a shake-up. And the only thing I could come up with was killing of a major character- Eli, her lover. And I wasn’t happy about it.
Harmony and I have been known to have arguments about the plot of her stories, but oddly, she wasn’t talking to me about this idea. I didn’t know if she agreed with it or if she was mad at me for even suggesting it!
Well, as Harmony is wont to do, she let me know how this was going to go down in a dream. (Hey, I won’t reveal her decision now…that’s another book.) I’ve had several dreams about this book, leading me to places in the story I didn’t know it needed to go. I’m somewhere near 15000 words in a book that I haven’t officially started writing yet!
Let’s just say I’m okay with killing off a main character if it’s true to the character and to the story. It can be a fine line between that and not alienating the readers. If it’s well-written, true to the plot, and not done for the shock value, a good writer can make it work.
That’s how I see it. And if you follow the links below, you can find out what the other authors think.
Off topic: I hope everyone out there is doing okay. Things will get better. It’ll take some time, so hang in there.
March 30, 2020
How do you feel about killing off one of your major characters?
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Good points, I have the same sort of conversations (arguments) with my characters. And I forgot about the readers desires as well, their opinions matter too.
It can be a struggle to match your vision, as a writer, with those of your readers. But sometimes you have to be true to your story no matter what the readers think
I try not to kill anybody off these days, not unless they really deserve it!
But it’s fun to write characters that deserve to be killed!
Yeah, I suppose it is.
and I’m worried about her stories getting ‘stale.’ Puh – Leeeeze! Binge Streaming is made up of stale characters. Look at sitcoms and myst dramas. DCI Banks is as cardboard as a shoe box, and just as thin and he is not alone or without female counterparts.
However I agree with serial heroes always coasting – But then we read those books for the characters we’ve come to keep company with. I hardly think Miss Fisher needs a clop to the jaw or an unpleasantly dead servant. Or her forerunner in that vein Mrs. Bradley or all the way back to the prototype Torchy Blane. Yeah, hassle them, but not too much. A shotgun blast through the window or such. But dead lovers — then you have to go all into that relationship junk that fills pages that get flipped getting back to the show!
I’ve considered putting Harmony into an ‘alternative world” and letting her be bad just for the fun of it!
I hated to get my heroine dirty, but then I got enough research from “good girls” who did “bad” things and owned up on them that it wasn’t so difficult. Like driving their brother’s little motorcycle through a neighbor’s front door, praying they weren;t pregnant, that sort of thing
I’ve often said that if I didn’t choose to be good, then I’d be good at being bad- very, very bad.
I have no compunction about killing of some of my characters as they are all already dead and are ghosts. I enjoy the historical research that goes into writing their stories, including their deaths. I liked you post, Patricia, although I could not imagine myself ever crying over the death of a character in a book. I don’t think I have ever cried while reading a book either. I am a tough cookie.
Some genres call for death and some can get away without it. I don’t like killing major characters (unless they’re bad guys), but high fantasy and apocalyptic without death just reads Pollyanna, so I do it when I can advance the story with it or if they stop talking to me and I can’t find a way to send them off to an off-screen adventure.
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I wanted to cry (and read it!) just reading about that ending!
The ending was good- sad but good- but the overall plot was weak.