by Annette Young
Last night I killed a man and then today, I breathed life back into his fictional bones. No, I’m not kidding, I committed the cardinal sin of taking a life –albeit someone that I had made up, sometimes the prospect of being ruthless is just too strong to deny.
But then, the power of the writer is extraordinarily strong; in fact, let’s be honest, it’s one of the perks of writing, having fun with your characters, making them living, breathing entities, watching them fall in love, then dashing their romantic dreams in an instant. You can make them beautiful, vibrant or just plain nasty, you are in control after all. You can even wield an imaginary sword and in one swipe of the ultra sharpened blade…the character’s head will be rolling across the floor.
But should you really kill off your characters? Only you can answer that. Think about your story and those characters that you have painstakingly created, do you want to keep them all or is there someone that you just dislike? What do your characters add to the story? There may be many reasons why you feel it is necessary to eradicate one, but here are some reasons that spring to mind:
- If the character is unimportant
- If the plot has led naturally to this point
- If the character is just driving you nuts
Killing a character can be quite satisfying, I’ll admit it. You can plan the character’s demise in a multitude of ways and it’s easy to imagine that final moment as the character gasps his last. Whether the act is sad, emotional or a sheer relief, a death can actually breathe new life into a plot and perk up the remaining characters.
Fortunately, it’s easy to resurrect a character if you suddenly develop a pang of conscience about this tragic act, or if you realize that you have made a mistake and really, your novel is so much better with this character playing an active role. Don’t kill off a character just to incite a shock reaction or to cause drama for the sake of it, each character has to be believable – whether good or bad, the character should add something to the plot.
If your story is really weak and you need a sudden surge of fictional excitement, re-work the story –something has gone horribly wrong. If you are bored writing the story, then again, you have a problem. Re-write the story or start again. If your character is insignificant and adds nothing to the story-line, then by all means, give him ….or her the chop.
Every character plays an important part in a novel, if they are not pulling their weight, then you know what to do.
Image courtesy of [Boians Cho Joo Young] at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
