Recently Northern California has received some much needed rain. Along with the rain came some pretty serious thunder and lightning. I’m not a huge fan of these kinds of storms, lightning in particular.
Photo courtesy Google Images
One night last week, as thunder rumbled closer and closer, lightning decided to zap us with a thrilling zing of electricity. Our satellite receiver was fried, but fortunately the tv was spared. We did lose a lot of recorded tv shows and movies, much to our dismay.
During the brief – and quiet – period of time between satellite receivers, the hubs and I spent a lot of time reading. A couple of nights ago, he finished a new book by one of his favorite authors and upon completion, he snapped the book shut and said, “I can’t believe it. He killed him off!”
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Being a writer, this comes as no surprise to me, so I respond with a casual, “Well, sometimes you have to do that.”
“No you don’t,” replied my husband. “He was a main character. Now the series is over. I liked Cody.”
I looked up from my book with a shrug. “Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice for the greater good.”
I went on to explain that sometimes in an author’s made up world, if a character has already served his or her purpose you have to get rid of them somehow. You can’t just stop writing about them; readers will wonder where they’ve wandered off to.
He frowned then said, “You don’t kill off your characters.”
‘Yes, I do,” I said. “You just don’t know because you don’t read my stories.”
He stomped off in a huff to find another book to read.
Photo courtesy Google Images
As fiction authors we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. Sometimes our characters just don’t talk to us, or sometimes they go a different direction that we see them going. It happens. And if a character is screaming to be killed, well, as a good and proper author, we must make it happen. It’s our way of saving the world one story at a time.
So how about you – do you kill off your characters? Do you hate it when your favorite author takes an unexpected turn with their characters? Inquiring minds, and my husband, want to know.
Oh, and if for some unexpected, yet delightfully surprising reason CJ Box happens to read this post, please stop killing your characters. It makes my husband really grumpy.
Word of the day: Cozenage
Fun fact about me: I just learned (thanks to Jenny Hansen) that I am neither predominately left or right handed. I have what is known as mixed-handedness. Check out Jenny’s post here: http://jennyhansenauthor.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/lefty-or-righty-are-you-the-hand-you-think-you-are/
Original post by Jansen Schmidt, March 2014. Photos courtesy Google Images.
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