Don’t Fear the Reaper

It used to be that one of the hardest conversations you could have with an author is the conversation where you try to convince them to kill a character. Because no one used to want to kill characters! Authors love their characters–and with good reason. They’ve spent months, even years struggling with those characters, building them, perfecting them, and putting them through hell and back again to tell good stories. Those characters have fans of their own–sometimes people dress like their characters, write fan fiction about their characters, and speculate about which characters should get together or whether their characters could beat other characters in a fight . . .

But then George R. R. Martin came around, killing characters with such style that all of a sudden, the conversation became about how NOT to kill characters.

A fan of the dark side myself, how and when to kill characters is a subject near and dear to my heart, and as such, I made it the subject of my latest “Writers Don’t Cry” column. Often misunderstood, sometimes overdone, and always controversial, killing characters involves far more than the simple mechanics. At least, it does when it’s done right. Killing characters is about how to decide when a character is worth more dead than alive in terms of the plot, character arc, and emotional impact.

Check it out, and let me know what you think!

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