Have you ever
killed off a character you loved?
by Paul D. Marks
Well, I've
certainly wanted to kill off a lot of 'characters' I've come across in my life,
but we're talking fiction here. The answer is yes. Killing off a character that
you like is never easy. We all love
killing the bad guys, seeing them get their just desserts. But when you kill
off a sympathetic character, a character that you and your readers like and,
who is a good guy and good friend to your protagonist, well, that's another
story. But sometimes you gotta do what
you gotta do for the sake of the plot and the story and a dash of realism.
Gaby, a character
in my story Sleepy Lagoon Nocturne, set around the time of the Zoot Suit Riots
during World War II, is missing. He's a friend of Bobby's, the story's main
character. And someone who knows Bobby's
deepest secrets. But knowing them, he is sympathetic to Bobby and a friend to
him. So when he goes missing, Bobby
wants to find out what happened. And it
isn't pretty. And though Gaby meets an untimely end, I liked the
character. So when I wrote The Blues
Don't Care, a novel that "stars" Bobby in the main role, I
resurrected Gaby to return in that story, which is set previous to the time of
Sleepy Lagoon Nocturne. So, sometimes through the magic of fiction you can
bring back a character that you like.
(This novel is not yet available.)
My short story
Free Fall starts off with the main character, Rick, free falling to his death
from a high-rise apartment in L.A. So
I'm not really giving anything away here. This was an interesting experiment
for me as both the writer and reader know the main character, the narrator of
the story, is dead from the beginning.
As the ground comes screaming towards him and in those few seconds
before hitting, we get his story. Having
started this story off knowing my main character was going to die, I didn’t
have time to become too attached to him, at least initially. But, as I wrote his backstory, I started to
like him and empathize with him and I think that gave the story a little more
depth and interest as we realize all the events that led up to him taking this
ultimate final step.
Spoiler Alert –
Don't read this graph if you're planning to read White Heat: Probably the most
heartrending death of a character both for me and my readers was the death of a
dog in this novel. It's ironic because just a week or two before I got this
question I read something that said you never kill a dog in a cozy. Well, this book is about as far from a cozy
as you can get. Still, it was hard on my
audience and I got a lot of feedback on that. Some people couldn't even read
those parts. And it was hard for me to
kill him off. But it did make people
hate the bad guy even more – after all, who kills a dog? I don't like the idea of hurting a dog
anymore than anyone else. But you do what
works for the plot. And in this case I
thought it would jolt the reader into connecting with the characters in a more
real way. Suddenly the bad guy is really
evil and the hero more sympathetic. Is that manipulative – maybe. But isn't all writing? Still, it hurt to write those scenes and you
just feel it all well up inside you as you write. It was also hard on me
because the real-life dog that the dog-character was based on was a dog I'd had
as a kid. Luckily that rascally dog
lived to a ripe old age. End of Spoiler.
Killing off the
characters in the three cases that I mention above worked for each particular
story. And you do what you have to do to
make the story work. But that doesn't
mean you don't regret it sometimes. In one particular screenplay of mine, that
was optioned over and over but never produced, I kill off the main character's
sidekick buddy. But I really liked that
character and since it hasn't been produced, well, maybe it's not too late to
save his ass.
(originally
posted on 7 Criminal Minds blog)
