No one loves to kill off a character in their story, but sometimes, it must be done. As writers, we become attached. We have our main characters, our side characters, our plot device characters, our no-name characters…the list goes on. But what about when a character reaches their end? What if you have too many characters? What if your characters end up in a life or death situation and there’s just no good or logical way to save them?
I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to let them go.
I know writing a character’s death can be gut-wrenching, especially if it’s a character that you know your readers resonate with. What if your readers stop reading the book? What if they get angry? Well, if your story is good enough to invoke emotions like that then it’s probably a pretty good story. Sometimes, it just makes sense to have a character die. It doesn’t mean it has to be the last we see or hear from the character, just that their physical presence is no longer needed for the story to continue without them.
I’ve read books where there are so many characters that it’s hard to keep up with. I find this to be especially true of stories where characters appear briefly, disappear for an extended amount of time, and then reappear later on. Unless the writer talks about them every so often to remind us that they’re around, it can be hard to remember their purpose in the story. Characters like this don’t need to stick around in my opinion. Once their purpose is fulfilled, it’s okay to let them go.
While killing a character might be a viable solution to a problem, you can also let them die quietly. What I mean by that is it’s okay to have them disappear off the face of the Earth, a distant memory that will soon fade. Unless the character in question was a main character or a side character that was around all the time, readers generally don’t tend to question these sorts of things. In fact, it’s okay to have a team split up for different reasons in a story and have them go down a separate path from the main protagonists. It makes for a good comeback if you ever decide to do a spinoff.
It’s definitely the season for killing…metaphorically. I’m gearing up to write my final installment of my Brimstone Trilogy and with the friend group splitting up in the final book, you probably won’t see some characters for awhile. And that’s totally fine since they’re going to be off doing their own thing trying to save the realms!
Don’t be afraid to shake things up. If they’re about to ride off into battle, start a war, or hunt down a killer, I expect someone to end up dead. Don’t give me high stakes and then not deliver. (I’m looking at you Stephenie Meyer’s, Breaking Dawn.) It’s a bold move, but if your readers are expecting it, then it won’t be as bad as you think.
Author Lauren Eason 