I'm in the death throes of Kongomato 3, the final edition of my monster trilogy. And with less than sixty-ish pages to go I realised with shock, that I had to kill someone off.
Now anyone who reads my books, and I know there are some because every hundred years or so I get a pitiful cheque from Amazon, will know that I have no problem in bumping people in the most gruesome and hideous ways imaginable. Well, after all that's what horror novels are for.
This time I realised that it was one of my characters. You know when you write a character, grow him/her, decide their flaws, weaknesses, strengths, likes and dislikes to the point where they almost seem real? Well I did that with this character, only to realise two hundred and eighty pages in that's he's completely redundant. I dreaded it, bumping him him off, that is, and replacing his with a pre-existing character. This sounds a little complicated but if anyone reads number three it should be seamless.
Simply doing a global find and replace was easy enough but I can't get over the dread feeling that I've done something bad and that he's sobbing quietly in literary hell.
It better not be one of my favorite characters, Bubba. Sadly, as writers, we often have to do this. Hard to see our creations die off, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteIt is, and at the same time it isn't. One of your fave characters, I mean.
ReplyDeleteI really should have finished it and slaughtered him then but I could see no alternative.
Just make sure you have some fun when you murder him off.
ReplyDeleteI just eradicated him as if he never existed. But now, half way through the final chapter I'm finally getting to slaughter someone I've been waiting to kill for three novels. It's going to be bloody.
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