Killing darlings

If you’re familiar with the two authors, you’ll understand the joke. JK Rowling, of the Harry Potter series, is quoted as having problems killing off her characters. R.R. Martin, of the Game of Thrones series, seems to enjoy the slaughter.

Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Firefly series, and Avenger movie fame, is so well known for killing characters there’s jokes at his expense.

I remember watching the series, Castle, where the author Richard Castle kills off his main character of his thriller so he can start a new series (based on a female detective, influenced by Kate Beckett whom he ‘researches’).  In the show, Castle admits “Writing Derrick used to be fun. Now it’s like work.”; the reason why he killed him off.

So this leads me to think on the reasons to kill characters;

-Their death impacts other characters, to move the story along. The revenge-of-the-death-of-friend/lover/family is a common theme. The death of parents impacts a child to become a hero or criminal, (Batman comes to mind).

-You want to tug on the reader’s emotional strings. Personally, I feel manipulated if the author does this- don’t kill a character you spent chapters upon chapters getting me to like him/her…just, don’t.

-An act of sacrifice is required for the story. What better hero sacrifices themselves to save others?

What do you think? Do you kill off your characters?Difficult? Enjoyable? Have you already done this with regrets? Or not? Write in comments.

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“Writing dialog.” she said.

With any story telling, the dialog offers a writer a few tricks in plotting;

Dialog can speed up or slow down the plot. This depends on the type of dialog you write, such as lengthy talking points a character shares with another character. They tell a story in the story. Speeding up can be quick, concise, and reveal plot through conversation.

Dialog shows character How and what someone says often shows what sort of person they are. Accents, forma or informal speech, and even slang can show a character’s background or mood. You shouldn’t be too heavy with accent, however. That can be too distracting. Add just enough, and move on with the story. Try to stay in the head of the character to be consistent with the style of talking.

Giving of information. Dialog works best as a tool to reveal information, by allowing one character to ask the questions the reader might be asking themselves. Although the method can be effective, you don’t want to use it too much as an easy way to ‘tell’ instead of ‘show.

He said. She said. There’s the ongoing debate over using the word ‘said’ in dialog tags. Readers don’t even see them, half the time, and using overly dramatic tags leads to pulling the reader out of the conversation as well. I use both sparingly, using tags to indicate what character is doing along with the saying. In other words;  you don’t have to use ‘said’ if you’ve made it clear who is talking, and when they are talking.

Using the tag ‘said, however, is perfectly acceptable.

Here are some links on the topic of dialog;

9 Easily Preventable Mistakes Writers Make With Dialogue. The Creative Penn

My Dialogue Sucks: Tips For Improving Dialogue In Your Novel. The Creative Penn

Top 8 Tips for Writing Dialogue by About.com

How to Punctuate Dialogue by The Editor’s Blog

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