Author L.M. Pruitt Guest Blog and Kindle Contest LIVE Here!
Kill your darlings.
Those words have a lot of different interpretations. Most writers take them to mean something more figurative—find your favorite phrases, words, those little quirks in your writing, and cut them. Slash away at those gems you believe are so wonderful. Leave them on the editing room floor. We’re told it will make our stories lean and clean. That may be true. I, however, have always taken that phrase to mean something else.
Kill the characters you love—or at the very least, make them suffer. A lot.
It flies in the face of everything rational. If you love a character, why are you purposefully going to do terrible things to them? Why would you maim them or scar them or take away their children? Why push them toward addiction? Why kill them? One of the complaints of the original Winged series was the massive amounts of suffering inflicted not just on the main character but pretty much everybody of importance—limbs were lost, psyches were broken, people died. Lots of people died.
Like I said, doing horrible things to characters you love flies in the face of everything rational—but it makes for one helluva story.
One of my favorite writers is Seanan McGuire, the author of the October Daye series. Within the first chapter of the first book, she does something absolutely atrocious to the main character (no spoilers!). Over the course of the series, Toby Daye suffers her fair share, if not more. I’ve shed a goodly number of tears while reading her books.
That’s right—I’ve cried. Just like I cried while reading Harry Potter, just like I cried while reading the Vampire Academy series. Each of these writers did horrible things to various characters, up to and including killing off people seemingly from left field. And every time—after I dried my eyes and blew my nose—I was twice as eager to turn the next page or read the next book. I needed to make sure the rest of the characters I loved would turn out fine.
We grow through tragedy—not just the characters but the bond we as readers have with our beloved (or reviled) characters. It’s harsh and horrible and hurts like hell but we all come out stronger in the end, character and reader alike.
So far this time around, I’ve managed to get away with not killing my darlings—I’ve settled for hurting them in permanent ways, both physically and emotionally.
But it’s only the first book. I’m sure I’ll be killing a darling or two along the way.
So I’m interested to know—what character death (or period of acute suffering) had the most impact on you? Have you ever had a crying bout after reading what an author has done to your favorite character?
I’ll be popping in and out all day to see what you guys have to say, so feel free to ask questions of your own—questions about my work, questions about my books, pretty much any question you have.
And as always—happy reading!
About L.M. Pruitt
Author Bio:
L.M. Pruitt has been reading and writing for as long as she can remember. A native of Florida with a love of New Orleans, she has the uncanny ability to find humor in most things and would probably kill a plastic plant. She knows this because she’s killed bamboo. Twice. As a result, she’s not allowed to walk in the gardening department of any store without supervision. She’s also not allowed in the card aisle of any grocery store without an escort since she’ll spend thirty minutes opening cards and laughing for no good reason. She continues to make her home in Florida in spite of the heat and mosquitos and shares her home with two cats–one of them smart, the other not so much.
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