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Writers are sometimes told "kill your characters" or "kill your babies." The concept is that even if you like a character, don't be afraid to write them out of a story.
Well, I almost killed two characters from Pirates of Mars, Alan Nomura and Peter Grant. I say almost because two individuals by that name are still in the book. However, one of them (Nomura) now has no dialog, and the other (Grant) has very little to do. In truth, since both of them had very little to do, having been kidnapped by pirates early in the book, writing them out meant that a made-up and not terribly interesting subplot could go away, providing room for more interesting stuff.
Another, and frankly more interesting example of this, is provided in Brian Herbert'snever-ending quest to live off of his father's work book The Road to Dune
. I briefly discussed this book before, talking about a story's "sweet spot."
But the relevance here is that, thanks to Brian, we get to see a first draft of Frank Herbert's novel Dune. In the first draft, Duke Leto is the hero, and Paul is a whiny kid / hostage. At some point in the process, Frank decided to kill Duke Leto, and in the process converted a serviceable SF actioner into a classic of the genre.
Sometimes you just have to kill your characters. And saying that just gave me one hell of an idea for my next book, The Night Watch. (I do not want to meet my characters in a dark alley.)
Well, I almost killed two characters from Pirates of Mars, Alan Nomura and Peter Grant. I say almost because two individuals by that name are still in the book. However, one of them (Nomura) now has no dialog, and the other (Grant) has very little to do. In truth, since both of them had very little to do, having been kidnapped by pirates early in the book, writing them out meant that a made-up and not terribly interesting subplot could go away, providing room for more interesting stuff.
Another, and frankly more interesting example of this, is provided in Brian Herbert's
. I briefly discussed this book before, talking about a story's "sweet spot." But the relevance here is that, thanks to Brian, we get to see a first draft of Frank Herbert's novel Dune. In the first draft, Duke Leto is the hero, and Paul is a whiny kid / hostage. At some point in the process, Frank decided to kill Duke Leto, and in the process converted a serviceable SF actioner into a classic of the genre.
Sometimes you just have to kill your characters. And saying that just gave me one hell of an idea for my next book, The Night Watch. (I do not want to meet my characters in a dark alley.)
