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Killing off a character.
Have you ever planned on killing off a character. And found that when it came time to do it, the char had become a huge part of the story and not to mention you fell in love with that character...
So what did you do?
On a side note, do you always make your protagonist the same gender as you?
And would you read a story from a male author about a female protagonist?
Thx for your time and any response you might leave…
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>>Have you every planned on killing off a character. And found that when it came time to do it, the char had become a huge part of the story and not to mention you fell in love with that character...<<
ReplyDeleteIf I haven't grown fond of a sympathetic character, or if I'm not itching to pull the trigger on a villain, then I haven't done my job as a writer.
>>So what did you do?<<
They usually die, unless the needs of the plot change the trajectory tremendously.
>>On a side note, do you always make your protagonist the same gender as you?<<
*LAUGH* There are at least 10 genders spread across my fantasy and science fiction writing. At least 2 of the really unusual ones have made it into stories or poems. Huh, thinking about it, my gender is metasexual, and I'm not sure if I've actually written a protagonist with that one.
>>And would you read a story from a male author about a female protagonist?<<
Happily, and vice versa. A favorite is _Island in the Sea of Time_ by S.M. Stirling.
I don't kill off characters I like very often. Some day I'll likely have to, but only if it works for the story.
ReplyDeleteAs for protagonist gender, I tend to write with a protagonist of each gender (at least). Sometimes the male is my favorite. Sometimes the female. They both have aspects of me. My female characters are always strong, even if they don't necessarily look that way at first glance.
Because I feel like I can write both kinds of characters, I certainly don't object to men writing women or women writing men - as long as they write them well. Some women can't write female protagonists worth a damn and some men can't write male characters that come off real.
In general, I think you have gift for characters or you don't, gender notwithstanding.
Since I write YA, I don't tend to kill off a bunch of characters--although with this last one, I kind of had to (since it is, after all, Noah's ark)... and the character I killed off was actually my husband's grandmother. It was really terrible, and I still don't think I'm over it.
ReplyDeleteAs to gender, I don't care whether an author is male or female, or whether a protagonist is male or female. I've written both, and I can fall in love with them all. I tend to have a mixture of genders scattered all throughout, and I like it best that way.