Why Killing Lead Characters Is A Good Idea (Even If You're Not A Horror Author)

You know those people. The heart-breakers. The ones who take your trust, nurture it, and who snap it in half the moment you get complacent. You know their names. Stephen King. George R. R. Martin. Frank Darabont. Brian Keene. Joss Whedon. David Eddings. They are the creators and dreamers who suck you into their stories, make you love their characters, get you to choose favorites, and then kill them right in front of you.

Some people accuse these creative hatchet men of using blunt force trauma on an audience's emotions just to get a reaction. The claim is that killing off main characters or giving you an ending where the bad guy comes out ahead is nothing more than a lack of talent trying to camouflage itself with shock. I've got news for you though; we need more stories that do this.

The Anatomy of The "Fuck-You" Ending

Comedian Reginald D. Hunter refers to a certain type of movie in one of his funnier stand-up bits. A young man is riding a bus in China when two men in ski masks with guns stand up, force the driver to pull over, and rob everyone on the bus of their valuables. The masked men then force the driver, a young and attractive woman, off the bus to the side of the road. Everyone sits on the bus and does nothing, waiting for it all to be over, except for a young man who stands up and demands to know if they're going to just let this happen.

That was the plan, now that you mention it.

The young man descends from the bus full of outrage and ready to defend the driver's honor. He interrupts the attackers before they can commence with the sexual part of the rape (though just barely), and is promptly beaten bloody and mostly senseless by the two professional criminals. The criminals take their loot and leave. The boy reaches out to the driver who is in shock and disarray. She abruptly snaps out of it, straightens her clothes, and walks to the bus. She throws the boy's backpack at him, shouts for him to go away, shuts the doors in his face and the bus drives off. The boy is limping down the highway with his backpack when he hears sirens, and he thinks that at least the driver sent an ambulance for him. The ambulance shoots past, along with a dozen police vehicles. Turns out the driver went over a cliff, and everyone on the bus was killed.

Dark stuff for a 12 minute movie, huh?

Dark endings, or fuck-you endings as Reg would call them, have some elements in common. They have a main character who is striving to do something, who fails in the goal (even if it looks like the character somehow succeeded), and an ending that shows you just how vulnerable people really are by refusing to cut away as this character's hopes, dreams, and even life are ground into dust beneath reality's harsh boot heel.

So Why Do We Need More Of These?

Why would anyone want to watch movies or read books with fuck-you endings? Why would you invest that amount of time, energy, and love into something just to watch it crushed before your helpless, hoping eyes? Well for some people there's catharsis in that. The thrill of hope and the sharp downturn of failure create one hell of a cocktail, as evidenced by the vitriol it foments in many people who are infuriated by these kinds of stories.

These stories have a higher purpose than just abusing your reader's heart strings though. They create tension; not just in the story someone's reading, but in every story.

Really though, you didn't see it coming when they cast him as Lord Stark?

Visualize a world without stories like Game of Thrones for a minute. A world where in the end of The Mist the father, son, schoolteacher and friends drove out into a normal world and survived the monstrous trauma of the creatures in the fog. A world where every character in every story managed to make it through and beat the odds.

You know what audiences would be in that world? Complacent.

This same point was touched on by Eric Vespe in his article here, but it bears repeating. If every book you ever read had the main characters succeed and make it through the certain death of the big climax, what would you have? A world of action movie heroes and schmaltzy "but I thought you were dead!" reveals that lets the audience lean back in their seats and yawn at the supposed "threats" to the movie's heroes and heroines. A world where no matter how big the explosions or how fast-paced the gun fights the audience knows the heroes are going to come through unscathed.

Unless you kill them.

As soon as you show the audience you're not dicking around they are going to be on the edge of their seats. Suddenly every fight with sword-wielding thugs or car chase through crowded streets represents real danger. In a world where main characters are not sacrosanct there's a good chance no one is going to stop the executioner from dropping the sword on the hero's neck, and the plucky heroine might not get the miracle cure for the plague before the last page. Even if you're not reading a book by an author known for killing fan favorite characters there's always going to be that question in your mind; is this book the one where the author decides to take off the kid gloves?

Even if you're not writing books with fuck-you endings in them you're benefiting from authors who have. So before you condemn these endings as Nihilistic shock-and-awe, realize what they're doing for your stories.

Here's a big ole' book of fuck-you endings. Check it out!

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What Is A Real Writer's Daily Word Count? (Also, Why NaNoWriMo Gives You Bad Habits)

I told myself I wasn't going to weigh in on the continued existence of NaNoWriMo (I said everything I had to say in this entry last year). I said this November I would just blithely do my own thing and ignore all of the hopefuls who are blazing away at their keyboards until blissful unconsciousness finally claims them. Unfortunately though there's a subject that crops up a lot this time of year, and I think it's one writers need to seriously discuss.

That subject is your daily word count. Specifically what it should and shouldn't be.

1,666 words exactly. There, done!

How many words you put on the page each day is an intensely personal subject. To use a simile it's like working out; the number of words you put down is going to reflect your needs and your goals as a writer. Walk into a gym and you'll see a lot of people doing ostensibly the same activity (exercising), but with a slew of different goals (compete in bodybuilding competitions, shape up for a movie role, look good to get back in the dating pool, improve health, etc.).

Walking into a writing group is a lot like this example. You're going to have the writer who's on deadline, so she has to get big chunks of text done immediately if she's going to get paid. You have the writer who's doing it as a side job with no deadline who's going to shop the manuscript around to publishers once it's done. Then you have the writers who are just getting into the craft, and those who are doing it to stay sharp but who are there mostly for themselves. Every writer there is doing the same thing (putting words on a page) but each one of them has different needs.

So What Does This Have To Do With NaNoWriMo?

Thanks for reminding me...

No worries, bro.

The great thing about events like NaNoWriMo is that it makes writing a more inclusive activity. It gives people who might otherwise have never attempted to write a novel the chance to try it out and see how they like it. However there's a couple of issues with the competition; mainly the word count and how writers have to chase it like a fleet-footed stag across the wastes.

The agreed-upon length of a novel is a minimum of 50k words. That's no mean feat, but in order to make that minimum in one month it means that someone has to write 1,666 words per day. No missed days, no edits, no nothing. The issue, as several writers have mentioned, is that this leaves you chasing word count rather than crafting your story. Also we're talking minimum; so if your story spirals out of control and needs 70k or 100k words to be told then that 1,666 words per day just isn't going to make the 1 month cut off. Too bad, so sad.

So what's the problem? Nothing, if you're writing for NaNo (though really any time you're left pursuing a word count instead of asking yourself if you're telling the story you want to tell it might be time to pick a different metric for your work). Most of us aren't, but the idea that your daily word count is a measure of your skill and value as a writer is something that we can't shake in the wider world of writers. This competition didn't create that stigma, but it has blown it up to the point that even rank amateurs think they can dictate how good someone is based on daily numbers.

So What's The Right Word Count?

Stephen King is reputed to do 10k words per day on a novel, whether he's feeling it or not. Kurt Vonnegut was said to have done one page per day, no more and no less, and he would not proceed until that one page was completely perfect. Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Neal F. Litherland all have one thing in common...

Aside from a love of guns and money?

Different approaches to our works. I can't speak for Hemingway and Thompson (as my Ouija board has recently developed a fickle streak), but I can tell you that depending on the project I can get anywhere from 500 to 2,000 words of fiction in a day. With the blogs and article posts I write to keep the lights on and my landlord happy I'm looking at an addition 1,500+ words of work (or more) every 24 hour period.

I'm no Stephen King, but I can put down a respectable chunk of text.

That doesn't make me a better or a worse writer than any of the other famous authors I've used for comparison. What makes you a good writer? Skill, dedication, imagery, good grammar, proper spelling... all of these things, but not how many words you can put down on a page in a 24 hour period.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice bonus to be able to crank out work en masse because the words just flow out of you like pop fiction diarrhea. Just don't beat yourself with a yardstick that might not actually mean anything if it takes you 6 months instead of 1 to get your first draft done.

Do What Works For You

I cannot stress this strongly enough; every writer has his or her own process. It sounds like pretentious art major bullshit, but it's true to a degree. Some authors can just bang out a rough draft in a few months (or a month), get it edited, and have it on the shelves by Christmas. Some authors may take years to get their next book out. Even authors who are successful and don't really need a day job can leave their fans twisted in knots awaiting the next development.

We're not naming names.

It's a natural feeling to be frustrated by only putting down a few hundred words (or less... we've all had those days). Progress is progress though, and writers need to learn that we all have off days. More importantly though we all gain stamina. Maybe you'll never be a 10k word powerhouse but if you start out doing a few hundred words a day on one project then that can jump to a thousand words on the next project. Much like the aforementioned exercise it gets easier the longer you stick to your schedule.

So write every day, no matter how much or how little you manage to put on the page.

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There Are Only Two Kinds of Writers (Chances Are You're One Of Them)

For those who missed last week's update (How to Make Money On Your Blog By Selling Swag), the Literary Mercenary now has its own online store! Just check out this link to see my first design, and if you're the sort of person who wants to be vocal about your opinions on whether or not corporations are people just tell your friends to stop by and take a look. It's my avowed goal to get one new design up per month, but depending on how crazy my other professional demands get that might slip to one every two months or so.

You know you want one.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yes, how there's really only two kinds of writers in the world.

Well, What Are They?

That's italics for you; no-bullshit and to-the-point. The most common names I've heard for the two types of writers in the world are plotters and pantsers; meaning authors who carefully plot out their stories and those who fly by the seat of their pants. Because I dislike these terms (to me they feel like someone who's teaching a class of third graders how to be writers), I will instead use the ones provided by an author whose career I'd emulate more if I could figure out how; architects and gardeners. People who draw a careful blueprint of the whole structure, and people who bury an idea in fertile soil and see what kind of insanity takes root.

The source of these terms, for the curious.

But Neither One of Those Fits My Style

Yes they do. There are only two kinds of writers, just as there are only seven kinds of conflicts, and twenty kinds of dramatic situations. Whether we like it or not the truth of the writing profession is that mechanically there are only so many colors on our palettes, and there are only so many kinds of brush strokes we can use.

The real miracle is that, with such limited tools, we can still create such a plethora of fiction!

Seriously though, you can still check this out if you want to.

As for myself I'm an architect who likes a little free-flow in my stories. I have a beginning, an end, and a few plot points figured out through the story. How I connect those points I don't know until I get to that particular page. It provides a certain structure, but at the same time allows my story and characters enough free flow that I don't feel like I'm trying to micromanage my own creativity. That's what works for me, but I've spoken to authors who are much more extreme than I am on both sides of the line. I've also spoken to one or two who have very similar methods.

It all depends on how your mind works. Whether you choose to draw an entire blueprint of your short story, novel, or series, or you choose to just bury the idea in a hole and water it with coffee and blood to see what grows is your decision as a writer. If you want to just put up a loose frame for the story to grow around, that's perfectly acceptable too. Maybe you like to write completely blitzed on tequila, or you find you do your best work at 3 a.m. when the world is asleep and the quiet settles in. Maybe you like writing horror, or sci fi, or fantasy, or serious books about serious people who do serious shit.

The point here is that every artist is completely unique, but we're all using the same tools and techniques to create very different masterpieces. What you as an author need to do is find the method that works best for you and to use it to turn out your own masterpiece.

Seriously, don't let other people tell you how to write. But if there's only two methods at either end of a sliding scale, chances are good you fit somewhere on there.

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