Being a Better Writer’s Summer of Cliche Writing Advice: Stuck? Just Kill a Character! · 3:32pm Sep 30th, 2019
Welcome back readers, to another entry in Being a Better Writer! Where we are still locked in the Summer of Cliche Writing Advice! That’s right, it isn’t over yet!
Though it almost is. In fact, this is the second to last week. Next week’s entry will be the last entry into this summer’s special feature. That’s right, summer will be over (technically it ran a little long) and fall firmly upon us, so it’ll be time for the Summer of Cliche Writing Advice to end at last.
But honestly? This was a lot of fun. It was kind of refreshing to pick a single topic like this and focus on it for a while. In fact, I’ve already got another idea for a future feature later this year.
I’m also curious what you readers have made of this sort of thing. A larger, longer feature on a topic rather than each week covering a different topic as it comes. Would more feature like this be something you’d be interested in or not? Or do you prefer a new topic every week? Leave a comment and let me know!
So, with that said, let’s dive into today’s bit of cliche advice! In case you’re new here and this is the first post in the series you’ve encountered, the Summer of Cliche Writing Advice is all about looking at those bits of easily repeated, quickly remembered bites of advice that every author is deluged with constantly by the general public. But as with a lot of commonly repeated and retold sayings, often we have to ask if they’re really that useful, or just something that sounds nice and is quick and easy to say.
See, in the process of being stripped down into something that’s easy for anyone to remember, words have to be trimmed out. Cut for length. Or brevity. Sometimes words get changed for others that flow better in a short sentence. However, with all of this happening, you lose context and can even lose or completely change meaning.
So this series takes a look at these short, easily-(and oft)-repeated phrases and examines whether or not they’re really worth it. Do they teach anything useful? Are they helpful at all, or are they missing pieces that were lost for that brevity? Should we be saying them at all?
And our saying for this week? Stuck? Just kill a character!
I would but they have lawyers.
I also wonder if I can kill a character on Fifth Avenue and nothing would happen?
Kudos on the article.
First thing this article reminded me of was a fic on this site, Necromancy for Foals. Set in pre-Show period, there were a number of characters who died in the background. Fair enough. Then apparently the writer felt pressured into writing a sequel, which time-skipped to within the show. Then proceeded to kill off a bunch of minor and supporting characters in the cast. That did not go so well with a number of the readers, including me. Last I heard before I shuffled the story off to my "eventually will get back to it, maybe" folder, the writer was going to take a break.
Now as for the topic itself, most of the time I hate the kill-em-off-willy-nilly-because-that's-realism-folks! excuse. Kill off enough characters and I throw the eight deadly words at a story and toss it into a bin.
Then there is also the thing that occurs when the dead do not stay dead in your story. Take for example, Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons. Big arc happens, life support is failing for the MC, then they die. Very emotional, and probably my favorite. Then she comes back. And eventually dies again. To the point where I gave up on the story (due to arc fatigue and serial escalation breaking SoD) the people I read it with were joking on her death count meter. I might eventually get back to it, only because there is nothing else to do, but not anytime soon.