When you just gotta kill em!

There’s a moment when every writer stops with fingers hovering over the keyboard and ask themselves should the bad guy die. We all come to our decisions about the fate of our characters in different ways. Some writers shy away from killing off the enemy while others jump in and gut the enemy with zeal.

I must say, I am not a violent person whatsoever in real life but when it comes to my novels and my hero and heroine’s enemies nine times out of ten those suckers are going to eat dirt. Maybe I read one too many Stephen King novels as a teen or maybe I’m pouring out all my suppressed anger onto my fictional bad boys, but when someone crosses my hero or heroine and threatens their life or those of the ones they love that person is going down or going to wish they were dead.

I haven’t written a novel where I didn’t have a bad guy die. This surprised me when I started to think about it. So I began to analyze what I think killing off someone does for a story. Here’s my quickie list.

1. Death means action and action means heart-pounding pages.

2. Death brings people together emotionally.

3. Ever heard of the need to feel alive after someone dies? This often leads to   uninhibited sex! These spur of the moment actions can lead to all kinds of interesting plot twists.

4. Killing off a character can be unexpected and keep the reader glued to the story.

5. Everyone wants the bad guys to fall and what writer doesn’t want to please their reader.

6. The planning of a death can lead to a powerful revenge plot.

This may sound like I kill off all the bad guys without remorse, but it just is not so. Now I’m a fair minded girl so when do I let my bad boys live? I’ll get back to you next week with the answer.

Until then – Happy New Year!