Do you have it in your heart?

It’s May and, for me, that means TV time. All the best shows pull out all the stops to come up with spectacular season finales, which usually results in lots and lots of death. SPOILER ALERT FOR LOST AND PRIVATE PRACTICE!!!!! Some deaths are sad. (Dell on Private Practice comes to mind.) Others are downright poetic. (Sun and Jin’s parting hands as they pass over to the “other side” on Lost.)


The one thing these two completely different shows have in common, both shows left the children of these characters orphans. After watching PP I IM my nephew, a budding writer, saying the following: “I don’t know if I have it in my heart to do that to my characters.” To which he replied: “I do! And I have.”

This got me thinking back to one of my earlier WIPs. It was coming along beautifully. The writing was some of my best work. I had the beginning, was working through the middle, then I was ultimately faced with the end. I knew what had to happen. One of my characters had to die. But how do you kill off someone that you invested so much in? I loved this character. I watched her suffer, grow, find love but…in order to tell the story I wanted to tell…she needed to die.

I just didn’t have it in me to kill her off.

That’s when I hit the wall. I tried to write around it. Thought of numerous ways she could live and have it still make a similar impact. My head knows what needs to be done but my heart breaks every time I even think about it. (I have no problem offing the ones that deserve it? lol)

So how do you pull the trigger? Do you feel any guilt or are you like my nephew and start shooting away and see who’s still alive when the dust clears? Could you leave poor little Ji Yeon an orphan and not even lose a nights sleep?

Am I the only one that has this problem? Am I just a big softy who needs to develop a harder edge when it comes to the characters I love?

Kristian