For the most part, I absolutely love my characters...even the evil ones. Actually, there are times when I find myself liking them more than my main characters given that they usually produce the least amount of trouble. I know this probably sounds weird and that is the main reason why I am saying it. To the outside reader, these people may at first seem only evil but I know why they became the way they are, what they are willing and unwilling to do, the nature of their moral fiber. This bizarre twist in my pshyche aside, I have had so many problems with two of my characters for the past few months and I finally made an executive decision.
I have decided that these two problematic charcters have beendiscontinued. This may sound harsh or perhaps it might even sound like I am giving up. For those of you out there who are writers, the "crazy" people as we are often referred to, I hope that this post may help you. I want you to understand that yes this is harsh and yes, in a way I did kind of give up. Just to add a little clarity to this situation, there are currently 45 characters that exist in my world. Not all of them are active or alive but they are somewhat pertinent to the story. For this reason I don't feel like I am giving up by discontinuing two characters from my story. Now that I am working on the second book it stands to reason that if someone hasn't found their place they may not fit. This is something that I wish I would've discovered earlier into my writing process but what I have discovered with this series is that I am learning along the way. If I had read something like this somewhere else I don't know if I would've listened so I'm certainly not going to say that others out there should listen to me. My hope is that by documenting this I will remember this lesson and remember that I am still learning. If in fact this has helped you, well, that is just the cherry on top.
xoxo
K.K.