As an author of fiction, it’s often necessary to kill. I can do it with just a few taps on my laptop keyboard. While literary killing is simple from a tactical standpoint, sometimes it’s just as painful for the writer as it is for the character who’s getting offed. I’ve had to destroy characters I love and whom I know some of my readers love. Committing murder can be a real bitch.
It can also be a ton of fun and highly cathartic. We writers have the sadistic and twisted tendency to occasionally base a character – however minor – on someone in real life who pissed us off enough to get shot, stabbed, run over or beaten to death on the printed page. And the best part is, we always get away with it.
Here are just a few reasons (there are plenty more) why one day I might just have to kill you in a book:
You make me miss a light because you were texting in your car. I’m stopped at a red light, three or four cars back, certain to make it through the next green light. However, you’re in one of the cars in front of me – too busy texting your friend about how much you hate traffic, and you fail to realize it’s time to accelerate. By the time you do, the light has rapidly moved to yellow and then to red, as has my complexion. Rather than honk you to death, I decide to make your demise more painful and public by literally (albeit literarily) eviscerating you in some future chapter.
You don’t bother to hold the door open for me in an obvious hold-the-door-open situation. I’m walking mere steps behind you heading into the gym, but you feel that the minor physical effort required to keep the door ajar for a stranger might ever so slightly hinder your performance in your Pilates class. Thus, you scoot through and allow the door to shut in my face, thereby sealing your fate. Maybe if you had known I was a writer – one with anger management issues to boot – you would have displayed some common courtesy and, as a result, would not now be staring certain fictional death in the face.
Every time you see me, you tell me you want to buy my book… but never do. The first rule of not buying my book is don’t talk about buying my book. I get it, deep down (or maybe even straight up) you don’t like me and/or my writing, or you don’t have time to or know how to read. Fine. Then just do us a both a favor and don’t even mention my novel. I won’t be the slightest bit irked or offended. If you don’t actually look forward to reading what I’ve written, just shhhhhh. Or die in my next book.
You break my daughter’s heart. It’s really such a shame – the boy who recently and callously broke up with my 14 year-old daughter had his whole life ahead of him. And he’ll probably die twice, as my daughter is quite the budding writer herself.
You bring 20 items to the “10 items or less” lane. This is an act that, while rather common and seemingly innocuous, cannot continue to go unpunished. Before we know it, express lane grocery clerks will start to turn a blind eye to 30 items and then to 40 items, at which point society as we know it will inevitably crumble. I’ll let you go as far as 15 items, but after that, you greatly increase your risk of dying in a sudden explosion I force into one of my plots.
The grammar and punctuation featured in your Facebook posts are atrocious. And since you post far too often, you’re constantly burning a hole into my retinas and my soul with your improper use of “its” and it’s” and “your” and you’re” and “their,” “there” and “they’re” – not to mention your total disregard for commas and periods. Sure, I could just de-friend you, but it’s much more satisfying to make you suffer an untimely demise at the hands of one of my more sinister characters.
You’re my neighbor and do nothing to stop your dog’s incessant barking. Your canine hates you for keeping him chained to a tree all day and night. Luckily for you, your dog doesn’t have the ability to write. Unluckily for you, I do – and I have every intention of creating a world in which your dog – now rabid from a raccoon bite – goes Cujo on your ass. In this world I create, your neighbors all come running to your backyard… not to rescue you, rather to stand behind the fence and cheer on the mad dog.
Please note the above blurbs are not just idle threats of fictional killing. I’m currently working on a dystopian novel (set slightly in the future) about a man who works for a secret US agency in charge of population control, and whose job is to help “thin the herd” on a daily basis. He’s constantly on the lookout for common citizens behaving badly. And thus so am I. (Insert sound of maniacal author laughter here.)
It can also be a ton of fun and highly cathartic. We writers have the sadistic and twisted tendency to occasionally base a character – however minor – on someone in real life who pissed us off enough to get shot, stabbed, run over or beaten to death on the printed page. And the best part is, we always get away with it.
Here are just a few reasons (there are plenty more) why one day I might just have to kill you in a book:
You make me miss a light because you were texting in your car. I’m stopped at a red light, three or four cars back, certain to make it through the next green light. However, you’re in one of the cars in front of me – too busy texting your friend about how much you hate traffic, and you fail to realize it’s time to accelerate. By the time you do, the light has rapidly moved to yellow and then to red, as has my complexion. Rather than honk you to death, I decide to make your demise more painful and public by literally (albeit literarily) eviscerating you in some future chapter.
You don’t bother to hold the door open for me in an obvious hold-the-door-open situation. I’m walking mere steps behind you heading into the gym, but you feel that the minor physical effort required to keep the door ajar for a stranger might ever so slightly hinder your performance in your Pilates class. Thus, you scoot through and allow the door to shut in my face, thereby sealing your fate. Maybe if you had known I was a writer – one with anger management issues to boot – you would have displayed some common courtesy and, as a result, would not now be staring certain fictional death in the face.
Every time you see me, you tell me you want to buy my book… but never do. The first rule of not buying my book is don’t talk about buying my book. I get it, deep down (or maybe even straight up) you don’t like me and/or my writing, or you don’t have time to or know how to read. Fine. Then just do us a both a favor and don’t even mention my novel. I won’t be the slightest bit irked or offended. If you don’t actually look forward to reading what I’ve written, just shhhhhh. Or die in my next book.
You break my daughter’s heart. It’s really such a shame – the boy who recently and callously broke up with my 14 year-old daughter had his whole life ahead of him. And he’ll probably die twice, as my daughter is quite the budding writer herself.
You bring 20 items to the “10 items or less” lane. This is an act that, while rather common and seemingly innocuous, cannot continue to go unpunished. Before we know it, express lane grocery clerks will start to turn a blind eye to 30 items and then to 40 items, at which point society as we know it will inevitably crumble. I’ll let you go as far as 15 items, but after that, you greatly increase your risk of dying in a sudden explosion I force into one of my plots.
The grammar and punctuation featured in your Facebook posts are atrocious. And since you post far too often, you’re constantly burning a hole into my retinas and my soul with your improper use of “its” and it’s” and “your” and you’re” and “their,” “there” and “they’re” – not to mention your total disregard for commas and periods. Sure, I could just de-friend you, but it’s much more satisfying to make you suffer an untimely demise at the hands of one of my more sinister characters.
You’re my neighbor and do nothing to stop your dog’s incessant barking. Your canine hates you for keeping him chained to a tree all day and night. Luckily for you, your dog doesn’t have the ability to write. Unluckily for you, I do – and I have every intention of creating a world in which your dog – now rabid from a raccoon bite – goes Cujo on your ass. In this world I create, your neighbors all come running to your backyard… not to rescue you, rather to stand behind the fence and cheer on the mad dog.
Please note the above blurbs are not just idle threats of fictional killing. I’m currently working on a dystopian novel (set slightly in the future) about a man who works for a secret US agency in charge of population control, and whose job is to help “thin the herd” on a daily basis. He’s constantly on the lookout for common citizens behaving badly. And thus so am I. (Insert sound of maniacal author laughter here.)
