Summary: Or, “I Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed and Someone is Going to Die.” This week on Hide and Create, Debbie Viguie (who coined that title), Joshua Essoe, Jordan Ellinger, and Michael J. Sullivan talk about killing characters. I love killing characters. I just love the moving, exquisite pain of it. I really like to feel those deaths, and I want to make readers feel those deaths too, and in that shared emotional reaction we grow virtually closer to each other. Like a big cuddle pile of sad puppies. There’s something very moving about a hero giving his life for his companions, of taking up his sword and shield, and turning and facing impossible odds knowing that he’ll never make it out alive, but content that in so doing he gives those he cares about a chance to continue on. That, of course, is just one of many, many ways to kill off a character; by no means is it the best or the only. During this episode we talk about reasons to kill your characters and reasons why you should not. We talk about how to do it well and ways we’ve seen it done poorly. Also, beware of a few spoilers along the way.
