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Joined: 10/20/2011
Posts: 350
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I'm fast approaching the end of my first draft of "The Wedding Game." And I recently came to the conclusion that one of my characters needs to go. I had created her to be a major character, vital to the plot, but it just hasn't happened.
Anyone else experience this? And did you feel as bad as I do despite the fact that she's not real?
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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Getting rid of extraneous characters is just another part of the editing and revising process. Yes, they are our little darlings and, as their creators, we can be very attached to them. But if your character simply isn't working in your story, then she needs to go. Of course, you can always save her information in a character file and maybe find a home for her in another story.
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Joined: 10/20/2011
Posts: 350
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I have all my character files on my computer. And I hope I cand find a home for her elsewhere. She was my more outspoken, blunt character.
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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Then she'll probably TELL you the story she needs/wants to star in. 
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Joined: 10/20/2011
Posts: 350
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You're probably right. I just have to be patient. And she'll probably be better as a heroine rather than a sidekick.
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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I dumped 3 characters that weren't working out for my current WIP. Like Angela said, if they aren't working out, just cut them out and save them for later.
Or you could just do what Mark Twain did, and make characters you don't need go get a drink of water only to fall in the well.
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Joined: 10/20/2011
Posts: 350
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Oh, Mark Twain. May have to use that, though. At least right now. I've already stopped writing her in the story. So if anyone who has read the story here on Book Country wonders what happened to her, that's my story.
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LOL LeeAnna
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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That's what happens when you have a Mark Twain scholar as one of your professors in college. The kicker is, it was for my humor class.
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Joined: 10/20/2011
Posts: 350
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Makes sense. Mark Twain was a master of humor. They give a humorist award in his name every year.
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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I know. The sad thing is, very little female humorists are awarded.
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Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
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Odd. I don't think I've ever removed a character. Of course, I don't add a character until I need them for something, so that may be an artifact of my process rather than anything else.
I have, now and again, merged two characters into one when I realize that there's no reason to have two, but... again that's pretty rare.
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Joined: 2/27/2011
Posts: 353
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Hi Alexandria -
I imagine that spending so much time with a character you've worked so hard to flesh out and make real makes that character really come to life for you. I can completely understand why it feels painful to cut that character loose.
What you can do, perhaps, is use the character in another piece of fiction, so all that hard work hasn't gone to waste. Published writers do this all the time!
Good luck!
Colleen
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Joined: 10/20/2011
Posts: 350
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Thank you, Colleen.
I do think she may get her own book. I have a few ideas that may work. But first I want to get the one I've cut her from finished and ready for the revision process! Hope she can wait.
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Joined: 10/20/2011
Posts: 350
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Well, turns out I don't have to get rid of Natalie completely. She may not be the prominent character I thought she'd be, but she's still making an appearance in the last chapter of "The Wedding Game."
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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I haven't ever had to lose a character. I tend to have the opposite situation occur, where a character I never intended to be important keeps hanging around. In The Last Tragedy (the book I have excerpted here on BC), I introduced a character in an early scene who was intended to be a minor foil in the first few chapters of the book, before the heroes come into contact with the main villains of the story. Not only did he end up hanging around through the entire novel, but he plays a critical role in the first sequel as well.
I guess this reflects the fact that when I enjoy writing a character, I'm willing to readjust my plot as necessary to accommodate the character's inclusion.
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Joined: 10/20/2011
Posts: 350
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Herb, that's usually the scenario I encounter! For example, in "Through the Mists," the character of Ashlynn was meant to be the first in a long line of nameless women trying to "comfort" the new king. But she refused to be so, created a backstory and eventually demanded a name.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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Yeah, my minor characters keep asking me to write books about them too. I was stuck in one of those for a year or so until I recently decided to try something else.
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Joined: 10/20/2011
Posts: 350
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Ahh. A plot for Natalie, the character I've pretty much cut, has emerged. But I've told her not yet as I'm still trying to end her cousin's story first.
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Joined: 5/28/2012
Posts: 43
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This can be especially challenging if you want to write a multi-volume series. I had a couple of minor characters in the first manuscript who don't do much except tag along for the ride. I had wanted to explore their backstories in that volume, but it would've made the book about 200,000 words, which of course is WAY too long.
So, I compromised. I didn't get rid of them entirely, and in the current manuscript I'm working on (my second), we learn a lot more about them. (Because they are traveling along with the heroes, and need to end up in the same place as the heroes, I can't just drop them.)
I think I'm more like Robert, though. I don't introduce characters until I need them. I generally plan out pretty well what's going to happen, in advance. I don't keep files on characters, but I do at least give them names and ethnic groups and occupations. That doesn't mean there aren't some surprises. Sometimes characters I intended to be minor end up getting a lot of page time. Sometimes their personalities are NOT what I expected. One of mine, in particular, has turned out to be stern and overprotective. Her sister has turned out to be quite "girly." (This is good, in that they had somewhat similar roles for awhile, and the personalities have served to distinguish them from one another.)
I did have to eliminate numerous characters from my synopsis. But I imagine a lot of people have been down that road.
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Joined: 6/14/2012
Posts: 194
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Oh, the characters intended as minor who suddenly turn out to be...otherwise. I'm not sure this is so bad in multi-volume works, because it gives readers something really new in the various volumes. I had no idea, when Esmay Suiza took over as the senior surviving officer after a mutiny (scared little Lieutenant Junior Grade as she was) that she would need not just a book but a major role in the next four books. But an already-major character insisted on knowing more about her--how did a tech-track officer do what she did, and why had she been hiding that talent? And then...and then...and then...which all connected beautifully with everything else.
Very large, long, and multiple books in the same universe create characters just because...it's like dust bunnies under the couch. The cocky, energetic, annoying little kid in one book (who exists to play off the character's former experience as an older sister and remind her of the family she's been away from for years) shows up appropriately (given his family) in another...and then another....getting older and maturing into someone with even more plot function. (Who is going to be chosen by a young prince as a companion in mischief but a kid who has been in mischief since...way back in that other book? He's not going to pick the timid one or the goody-goody--he's going to ask this one, because this one won't tattle and is up for anything. Climb around on the palace roofs at sunrise? Of course.) Did I know that to start? No.
Writing stuff with a lot of adventure in it makes it easy to get rid of characters without having to go back to the start to peel them out of every chapter...too bad, so sad, but you were just speared/shot/blown up/ infected by a mutated virus with 100% mortality rate. Somebody had to die in this fight/war/volcanic eruption/epidemic, and it happened to be you...the character I had no further use for. Everyone cried and sent flowers (except your enemies, who didn't.)
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I had a character that I really didn't need, but I was able to get rid of him while I was still in the planning stage. Not only had he died before the events of the story, but he hadn't had much of a connection to the characters and was only there to get the plot going. Someone else with more importance could have filled the role just as easily, so I put him there instead.
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Joined: 12/12/2013
Posts: 15
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I was having trouble figuring out where to go with my novel because things had gotten scattered and I hadn't really committed myself to any of my plotlines...part of the problem was characters that weren't working. 250 pages in I decided to rework what I had into something more functional, and that included getting rid of some characters and consolidating their functions into other characters.
Now I'm pretty far along in the rewrite -- I've gotten much, much further than the original, but yeah, I'm realizing that some of my characters still might not work out. I don't think I'm going to take them out all together because they served a function for a certain duration -- it just may be that sticking around for the ending of the story may not be in the cards for them. Luckily for me, there's a lot of threat and danger involved in my novel, so it may be that they bail or get killed. Not sure yet. I'm still hoping that maybe I'll figure out how to make them more integral again. We'll see.
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Joined: 2/27/2011
Posts: 25
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In the early drafts of BETWEEN I had a character named Brisbo. I loved him. And when I realized the final shape of the book and that there was no place for him in the world I was building, I was very sad. I even felt guilty - it was like I'd killed somebody. But he had to go! That's the only time I've had to strip out a major character. Minor characters, now - those I get rid of fairly often. They just aren't working, or I realize the cast has gotten unwieldy and one character can do the work of two. Combining two characters into one is something that happens fairly often for me.
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Joined: 12/12/2013
Posts: 15
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Funny that you mention guilt, Kerry. I felt kind of sheepish when first considering consolidating the functions of some of my characters in order to eliminate the dead weight from my first draft. This time around I've come far enough with them that I feel guilt in contemplating how I'm going to get rid of them within the current framework of the rewrite if I cannot figure out a way to pull their parts together...not so much like I'm killing them but like I am failing them. Or perhaps failing some facet of my "vision." Writing is very strange at times.
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