Poor Characters

I am writing a novel called Ripple and it is a tribute to the famous The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. This story means a lot to me and I am getting quite attached to my characters. The problem with this is that I just had to kill someone off... and I still feel extremely guilty. I haven't killed them yet, because I feel as though that is cruel. But I know that he has to die to make the story flow as smoothly as it can. Still, he was a great character.

This was not an easy thing to do, you know. I had to strategically plan every event and every word to properly describe the event which takes place. And I found that that is hard to do when you become emotionally attached to a character. It is very hard to kill someone, I am beginning to realize.

You end up investing all this time into them and their story and then all of a sudden, they are dead in their kitchen! The kitchen that YOU yourself created! It just seems all so barbaric. Why did he have to die? Really, was it entirely necessary?

And being so attached is a little silly too! He isn't even real and I feel this horrible weight that I have done something utterly terrible to someone. I haven't even killed him yet, he is in the process of dying. J.K Rowling said it was difficult to kill Sirius and now I am finding the same problem with my own character. I didn't really believe her. Now I certainly do.

So word to the wise... If you are going to write a book and kill someone, do not get too attached. It can be devastatingly heartbreaking.