J.M. Robison's Blog, page 4

Challenges I’ve Had To Overcome While Writing

My biggest challenge is falling too much in love with my story and characters. I pour so much passion into my writing that a deep, subconscious belief convinces me that what I write actually exists somewhere in the massive universe and I’ve been chosen to author its history and the victory of its heroes. Why is falling too deep in love a challenge? Because I call family members by character names, I day dream when I should be focused on the job that pays my bills. I have this thunder in my chest from the exciting scene I’m about to write and It’s certain to raise my blood pressure to an unhealthy level. A challenge? Yes. But I love it.

Christianity and Literary Swearing

I’m Christian. I’ll even go so far as to say I’m LDS so I abstain from smoking, alcohol, premarital sex, and swearing. I also have a super guilty conscience, which helps drives my day-to-day while staying in line with my beliefs.I’m an author. I write characters who smoke, drink, engage in premarital sex, and swear. And I don’t have a guilty conscience when writing about it.Some may believe, “Well, since you ‘can’t’ do those things in real life, you can still ‘enjoy’ it in your writing. THAT’S why you do it. You’re a closet drinker in your writing.”Maybe in another life, but that’s not why I write about those things. I’ll tell you why: not swearing is not realistic. And in all things, writing must be realistic.I grew up in a religious house. We watched clean shows and listened to clean music. In watching a clean cartoon (Actually, it was G-Gundam) the good guy and the bad guy were facing off. Bad guy had killed good guy’s father.) “You dirty piece of filth!” Good Guy screams.Dirty. Piece. Of. Filth. Dude… this guy JUST killed your father. If someone had murdered my father in front of me, I’d turn into a psychotic banshee where’d I’d be screaming so loud I wouldn’t be able to even form swear words.I must have been 15 years old or so when I watched this, and – again – having grown up in a religious home, I still had a corner of my mind where I went, “Huh? I feel much stronger words should be used there.” But I still knew swearing was bad, yet I thought swearing was needed in that scene, so……I grew up, moved out, and began writing stories. At first I wrote my characters as not swearing and I was proud of the fact that my characters were good and clean. But then I frowned when character A chopped off character B’s head. That’s not clean – or Christian behavior – so why was I opposed to swearing, and not chopping off heads? For that matter, I was writing a fantasy, a made-up world, so Christianity didn’t exist in it. So what driving force was keeping my characters’ swearing in check?It took me a few years to figure out where I stood between my faith and my writing to come to this conclusion:1) Swearing is real life. I’ve seen it in the military, as a deputy sheriff, and everywhere else I associate with other humans. It’s not real life to say, “you dirty piece of filth,” because passion drives swearing, and if your father were murdered in front of you, I’m certain you’d be more passionate than that.2)  If you've read the bible, the only commandment I found that talks about swearing is “taking the Lord’s name in vain.” The other swear words are just words. Fuck. Shit. Cunt. Those are all words we made up and couldn’t even tell one another why or how they originated. They’re just words we’ve fueled with passion to make our points come across. “Thou shalt not take the lord’s name in vain.” Sounds pretty vague, but my faith feelers tell me that “Oh my G*d” is taking the Lord’s name in vain so you will never ever ever see that expression – or similar ones – in my writing. I can deal with that. Because I have a whole bunch of other made-up words I can use in its place.3)  What I write about is not what I do in real life. Writing is therapeutic in the sense that we can bleed out our aggressive emotions on paper so we don’t have those feelings anymore to compel us to actually act on what we wrote out. Is God going to judge me for what I write on paper and NOT carry out? My faith tells me I’m to be judged for the actions I DO, not think or write. If I thought about killing a real person in my life, sure, I’m to be judged for that. Am I to be judged for writing about killing a character who doesn’t even exist?My religious family and friends might believe I swear because my characters do, but then they should also believe I drown people, cut off their heads, and burn them alive.Of course I do those things.Remember, I have a guilty conscience and I DO want to follow in the guidelines my religion set for me. So if you are like me, yet struggle on how to incorporate worldly vices into your stories, I hope this post helped give you some direction.

How To Write A Swearing Character -- And Why You Should -- When You’re a Christian with a Guilty Conscience.

I’m Christian. I’ll even go so far as to say I’m LDS so I abstain from smoking, alcohol, premarital sex, and swearing. I also have a super guilty conscience, which helps drives my day-to-day while staying in line with my beliefs.I’m an author. I write characters who smoke, drink, engage in premarital sex, and swear. And I don’t have a guilty conscience when writing about it.Some may believe, “Well, since you ‘can’t’ do those things in real life, you can still ‘enjoy’ it in your writing. THAT’S why you do it. You’re a closet drinker in your writing.”Maybe in another life, but that’s not why I write about those things. I’ll tell you why: not swearing is not realistic. And in all things, writing must be realistic.I grew up in a religious house. We watched clean shows and listened to clean music. In watching a clean cartoon (Actually, it was G-Gundam) the good guy and the bad guy were facing off. Bad guy had killed good guy’s father.) “You dirty piece of filth!” Good Guy screams.Dirty. Piece. Of. Filth. Dude… this guy JUST killed your father. If someone had murdered my father in front of me, I’d turn into a psychotic banshee where’d I’d be screaming so loud I wouldn’t be able to even form swear words.I must have been 15 years old or so when I watched this, and – again – having grown up in a religious home, I still had a corner of my mind where I went, “Huh? I feel much stronger words should be used there.” But I still knew swearing was bad, yet I thought swearing was needed in that scene, so……I grew up, moved out, and began writing stories. At first I wrote my characters as not swearing and I was proud of the fact that my characters were good and clean. But then I frowned when character A chopped off character B’s head. That’s not clean – or Christian behavior – so why was I opposed to swearing, and not chopping off heads? For that matter, I was writing a fantasy, a made-up world, so Christianity didn’t exist in it. So what driving force was keeping my characters’ swearing in check?It took me a few years to figure out where I stood between my faith and my writing to come to this conclusion:1) Swearing is real life. I’ve seen it in the military, as a deputy sheriff, and everywhere else I associate with other humans. It’s not real life to say, “you dirty piece of filth,” because passion drives swearing, and if your father were murdered in front of you, I’m certain you’d be more passionate than that.2)  If you read the bible – as Christians usually do – the only commandment I found that talks about swearing is “taking the Lord’s name in vain.” The other swear words are just words. Fuck. Shit. Cunt. Those are all words we made up and couldn’t even tell one another why or how they originated. They’re just words we’ve fueled with passion to make our points come across. “Thou shalt not take the lord’s name in vain.” Sounds pretty vague, but my faith feelers tell me that “Oh my G*d” is taking the Lord’s name in vain so you will never ever ever see that expression – or similar ones – in my writing. I can deal with that. Because I have a whole bunch of other made-up words I can use in its place.3)  What I write about is not what I do in real life. Writing is therapeutic in the sense that we can bleed out our aggressive emotions on paper so we don’t have those feelings anymore to compel us to actually act on what we wrote out. Is God going to judge me for what I write on paper and NOT carry out? I don’t think so. My faith tells me I’m to be judged for the actions I DO, not think or write. If I thought about shooting a real person in my life, sure, I’m to be judged for that. Am I to be judged for writing about shooting a character who doesn’t even exist? Come on…My religious family and friends might believe I swear because my characters do, but then they should also believe I tie people’s hands and wrists together and throw them in rivers, that I shoot people in the leg, tie people to a chair and nearly bludgeon them to death.Of course I do those things.Remember, I have a guilty conscience and I DO want to follow in the guidelines my religion set for me. So if you are like me, yet struggle on how to incorporate worldly vices into your stories, I hope this post helped give you some direction.

Why E-book Fantasy Writers Should Include Maps

I’m an avid reader of fantasy books. I’m also an avid writer of fantasy books. And, what the heck, I’m also an avid enthusiast about maps in fantasy books. I own a lot of the Dragonlance books. I even have a map of Skyrim hanging in my hallway and a map of Maui right above my computer.WHY YOU SHOULD INCLUDE A MAP IN YOUR FANTASY BOOKThe answer is very obvious. You want a map to, literally provide direction for your readers who have taken a chance on you and picked up your book to read it. You don’t need a map of America if you write contemporary, because, thank goodness to our schools, we were taught where California and New York is. And, if for some weird reason you’ve never opened a book, turned on the TV, or stepped outside in your life, you can GOOGLE those locations. I know. I’ve done it. You get hundreds of different maps for America.Let’s say I wrote a book and titled it The War Queen. It’s a fantasy book set in my own made-up world called Endendre. Now Altarn is the Lady of Blindvar, who faces opposition from Kaelin who is the Lord of Ruidenthall. Separating these two states is Luthsinia. Altarn travels out of Niesh toward Athenya, stopping along the way at Yott and Gaynord where she eventually ends up on Greatmar.Are you wishing you had a map of Endendre yet? Did you just try googling it? Didn’t find it? Here it is:Pretty fancy. Where did I get this map? I drew it. And because my sister is a professional artist on her way to stardom, I gave the outline to her and she dressed it up to be what you see here.BUT JM! I DON’T HAVE AN ARTISTIC SISTER ON HER WAY TO STARDOM!That’s fine. Here’s another map I drew by hand for another yet-to-be-published fantasy book of mine:Of course when this book is published, I’ll throw it at my sister to dress it up professional like. Oh. Right. You don’t have my sister. But, you DO have programs online, you have illustrators all over the internet who would love love love your business (but JM! That will cost money!) So stop buying coffee at Starbucks every morning, eat beef ramen for dinner instead of sushi, bike to work instead of drive.The point is, life costs money. Manage your money into the areas you feel are most important. Paying someone to illustrate your map can be cheap. You might find a good freelancer on Fiverr.com to do it for you. Or, again, you can throw it into a program – even word paint – and do it yourself.Let’s get back to why you should have a map included in your book. It’s for direction. Can you imagine reading Lord of the Rings without having the guidance of a map? Or any of the Dragonlance Chronicles? How about The Wheel of Time?Reading should be an enjoyment for your readers. Help them read easy by giving them a visual to follow along.DON’T HAVE THE AMBITION TO CREATE A MAP?Maps are fun to make. Creating a map brings your story to life and you start to believe you have created a real place that exists somewhere. It’s PART of your story, and you can do SO much more with your map aside from having it in your book. What do I mean by that? You can use it as a background on your book’s webpage. It might even look as awesome as this.Or go one step further and create yourself a store on zazzle.com and turn your map into a poster to hang in your hallway next to Skyrim:A mouse pad:A bumper sticker:And then you can use this map as a fun free giveaway for your book. Basically, you’re not creating a map. You’re creating a massive promotion for your book that will hook readers to want to come back for more.I’d LOVE to see your maps. I invite you to post a picture of it directly onto my facebook author page.

Every Person Will Read the Same Book Differently. Let Them.

We’ve all done it. Read a book so amazing our lives are irrevocably changed thereafter. Because we want to impress this amazing discovery on others, we tell family and friends, “You HAVE to read this book.”I spoke with a man who said, “Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss was the most amazing book he’s ever read. So amazing, he said, that he bought 2 copies of the book to give to a family member and friend so they could read it. Wanting this book to amaze me too, I read it.I didn’t like it.The main character destroyed every nice thing that happened to him. Chapters would revolve around a single event – with a lot of detail put into it – but once the event was over, the story moved on without ever bringing up that event ever again. This event never changed characters. Never indented the plot. Those chapters could have been deleted and the book would have read the exact same.So why did this book change the life of this man, but I donated my copy to my local library?It comes down to our own life experiences. I will never read LGBT because my family taught me this is wrong, but someone else might love LGBT because they might be transgender. I will never read books where jailers fall in love with inmates because I’m a Deputy Sheriff and I work in a jail. That goes against my moral code as a jailer. So I will never read, write, or support that kind of book.But it’s less obvious than that. Depending on if you grew up poor, rich, traveled the world, never left your hometown, talked to people or holed yourself up in a cave, things will have a different impression upon you. “Where one man tears the word out of his gut, another will pull it out of his coat pocket.” – Wish I could give attribution to this quote but I cannot find who said it.A beta reader of mine read The Last Wizard. When he was done, he gave me sparkling feedback on it. “…and I LOVED XYZ,” he said. “It was absolutely amazing.”I smiled politely and thank him. After he left, I thought to myself, “XYZ wasn’t in the book.”Hmm. Weird. How can my beta reader read something in my book that I never wrote? It’s because his life experiences make him feel words differently. While I’m fine with the word “moist” I knew people who think of sexual connotations associated with that word. I might read the sentence, “the moist cake melted in my mouth” and crave cake. Another person might read the sentence, “the moist cake melted in my mouth,” and get grossed out because their life experiences have taught them that that word has sexual connotations.You can’t make people feel anything. People will feel what they feel. So while my adrenaline is pumping as I write out a scene, a reader might tell me, “eh. It was alright.”Just because you feel something does not mean someone will like it the same. They might like it more, or less. That’s not up to you. All you can do is write the story that’s in your heart and let your readers dictate how those words make them feel.

Træ Sko

5,900 words. Written with this prompt: A happy horror story with a wooden shoe. Plot being a fight between two people for one open job position. I chew the back of the pen. A bad habit, I'm aware, because this pen is used by everyone and I know at least one other person in this department shares my habit. With the same pen. I feel remarkably detached from the possibility that I might catch something, and it has nothing to do with the reassurance that I've had my flu shot this year.Andre Fearonce walks into my office. He leans against the doorframe and sips on his coffee loud enough I hear it burble over his tongue. I breath in. Out. In. Chew on the back of my pen."How go the reports?" he asks.I hunch my shoulders to stifle the wave of cringes popping up and down my back. "Fine." Single word responses are best. Any more than that and too many words will link together to form phrases that will make his French ancestors spring to life just to wave the white flag of retreat.“Need some help? I’ve already turned mine in.”It’s not Christian to hate Andre just because we’re both up for manager position that holds only one of us. Phillip pitting us together for the “may the best man win” battle royal, and my only weapons are office politics and breakroom bravado. Thrown in a Gladiator ring against Andre with nothing but my boxer shorts and sword would have been easier. More manly too, with my wife watching on and ogling at my naked arms that haven’t seen the gym in two years. What happened to those days where your worth was proven by the strength of your arm and not by the inner office dramatics of whose turn it was to brew the coffee?“I’ve got it. Thanks.” Too many words together.My brusque responses where I didn’t turn around once clearly alerted Andre that I didn’t want to talk to him. He leaves without another word. He’s smart, Andre. But he stands in my way for an extra thirty thousand  a year. I wish Andre showed hostility toward me. I can deal with open hostility far easier than silent plotting.I wrap up my report and dump it in Phillip’s box on my way out of the office.Andre has me riled, though his greatest offense was stand in the doorway with his atrocious coffee imported from France. The man’s never been to Europe. His ancestors came to America two hundred years ago yet he seems to still have some affiliation with France despite he doesn’t even speak the language.Enough about Andre. No need to bring him home with me.My heavy diesel chucks to life. I’m determined to leave work at work. I need to change my focus. My wife. Her smile always brightens my day. I need that right now.I pull into Aromatics & Antiques. The truck shudders as I kill the engine. I jam the keys in my pocket and walk inside under the dingle of a bell. Ancient relics from other parts of the known world vie for attention to my left and right. It smells of wood and ancient things. Amber’s big into collecting such things not relevant to America. The further away and deeper underground it was found, the better.Nobody else is in the store. Not even the store owner, apparently, as he is not at his counter.I’ve no idea what to look for. I’ve come in with Amber who’s browsed the shelves as if looking for something specific, though ends up walking out with an African flute or an arrow head claimed to have come from the Middle Ages. If she has a method to what she buys, I can’t see it.The floor creaks and I turn to see the store manager coming out of his office on crutches. He’s missing his right foot. Has he always been missing his right foot? He’s always been sitting down when me and Amber have come it.He hurries up his pace to get behind his counter.“He-hello.” He smiles. Sweat beads on his forehead. “Can I help you find something?”“I don’t know. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Just a surprise for my wife.”“Oh, she’ll love this.” He grabs a wooden shoe and sets it on the glass table top with a concerning thwack. “From Denmark. Got it three days ago.”“Just the one? Don’t shoes come in two’s?”“Just the one. It’s a very old shoe. Dug up when they were plowing a field, so they told me. Anyway, it’s a beauty, isn’t it?”“Sure.” I take it from him. It’s small, like for a child. Completely made of wood. Remnants of a blue paint cling in the dry cracks. I’m not sure what Amber will think of it as is, but she could re-paint it herself if she feels so inclined. Wanting to get home and relax before I battle with Andre tomorrow, I pull out my wallet. “How much?”The man releases a breath I didn’t realize he was holding. “Two-two dollars.”He seems a lot more jittery than I remember. But then I’ve never spoken to him before. Amber’s always been the one to exchange money with him. The owner thrusts my change at me. I take it and he grins wildly. “All sales are finale.”“K.” I scoop the shoe off the counter and walk out, certain his gaze follows me.I breathe easier back in my car. I’ll pick Amber up a rose next time. This store made me more nervous than walking into Victorian Secrets.I’ve forgotten about Andre by the time I pull into my drive, thinking of Amber’s bright smile when I hand her the wooden shoe, which she graciously rewards me with perfumed hug.“I’ll add this to my collection,” she says, and sets the shoe on the book case by the door and spins toward me. “I’ll get the lasagna in the oven.”“I’ll put something in your oven,” I say, not sure why, except Amber has a way of loosening me up no matter how much I’m irritated with… what was his name again?She slides her arms around me. “Before or after dinner?”O         O         OI wake up because I hear crying. I pull the covers over my head and blame the cat. The crying continues. And then the cat speaks. It’s coming from the living room.“Jeg leder, far, jeg søger.” It cries harder.It’s just the cat. It’s just the cat. It’s just the cat.My body temperature rises with my pulse, though I won’t stick my leg out of the blanket to cool down. The cat might grab it.“Jeg leder, far, jeg søger…” the voice has moved from the living room to my wife’s side of the bed.Honor as a man and husband, I dare a look out from under the blankets. It’s not the cat. It’s a transparent little boy missing both arms, staring at my wife. Crying. All thoughts of Gladiatoring from earlier shrink, and I cling to the top sheet in a white-knuckled grip, too frozen to even do the sign of the cross, all the while thinking, how the hell does Amber sleep through this?“JEG LEDER, FAR, JEG SØGER!” It shrieks. It vanishes.I don’t blink for a full minute, heart thudding. Amber snorts and rolls over, pulling my half of the blankets onto her side. I panic and yank them back. If that boy comes back, I want more than just my boxer shorts on.I lay awake the rest of the night, pee, shave, dress, and drink my coffee without ever thinking about the looming question: What the hell was that? I keep hoping I dreamed it, or imagined it, except I can’t place what language it was speaking. In all my twenty-seven years of living, I’ve never dreamed or imagined another language.I go to work like it’s a normal day in my normal truck, talk to normal people, and do my normal job.Like a ritual, Andre leans into the doorway of my office, the smell of his European coffee reminding me of the foreign language I heard the ghost boy speak.“Phillip looked at our reports,” he says, holding longer onto the s then needed.“Huh.” I chew on the end of my pen. Same pen from yesterday. It stinks.“There are some things I can show you, to keep your numbers organized. It makes a huge difference. I’m willing to show you, if you like.”“No thank you.” I hunch over my paperwork so Andre won’t see my disorganized columns and feel compelled to champion me to greatness with a method that apparently has been desired by Phillip, from the tone of his voice.I can’t stop hating Andre. The smell of his coffee, the shine of his shoes, his willingness to help me even though we are competing for the same position all combine into a single, unfounded force. It equals hating someone because they wear their watch on their right hand instead of their left. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s massively irritating.Andre takes his cue – another irritation, since he’s not giving me solid reason to hate him – and leaves. Willing to help me even though I constantly give him the cold shoulder and he knows it. Thoughts of standing in a Gladiator ring in my boxer shorts with Andre warms me again.Barbie Girl chims from my cell phone. I answer it. “Hello Amber.”“Bryant…” She’s sobbing. “Something’s wrong with my ankle.”“What happened?”“I don’t know… it hurts really bad.” She sniffles. “I felt it shortly after I got dressed. It feels like something is chewing on it. It looks like something’s chewing on it. I literally see teeth marks.”“Are you able to drive?”“Yes.”“Go to the doctor. I’ll meet you there.”“K. Love you.”“Love you too.”I hang up and rush to Phillip’s office. Andre is in there. Sharing his expensive European coffee with him. I have this anxious feeling to go back to Antiques & Aromatics and pick up some European trinket to give to Phillip just to rival with Andre, creepy shop owner or no.“Phillip?”“Yes, Bryant?” Phillip looks up. Andre makes an exaggerated swing of his body to face me.“I’m meeting my wife at the doctor’s office. I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”“Wife okay?”“Ya.”I make it to the doctor’s before Amber. She parks and steps out of the care, limping. I rush to her side. She’s still crying. I look at her ankle and blanch. Chewing is right. Looks like something took a chunk out of her skin.“It’s getting worse!” she wails.I scoop her into my arms and rush her inside, worried I should have told her to go to the ER.I explain to the receptionist what’s going on, the urgency amplified by my wife’s tears, and the doctor comes out within minutes.“Misses Whitestead?”I support Amber under my arm who leans heavily into me. I sit her down on the bed in the room.“What’s going on today?” the doctor asks.Amber shows him her ankle. It looks worse then it did in the parking lot. The doctor leans closer. As we all watch, the flesh on her ankle vanishes and a slightly deeper depression appears. Amber screams.“It feels like something is chewing on it!”You know you’re in trouble with the doctor panics. He slaps his clipboard on the counter and rips a box of gauze out of the drawer. He stuffs the cotton into the wound; Amber doesn’t flinch it must hurt so bad.“Lay her down,” he directs me.I do as commanded, spinning Amber around to lay her legs lengthwise across the bed. For good measure, I remove her shoes so there is no obstruction getting in the doctor’s way to making her feel better.Amber covers her eyes with an arm, whimpering. The doctor secures the gauze with tape, looking at me.“When did this start?”“She said just after she got dressed for the day.”“Has she been overseas recently?”Between the Danish wooden shoe and Andre, I’m about tired of hearing about anything outside America. “Never.”“Does she have any diseases that you know of?”“No.”“Any idea at all that can help me identify this?”“None.”“How you feeling?” Doc asks Amber. She’s stopped crying so hard now, and hasn’t screamed so I hope that’s a sign the Doc’s magic bandage worked.“I still hurt… but I don’t feel the chewing anymore. I think the bandage helped.”The doc picks up his clipboard again and makes notes. He hands me a slip of paper.“Prescription for anti-biotic and pain. I want to see her tomorrow. Come back sooner if it worsens.”I give the doctor a big roger and assist Amber with putting her shoes back on. No sooner had I done so then she screams again. I take the shoe off so the doctor can resume his magic unobstructed. Amber relaxes.“I felt it again. The chewing.”“You feel fine now?”“Yes…” She looks dangerously at her sandal in my hand. “I wonder if it’s my shoe?”“Worth an experiment at this point. Stand up.”Amber does so, putting tentative pressure on her right foot. “Nothing.”“Hand me the shoe,” he tells me.I do so. The doctor slaps on two pairs of gloves on each hand before taking it from me, like it’s a major biohazard that’s now all over my hand. I rush to the bottle of hand sanitizer on the counter, praying it’s 99.9% positive it will kill whatever funk was on my wife’s shoe that transferred to my hand.I turn around to find the doctor sealed the sandal in a bag labeled “biohazard”.“Where did you buy these sandals?” he asks.“Famous Footwear.”“When?”“…Four months ago?”He asks her a bunch of other shoe questions that I don’t see are relevant, since the simple act of wearing a shoe should not promote a chewing sensation on the ankle. In any case, Doc biohazards her other shoe as well. He shuts the patient room behind us at the conclusion of our visit. I pretend I don’t see him making the sign of the cross over him.“You okay?” I ask Amber.She’s teary-eyed, but more stable than when she arrived. “Yes.”“Do you want me to drive you home?”“No… I’ll be alright. Thanks. I love you.”“Love you.”I don’t leave the parking lot until she does. I watch her drive out of sight.I walk back into work. Andre still in Phillip’s office. Phillip laughs at something Andre told him. It’s infuriating brown-nosing is a sure shot to success, but I could never bring myself that low to try it. And because of that, Andre’s going to pass me by on that promotion. Because I prefer to secure my goals the right way.The scare with my wife, Andre, and my lack of sleep last night has me gnawing on my pen again until the hour hand slaps the five o’clock position. I scoop my cellphone off the desk and leave.Amber smiles when I walk in, though I’ve known her long enough it’s just a mask to cover up something else that’s bothering her.“You feeling okay?”“I picked up the medication. The pain pill is helping.” She looks mournfully at her bandaged ankle. She’s barefoot. Not even socks.I don’t understand it either. I’m glad she falls asleep before I do. Though I’m exhausted from lack of sleep last night, I want to catch the ghost boy if he returns, because I’m certain now that somehow he and my wife’s feet are all connected.I’ve got my cellphone in both hands, finger hovering over the Google Translate app I installed today.I fall asleep. I wake up instantly when I hear crying – a repeat of last night. Heart thudding, I wait.“Jeg leder, far, jeg søger.”Sweaty finger tips slap the app. It takes me 3 tries to finally get it pulled up on my screen. The microphone center of it pulses, waiting. Please be an exact repeat of last night.Google Translate is going to get bored and shut me out.“Jeg leder, far, jeg søger.” The armless boy appears on my wife’s side of the bed, crying.I tear my gaze off him and back to my phone to see Google Translate thinking about whether or not it’s a real language. English words spread across the screen. I hold my breath: I’m looking, father, I’m looking. Auto-detect says it’s Danish. Like the wooden shoe.“JEG LEDER, FAR, JEG SØGER!”Amber jerks and sits up, screaming as she backs away from the apparition on her side of the bed. The ghost vanishes.“Bryant! BRYANT!”I hold her. “It’s okay. It’s gone.”Her whole body shakes. “You saw it too?”“Yes.”“What was that?”“I don’t know.” I don’t tell her it was in here last night.She leaps across her side of the bed to the lamp on her bedside table, flicking the bulb on and blinding me.She’s shaking. “I want to sleep in the living room.”“But I’m right here. I don’t think he’s coming back.”“I’m scared. I don’t want to be in here anymore tonight.” She scoots to my side of the bed, crawls over me, to get to the door. She’s parked her slippers beside the door. Stuffing both feet in them, she flips the light on and shuffles out.Now that I’ve seen the boy once already, and know he won’t come back, I could sleep. But I’m the attentive husband, so I slide my legs out from under the sheets–Amber screams.I run for the door so hard I crash into the wall, spinning about awkwardly to get my damned body through it. I find her on the kitchen floor, clutching her leg with the bandaged ankle. Both slippers have been kicked off. I kneel next to her, noticing that a fresh chunk of her leg has disappeared about the ankle, a spot not covered by the bandage. Red muscle flexes beneath, blood dripping onto the linoleum.Is it the act of wearing shoes that makes this happen?Amber doesn’t protest when I take her to the ER. When admitted I tell them it was a dog bite. I ask if they can hold her so I can go home and take care of our rogue “dog”. They clean the fresh wound, shoot her up with pain pills and a muscle relaxer. She falls asleep.I drive home in a fury. I stomp into the living room and snatch the wooden shoe off its shelf. I get back in the car. Drive to the river with a gallon of gasoline.Headlights blare across the tree line. I park next to the campsite and dump the shoe in the cold fire pit. I haul the gasoline out of the trunk and set it down, patting my coat pocket for the lighter. I panic. The lighter must have fallen out. Maybe it’s between the seats. I’m in just the right mood to rub two sticks together to burn the haunted Danish shoe to damnation.I kneel on the seat and dive my hand between it and the center consol. Maybe it fell under. I get out to squat and look and feel a sharp pinching sensation on my right ankle. I leap back and shake my foot, thinking something crawled out of the forest. It’s dark and hard to see. The pinching sensation begins again, more intense, and I brace against the truck, shaking my foot and screaming but it continues. I limp to my headlights and pull my pant leg up. A thick chunk has been removed from flesh and muscle. Blood streaks down my white skin.Trusting my theory that shoes is what causes this, I kick both of them off and stand on the river bank barefoot, gritting my teeth, sweating with panic and pain.The ghost boy appears in front of me. He’s shrieking, in more of a panic than I am. “Jeg har næsten fået skoen, far.”My phone in my pocket makes the tell-tale beep as Google Translate, still working in the background, catches the phrase. I yank it out and stare at the screen. The English translation reads, “I've almost got the shoe, father.”For a brief moment I don’t feel the pain. The boy stands so I can see him and the wooden shoe together. I notice for the first time his missing left foot. I look at my shoe, recall the doctor’s office where Amber’s wounds seemed to be activated when she wore those shoes. She was fine all night long until she put on the slippers. Why was Amber effected? Why am I being effected now? Does it matter who touched it last?The greasy smile of the antique store owner, his crutches, missing foot, add up. The ghost boy is looking for his other shoe. Missing arms, he’d have nothing but his teeth. Why he doesn’t take my shoes on the ground in front of me, why he waits until someone puts the shoes on to then attempt to chew off their leg, why whoever touches it last gets bitten, or why he only appears at night and not during the day, I’ve no idea. I don’t know why ghosts do the things they do.I pick my shoe up and throw it at him. “Take it!”My shoe passed through the boy. He stands there, catatonic.I can’t find my lighter. I’m the last person who touched the wooden shoe so I can’t wear shoes, otherwise the chewing will continue. I’m hesitant to wear socks. I can’t go shopping (because of that “no shoe, not shirt” crap). I can’t do anything. If I were an American Indian riding horseback in a loincloth and barefoot, you know, two hundred years ago, that would be normal. I can’t show up to work tomorrow barefoot. Phillip’s already comparing everything about me to Andre, everything from which way I comb my hair to if I sniff my coffee before I take the first sip.Andre. Andre is proud of his European heritage. I’d bet he’d love a relic from Denmark. I could go so far as to claim it French. Andre won’t show up to work shoeless, and he can’t afford to not show up at all.The devil slides an arm across my shoulder. “It’s okay, Bryant, you’re only human. It’s okay to be weak, it’s okay to revert back to your basic survival instincts and conquer those who stand in your way to greatness. No one is perfect. God doesn’t expect you to be perfect. If you are willing to challenge Andre to a Gladiator fight, isn’t giving him a wooden shoe a more kind gesture? It’s not you going to be chewing off his foot. Andre doesn’t have to wear shoes, and he doesn’t have to show up for work. All you do is give him the shoe. You are not responsible for what Andre does afterward.”Oooooh, the Devil’s good.I scoop the wooden shoe out of the fire pit, grab both of my shoes and the gasoline, and slump back in my truck. Pain throbs in the aching hole in my ankle. The ghost boy is gone.I arrive at the hospital barefoot. They patch my ankle up and buy my story about our rogue dog who took a bit out of me before I got a bit out on him.Amber is drowsy and sleeps all the way home, wakes up long enough to protest she won’t sleep in the bedroom, and falls asleep on the couch with all the lights in the house on.I sleep in the bed with my eyes covered. My alarm dings two hours later. I’m vibrant with scheming so I don’t feel the fatigue of last night.I kiss Amber awake. She rubs at her eyes. “You’re up early.”“Want to get to work so I can finish up the reports. Trying hard to get ahead of Andre for that promotion.”“In socks?”“I left my shoes outside last night. Air them out.”“I’m scared of that ghost boy.”“I think I know what’s going on and I’ve got a plan to fix it.”“A priest?”I see the hope in her eyes that that will fix all her worries. I’m not about to tell her I gave her a haunted European relic in a gesture of love, which then summoned a ghost to chew on her ankles. “Yes.”She nods in relief and I kiss her before I leave.I stop by the gift shop and buy a box, wrapping, and ribbons. My black socks match my pants so at first glance it’s not obvious I’m not wearing shoes. I make it out of there without detection. I pull in to work with 10 minutes to spare and wrap up the cursed shoe in the box with the ribbon. I hand-jam a, good luck on the promotion, Andre, on the note.I walk to the front door with shoes in hand, avoid the elevator and take the stairs since modern convenience has everyone else waiting thirty seconds for the elevator when you can walk two floors up in fifteen. No one notices my shoes. If they do, they don’t say anything.I hustle into the office and hid my feet and shoes under my desk. Guilt for what I’m about to do hasn’t hit me yet. Terror overrules it for what will happen to my life if I can’t wear shoes.Why didn’t you burn the shoe instead of give it to Andre? A reasonable voice asks.Maybe it can’t be burned. I’ve seen the horror shows. I’m certain the shop owner would have tried to burn it too, once he figured out what it was doing to his ankle.Fine. It can’t be burned. Why not get a priest to perform an exorcism on it?I shut the reasonable voice down and wait anxiously for Andre to walk into the doorway, lean against the frame, and sip his coffee.“Morning, Bryant.”“Hey, Andre. I was hoping you’d stop in. Come here.”His eyebrows raise in hesitation, sort of like an opponent might do when asked to make the first move. He comes in, stands beside my desk.I push the ribboned box toward him with a smile, and now I know why the store owner grinned at me so wildly. “You will make a fine manager, Andre. I want you to know that if you get the position, I support you a hundred percent. I… found this at the antique store on fifth street and thought of you.” I shrug. “Not sure what you’d think of it, but I know you are a fan of everything European, and the store owner said it was dug up in a French field, so…” I trail off as he lifts the lid to the box, heart thudding so hard in my throat I swallow. He lifts the shoe out of the box. I breathe easy. That is, hoping my theory was right about the last person to touch the shoe gets chewed on.“Oh?” He turns it around in his hand, and dons an expression we all fake at Christmas that says, thanks for the gesture, but the gift sucks. And just like Christmas, you take the gift anyway.He nods once. “You are a great man, Bryant. Thank you for your gift and your support.” He places the shoe back in the box and smiles at me. “Good luck to you too.” He tucks the box under the arm not holding his coffee and leaves my office.I put one shoe on. Wait a minute. Put the other shoe on. Nothing happens. I stand up as if I’m walking barefoot on glass. I walk by Phillip’s office, pretending to mess with the copy machine while casting glances at Andre whose telling about Phillip about the new sushi he tried last night and providing his recommendations.I don’t rightly know when the ghost boy decides to start biting. He didn’t bite me all the way home from the antique store and didn’t bite Amber until around noon the day after she touched it. Maybe it takes a day. Maybe I’m wrong about all of this.O         O         OAmber and I get a full night’s rest. Her on the couch and me on the bed. The ghost doesn’t appear and I feel safe to wear shoes again. Amber won’t wear shoes yet, not until the priest arrives in 3 days. So I’m in charge of bringing home the groceries after work.I arrive to work with fingers crossed, shoving aside my Christian inhibitions which attempts to warn this is a malicious thing to do to another Christian. But thirty thousand extra dollars a year if I get promoted…Sitting at my desk, clicking away at the computer, thirty minutes lapse before I realize Andre hasn’t made his usual appearance to harangue me over XYZ. I perk. Maybe he didn’t show up to work today…?I scuttle to Phillip’s office. Andre’s not there.I knock on the doorframe. “Phillip, did Andre not show up today?”“He’s going to be late. You need something?”“No. Thank you.”Bunkered back at my desk, I wait. I’d pray, except God’s not going to answer a prayer that wishes harm on another person.Andre arrives and I’m far too obvious in watching as he comes through the door. He’s limping. And yellow.“Morning Andre,” I say with a grin, chasing the guilt in circles with a barking hound of thirty thousand dollars. Thirty thousand dollars.He nods feebly, brews his coffee, checks his office box and grimaces all the way into Phillip’s office, like he’s trying to act normal. I balm my guilt with reassurances that I didn’t make Andre come to work today. I didn’t make him put on shoes.My fingers are edgy so I turn back to my report, thwacking at the keys in the same rapid succession as my heart. Across the sea of cubicals I hear an, “Andre!” and a scream.I sprint across the way, beating everyone else to Phillip’s office who might arrive to see what’s going on. Andre’s on the floor, coffee splashed over his blue shirt and Phillip’s red carpet. Andre’s hands aren’t sure whether to grab his ankle or kick his leg.Phillip speed-dials on the phone. “This is Phillip Rosenaur at Cisco. One of my employees is having convulsions on the floor, I do not know what…”Phillip’s voice is drowned out by Andre’s screams. All his frantic kicking has pulled his pant leg up, showing where a hole has been cut out of his tall black sock and flesh. Like teeth digging into a tomatoe, the flesh peels away and vanishes as if going into an invisible mouth.I watch in morbid fascination. He’s kicking around so hard I can’t see the progress. An especially high crescendo of screams and Andre passes out. Phillip hangs up with 9-1-1.“What on earth is wrong with him?” someone behind me asks.His ankle lays exposed where I can see it. No one else is probably looking at his ankle. Bit by bit, his sock and ankle vanish, the black sock soaking up the blood. There’s a hard grating noise, and a thick snap. Blood bursts out of his ankle, splattering Phillip’s face.Three women scream and run. Everyone blanches. Someone throws up, followed by a vomiting sympathizer.The ankle snapped in half, the rest of the meat and skin wither into nothing, until the entire left foot is severed from his leg. Me and Phillip are the only ones left standing in his office.Ambulance personal rush into the office main. I melt away out of the scene.O         O         OI enter Phillip’s office as I’m walking out for the day. “Any news on Andre?”“That it’s damn strange what happened. Doctor at the hospital thinks it’s some rare, flesh-eating fungus.” He drops his pen and digs both hands into his hair. “Doctor says they need to keep Andre quarantined for up to three months to make sure this fungus isn’t contagious.”“Sorry to hear that. I’ll stop by the hospital and see him.”“No… no don’t do that. I… don’t want you giving him the bad news. I can’t wait three months, Bryant. I’m retiring next week. Have big plans with the wife. Cruise? You and Andre are both very good and very trained. I was lucky to have two people to choose from. But, circumstances chose for me, so I’m giving you the promotion.”The guilt that’d been gnawing at my edges dies under my thunderous cheer I punch into the air.“Sorry, Phillip. I… you won’t regret –”“Ya, ya, and all that junk. See you tomorrow, manager.” He turns abruptly back to his computer. Everything in his posture says I was not going to be his first choice. I don’t care. Because thirty thousand dollars.O         O         OAmber rewarded me for my promotion in the bedroom. Once we both stopped breathing so heavily, we talked about what we were going to do with the money. Trade in my Ford for a Powerwagon. Buy her Lasik.Dinner ended with a kiss and Amber decided to sleep in the bedroom with me tonight. Apparently the good news of my promotion was a good replacement until the priest could make it on Wednesday.I was just drifting off to sleep, when I hear sobbing in the living room.I snap awake.“Jeg har fået af sko, far. Vil du endelig elsker mig hvis jeg får en fod, også?”No. No. I’m dreaming. I fixed this problem. I FIXED THIS!Google Translate beeps to let me know it’s got a translation for me: “I've got the shoe, father. Will you finally love me if I get a foot, too?”Teeth bite into my ankle.AUTHOR NOTE:This short story was written with the intent to follow the writing prompt given. It’s pretty raw, in that I wrote it, read it over one time, and hit publish. If I were to do something more serious with it, I will take more care into polishing it. As it were, I only wrote it for an exercise.

Remove "was, were, had, that," for Better Writing Style

This review a beta reader gave me changed my writing life forever: “I am not a major fan of the words "had' and "that" and eliminate them when possible."He was reading my novel, The War Queen (before publication, still in its editing stage) and offered that suggestion. And then as he continued to review my book, he continued to prove to me exactly why I should remove as many "had, that, were, was" words as possible. The below sentences were pulled straight out of my novel, followed by the beta reader's suggestion:A sweet faced girl was holding a tray of food.“A sweet faced girl held a tray of food.”She was hoping he had left without her.She hoped he left without her.I was stunned at the simple transformation. I then started on a path of, “I need to do this for my whole book!” And CTL-F on Microsoft Word became my godsend. I typed in the word “was” to find all 6,000 of them and then methodically analyzed each one to see if I HAD to have that word in the sentence (sometimes you do. Most times you don’t) and if I didn’t need the word, I figured out how to re-work the sentence without it. I did that for “was”, “had”, “were,” and “that.” And this is what happened:ORIGINAL: The tattoo was their trademark.RE-MADE: Their trademark tattoo smoked ribbons up his arm.ORIGINAL: Her eyes were sympatheticRE-MADE: Her eyes offered bandages.ORIGINAL: His threats were promisesRE-MADE: His threats paralleled promises4 reasons why you want to take as many “was, had, were, that” out of your writing:1) Every word should matter in your story. So take out all the words that don’t matter. Most times, “was, were, had, that” don’t matter and they eat up valuable word count if you are trying to keep your novel slim - like me - because I tend to write 173,000 words on my 1st drafts.2) Taking out those words force your writing into “active” voice, which is what publishers, agents, and readers want today.3) It makes your sentences smoother and crisper to read.4) It makes your sentences unique to YOUR writing style. In another blog I read somewhere (I read it in passing so I couldn’t tell you who wrote it otherwise I would link you to it), they said that someone got rejected by a literary agent, and the agent’s reply in that rejection said, “You have a good story, but what is unique about your sentences?”Cut those words out with scissors, a razor blade, burn them with fire, file them down to nothing. Just make them go away.DISCLAIMER: If you’ve ever read The maze runner, you will see that the author used “was, were, had, that” as his go-to words. And because he did, his writing style drove me nuts. Which is why I hate the book. But, he DID get published and they DID make a movie out of it. But as for me and myself, I have set a writing standard and that is to make my sentences as clean, crisp, and unique as possible.

Remove "was, had, were, that" for Better Writing Style

This review a beta reader gave me changed my writing life forever: “I am not a major fan of the words "had' and "that" and eliminate them when possible."He was reading my novel, The War Queen (before publication, still in its editing stage) and offered that suggestion. And then as he continued to review my book, he continued to prove to me exactly why I should remove as many "had, that, were, was" words as possible. The below sentences were pulled straight out of my novel, followed by the beta reader's suggestion:A sweet faced girl was holding a tray of food.“A sweet faced girl held a tray of food.”She was hoping he had left without her.She hoped he left without her.I was stunned at the simple transformation. I then started on a path of, “I need to do this for my whole book!” And CTL-F on Microsoft Word became my godsend. I typed in the word “was” to find all 6,000 of them and then methodically analyzed each one to see if I HAD to have that word in the sentence (sometimes you do. Most times you don’t) and if I didn’t need the word, I figured out how to re-work the sentence without it. I did that for “was”, “had”, “were,” and “that.” And this is what happened:ORIGINAL: The tattoo was their trademark.RE-MADE: Their trademark tattoo smoked ribbons up his arm.ORIGINAL: Her eyes were sympatheticRE-MADE: Her eyes offered bandages.ORIGINAL: His threats were promisesRE-MADE: His threats paralleled promises4 reasons why you want to take as many “was, had, were, that” out of your writing:1) Every word should matter in your story. So take out all the words that don’t matter. Most times, “was, were, had, that” don’t matter and they eat up valuable word count if you are trying to keep your novel slim - like me - because I tend to write 173,000 words on my 1st drafts.2) Taking out those words force your writing into “active” voice, which is what publishers, agents, and readers want today.3) It makes your sentences smoother and crisper to read.4) It makes your sentences unique to YOUR writing style. In another blog I read somewhere (I read it in passing so I couldn’t tell you who wrote it otherwise I would link you to it), they said that someone got rejected by a literary agent, and the agent’s reply in that rejection said, “You have a good story, but what is unique about your sentences?”Cut those words out with scissors, a razor blade, burn them with fire, file them down to nothing. Just make them go away.DISCLAIMER: If you’ve ever read The maze runner, you will see that the author used “was, were, had, that” as his go-to words. And because he did, his writing style drove me nuts. Which is why I hate the book. But, he DID get published and they DID make a movie out of it. But as for me and myself, I have set a writing standard and that is to make my sentences as clean, crisp, and unique as possible.

Pay Homage to Your First Draft

I was beta reading for someone, and I asked them, “Is this your first draft? If not, what draft number are you on?” And his reply, “I don’t keep my first drafts. This is probably around the 3rd or so.”WHAT! You don’t keep your first draft? WHY?...............Well, why would you?*Sigh* Let me start at the beginning, and the beginning is how a first draft is written.{1} GET AN IDEA: First, you get an idea to write a story. For me, I got mine December 2000. I was in the backyard. It had snowed a lot, so it was very deep. Kind of bored, I mindlessly began kicking at the snow. At the other end of the backyard was a pile of broken up cement slabs I wanted to get to, so I decided I was kicking at the snow to create a path to the cement pile. As I continued kicking, I started to imagine that I was a dragon (Of course this is a totally logical thing for one to imagine while kicking snow) and I could not fly for some reason, which is why my dragon-self was kicking snow… to get to the village by the cement pile. I wanted to get to the village because they had pissed me off super bad, and I was going to start them on fire. Well, unbeknownst to my dragon-self, there were 3 guys perched on a cliff high above me, watching me. They were from the village I was going to destroy, and so they left the cliff and raced back to the village to warn them of my coming.“Wow!” I thought to myself. “That would make a great story!” So I race inside the house (but only after I made it to the cement pile and destroyed the village THE END) and acquired a notebook and pen and began to write.{2} CHOOSE A WRITING MEDIUM: I picked writing with a notebook and pen because that is all I had. We had one computer in the house and my mom used it for various works she had to do, and with 5 other siblings on it when she wasn’t… well, if I wanted to write, I had to do it some other way. But I lucked out, because there are great benefits to writing by hand and they are:{a} An editor at the literary conference I went to said that writing the first draft by hand is the single BEST way to edit your book, because when you type it onto the computer, you are re-typing every word and you will find things to fix that you otherwise would not have found in just reading it over.{b} You can take a notebook and pen to more places than you can a laptop. With notebook and pen, you can write on the plane, you can write at work, you can write during court (maybe I’m the only who wrote during court), and you can write in the car.{c} You can always prove the book is yours. If there is ever a dispute over copyright issues, you can pull up your 1st draft by hand and shove it in their face, because who in their right mind would copy word for your novel by hand? Even if they did, there is a remarkable difference (or should be) between 1st draft and published version, so if they copied down by hand word for word the published version, then something is definitely fishy.{d} But if you can’t write your first draft by hand because it’s year 2065 and paper no longer exists, then I HIGHLY recommend typing your first draft twice. Type it up, print it off, re-type. You’ll get a similar result (I say similar because writing on 2 different mediums works different areas of the brain.)[image error]{3} START WRITING, AND BE FEARLESS: Your first draft is just an outline. Did you already write out an outline? WRONG! It was just a sketch. Your outline is a sketch, your first draft is the outline, and draft 2 and beyond only start to have echoes of a book. The purpose of the 1st draft is just to GET THE STORY DOWN so don’t stress. And don’t worry about your writing being crappy. It’s your first draft (and for me, my first book as well) so give yourself a break. It’s SUPPOSED to be crappy. If it’s not then you are doing it wrong. No one is going to see your first draft unless you let them, so don’t let them. Need further convincing to write fearlessly? Here is the very first page to my very first draft to my very first book I ever wrote, errors and all (hold on… I’ve got to shove all the loose papers back inside the notebook… okay, got it):Swish! Flap! Soar! Dive! (Have you figured out yet how old I was when I wrote this?) Pelting through the sky, Kishmaliky, a young, female dragon, soared. Wind rushed down her back and around each scale like smooth, cold water. Kishmalikey loved herself. From the tip of her tail to the point of her teeth. She loved the way her wings were just the right size for her body. Well, actually her wings were just a little to big for her body. But she liked that because she had seen to many dragons with wings no bigger than their feet, which of coarse, are too small to lift their bodies off the ground. So she praised her overlarge wings. But one thing she prized most of all, was her heart. (And this continues on for 98 more pages where I make a reference to “gunfire”, “wambulance” and “Medic 40” and somehow thought this was all fitting for my fantasy story.)So now that you have your first draft written, why should you keep it forever? So you can look back at it and see how far you’ve come, so you can see how much you’ve improved from when you started writing at 15 years old. So if you are ever invited to a literary conference to teach on the subject of writing a first draft, you can show the enraptured crowed your notebook while the pages fall out of it and scatter across the floor. And then the people start stealing them because your first draft is now worth billions of dollars and… If for no other reason, just keep your first draft to pay homage to it and you.

To Kill or Not to Kill Characters

Why should you kill characters? When should you kill characters? How many characters should you kill?WHY: For me, I kill characters when they stop being useful to me. Harsh? If they aren’t paying the rent, I can’t afford to feed them anymore and they’ve got to go. Because if I keep them despite their uselessness, they become extra baggage hanging off my arm that is annoying to me and the reader who also has to suffer through their uselessness. People don't like useless people.Think of it this way… Imagine you have a new litter of puppies. They are so cute and everyone loves them. They are great fun but as they get older, you realize you need to give some of them away for whatever good reason you have. Now you just have 2 of these growing puppies. They bark a little but your neighbors don’t mind because it’s an accepted hazard for owning a dog, and everyone goes on about their life.Now imagine instead the same new batch of puppies, except you don’t get rid of any of them. You keep them all and they grow up, and they each demand your time and attention with food, water, and play time. And all of them bark all the time. Now your neighbors hate you and they hate your dogs because they are constantly barking and keeping your neighbors (and you) awake at night and nobody is happy and your neighbors are just praying for the day your dogs are gone.Now trade this puppy analogy for your characters. Your characters need nurturing just like a real dog needs play time and water. If you don’t nurture your character, it will fade to the background and hang there like a burr, irritating you and irritating the reader. Everything in a story should serve a purpose. EVERYTHING. (Now Mrs. Pederson can rest in peace because I said this.) If a character serves zero purpose, either don’t create it or get rid of it in a meaningful way.So why do you kill a character? Because everything (and everyone) must serve a purpose, must earn their keep and pay their rent because you can’t afford to feed them if they aren’t working. If they can’t pay the rent, kick them out. Blood suckers, anyway.WHEN: I disagree with Game of Thrones (I’ve seen only 2 episodes and those were by mistake), who kill anyone for any purpose. Readers want a character they can grow with, invest their emotional account on. Readers want to see a character struggle in the beginning, watch how they conquer their demons, and see them rise victorious at the end. You can’t do that if you kill them off. It’s heartbreaking and I don’t have the emotional stability to accept that as being okay in my screwed-up life where I think characters are real people (which is why I don’t watch Game of Thrones. Also because of the incest which deeply bothers me).With that, characters should die WHEN it matters. Again, I disagree with Game of Thrones who kill characters on a whim. I hate that. Characters, in a sense, are real people. We hate death of real people we know when it appears senseless (a car crash, a suicide, my father who passed away with post-polio leaving my mother nearly destitute). Now, you think of the common soldier who dies in combat. That death hurts less to us because it doesn’t come as a surprise, and when they die we say meaningful things like, “He fought for his country/he died with honor/I am proud he gave his life for me.”The same thing for characters. If the reader has invested their emotional account on your character, and the character randomly meets his demise by choking to death on his mashed potatoes, the reader is going to be pissed off and you’ll risk losing your readership. But if you take that same character who dies in some way that MAKES SENSE, the death still hurts but the reader accepts it as the natural part of life. It doesn’t even have to be valiant and noble, but it has to make sense to the reader and to the situation.So when? When the death is realistic and makes sense to the situation the character has been put into (like a battle. That’s an easy one.)HOW MANY? I think Game of Thrones kills too many. I thought a story I beta read didn’t kill enough. So how do you know? If you have 5 main/side characters who go to battle, it is HIGHLY unrealistic for no one to die. Because you take 5 soldiers in real life and have them charge into a fire fight, chances are high that at least one of them will die.So when you choose how many, think of a percentage for yourself, and to help out I will give you examples of how many I kill. In my novel, The War Queen, I have 2 main characters and 5 side characters. I kill off one side character (because he stopped paying his rent) and I grievously wound one of my main characters (because, duh, a battle, and I don’t kill off main characters because of my above reason for the WHY). So when you choose how many, make it realistic. If they go to battle, one should likely die or at the very least get very hurt. The hint here is to be REALISTIC (which is the same answer for WHEN a character should die). Compare it to real life. How many people have you known that have died, and in what way? Use that same percentage for your story, because nothing is more realistic than real life.So how many? If they cease serving a purpose, kill them (or have them exit the story somehow. Don’t cling onto them if they stop paying their rent.) And if the death is realistic to the situation.