Lessons from a Reader: Make ‘em Expendable

I love gripping stories. I love reading a book I can’t put down, where I have to know what happens. A good tense story is often better than most movies. That’s something I talk about in 137 Books in One Year—the value of knowing what you love and pursing it as a reader.

So as a writer, one of the things that heightens the tension in a story and makes it so gripping is when you’re willing to make characters expendable.

Yes, killing off characters makes for better stories.

As you can imagine, this...