I feel like the antagonist of a novel, posting with a title like this.

I was reading my Christmas present today, Crusader by Sara Douglass, to find to my great dismay my two favorite characters were killed off! Just like that and in a rotten, terrible way, no less. I was upset by this turn of events so much I had to put the book down for a while.

Now, this doesn’t happen with ever book I (or you) read, but I have been reading this series for six years. It’s no wonder I don’t exactly appreciate the death of the two. (Don’t worry; I won’t betray any spoilers.)

However, through my great annoyance, I found an interesting blog topic.

Character love is something many a writer has fallen into. However, such a thing (besides being somewhat hard for the non-writer to understand) can be quite detrimental to your story.

When you love someone, you want the best for them. Before you realize it, your loved character or characters may find themselves getting an easy route away from the enemy, a gorgeous man or woman to love, or inexplicably finding out he, she, or they is/are royalty!

I don’t mean to insult anyone who has used one or more of those situations – I have. If you can do it well, by all means, go ahead and do it.

What I am getting at is if you love a character too much – yes, it is possible – then you will likely, at least on a subconscious level, want to make things easier for them.

I can already hear someone saying, “Yeah, maybe other writers, but not me.”

There is another side to character love as well. Perhaps, just to prove me and other people who have pointed this out wrong, you throw many conflicts in your character’s way. He, she, or they constantly run into the enemy, only less than lovely people in appearance and personality will fall in love with him/her/them, and they were royalty, only to find out there was a mistake and they are actually peasants!

While amusing, this doesn’t quite work either. (Well, it could if you try hard. I invite you to prove me wrong.)

What would most often happen in that instance would be your character(s) would have a lot of meaningless battles, and/or your character(s) would suddenly have powers or abilities which just don’t make sense in respect to the pace of the plot.

Conflict makes your story universe go round. Letting character love influence your writing unbalances the universe.

I’ve fallen in love with a few of my characters before, and it makes for bad writing most of the time. I promise. It’s okay for you to care about your characters while you’re writing, but keep in mind you should be willing to kill them at any moment to further your plot.

So carry on writing with that in mind. I know some are protesting, saying the character or characters can’t die because they have to do a, b, and c. That’s perfectly fine. But let that be the only thing that keeps you from being willing to shove them off a cliff at any moment.

Remember, you’re doing it for the universe.

(Not sure how to kill ‘em off. Check out Eight Ways to Kill Your Characters.)

1. Ritual Sacrifice – Nothing beats a good sacrifice. Whether your character has grown up knowing his or her fate or whether your character is an unwilling participant, a sacrifice to a god always makes things dramatic. (Whether or not the god plays a part in your story is up to you, of course.)

2. Other Sacrifice – Oh, the most noble of things – your character throwing himself or herself to death for honor, love, or anything the character considers worth dying for. If played right, you can get strong reactions out of your readers by doing this. Just don’t do it too much.

3. Assassination – Assassination, mystery, intrigue. Oh, there are so many things you can do with assassination. The (reader) known assassin vs. the unknown assassin. The assassin with a mission of honor vs. the assassin who does it for the money. The possibilities are many.

4. “It’s All in the Family” Murder – Murder within the family? Is there a disinherited sibling? Perhaps an unwanted child coming into the realization s/he’s missed out on his/her rightful place in life. No matter what the reason, murder within the family can always put in more plot tangles than you can think of.

5. Poison – The art of poisoning is a delicate one, but it can serve a number of purposes. Whether you want to kill your character in dramatic, fast fashion or slowly, poison can be your safe bet. However, be prepared to do some research on the subject. You don’t want to try poisoning someone with basil. You could try, though.

6. Forces of Nature – It’s unfortunate and random, which is why forces of nature could be just the method of death you are looking for. Floods, rock slides, avalanches – all can happen without warning. (Well, the floods do have a bit of warning, but dams breaking and such are likely to be unexpected. This method, I believe, is more one to keep in the back of your mind.

7. Death by Deity – There’s nothing like a godly hand intervening to strike down your character. Be careful with this one, though, because your deities should have good motives for killing the one character and not others.

8. Possession – This alternative provides the ability to get rid of the character personality, but keep the body. This can enable you to cause conflicts all over in your writing. Whether you care to focus on where the previous owner’s soul is and if it can be retrieved, or if you prefer focusing on the now and figuring out how to deal with the new soul, this method of killing of a character can definitely keep your hand writing or fingers typing.