Need to Kill Writer's Block? Kill a Character.
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Do you find you have a great story going, than suddenly without warning writer's block stops you dead in your tracks? Writer's block, that horrible dreaded thing, is a great boon to horror writers. In fact writers block makes for some of the best horror stories out there. How? Easy. I have found that if you want to kill writer's block, all you have to do is: kill a character. The death of a character (one already in use or one you created just to kill off) changes everything in the story, and gives you new challenges.
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In my books, when in doubt, I create a new character, and than bring back my psychopathic serial killer (The Red Dragon) who is supposed to be in an asylum but some how escaped, killed the new character and left the body in pieces all over The Twighlight Manor. The result is Roderic gets to go off on one of his crazed "my house kills people" frenzies (I have so much fun writing those!), while everyone else racks their brains trying to figure out how the killer escaped, why did he kill this person, how did he get back in the asylum, and who the hell is the dead person anyways?
Yeah, there's the death of Writer's Block, right there in that last question. Who was that person who got killed? Why did the killer choose to kill them? Two very good questions to get your brain up and running again.
As I never know who the "new" character was, and the body is chopped up beyond recognition, and I don't know why he did it, I therefore get to solve the mystery right along with the characters.
Now tell me: How can you still have writer's block by the time you get to this point? Yep, killing a character always works for me, ever when I never "met" the character before.
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This article was originally published in April 2007, under the title "Need to Kill Writer's Block? Kill a Character..." is copyright to Wendy C. Allen and The Twighlight Manor Press, and is reprinted here on ACwith permission.
Published by Wendy C. Allen a.k.a. EelKat
Autistic author, artist, fashion designer, CosPlayer, dollmaker, rooster & feral cat rescuer, P&G boycotter, Faerie folklorist, and alien contactee. Find me @ eelkat.wordpress.com twitter.com/eelkat... View profile
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1 Comments
Post a CommentGreat tip! It seems so simple when you write about it the way you do. It would definitely get the brain recharged to deal with the death of a character.