Monday, July 12, 2010

Characters: Who Should Die?


Adding another log to the fire of my blazing (well smoldering) glory, Berin Stephens (Dragon War Relic)reviewed Heroes of the Fallen here and I wanted to pass that on.

Considering the feedback I have received from a lot of reviews I am pondering the sheer number of characters.
When I wrote the first short stories-which will come into play in Book 3, I intended to only have a few key characters-Amaron and Zelph. My thinking at the time had been comparing what I really loved-Robert E. Howard and JRR Tolkien to what I merely liked-Robert Jordan, George RR Martin. I wanted to bridge the two because I do like the epic scope that the latter bring but I always thought they had too many characters that took away momentum from who I wanted to hear stories about~the Heroes.

But to fully envelope the beginning of the end (as I see it) for my full tale, it took a lot of characters initiating events that would manipulate the prime characters lives-and not a single person has accused me of wasting time or being (heaven forbid) dull.

So in answer to a lot of commotion I have read-guess what? A lot of people die in Blood of Our Fathers. The theme of the book is sacrifice and the herd will be thinned dramatically. I took a count some months ago and 50% of the characters won't make it to book 3. This was always the plan it's just getting initiated later than perhaps expected. It used to be one book after all.

Who will or won't? Hopefully someone you care about.

If you have read the book let me know who should die-and if you haven't throw someone off the tower anyway.

11 comments:

Th. said...

.

You only have two books, right? And it ends at the end, right?

SO EVERYBODY.

nephite blood spartan heart said...

No, its a series and I realize thats not your forte, but it will be a number of books to get to Cumorah-so I am only talking about thinning the cast to get there-its a double-edged sword for me.

LisaAnn said...

I am dying to read your book! It's in my cart at Amazon I just haven't had the cash yet.

Just promise me that these upcoming deaths won't be obvious! I hate it when I can predict who the bad guy is and who is going to die. Keep me guessing please!

nephite blood spartan heart said...

Lisa-I don't believe you will be able to predict all of the deaths-perhaps a few but surely not most.

Th. said...

.

Well. If it's a series and you kill everyone in the second book, that would definitely be surprising.

nephite blood spartan heart said...

Th-I'm thinking closer to a third of the cast.

TerryLynnJohnson said...

ooh, NO ONE dies! I get too involved, I hate it when someone dies!!! But I'm thinking some thinning of the cast happens in Fallen Heros. Just a hunch.

nephite blood spartan heart said...

Heh-yeah Terry there are a few already.

Charles Gramlich said...

I wouldn't dream of telling you who to kill. That's part of the fun of being an author.

nephite blood spartan heart said...

Charles-just having a bit of fun. There are some that just cannot be killed until the right time and thats a way's off.

Th. said...

.

Third's pretty good. I can live with that.