by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
According to Star Wars lore, Obi Wan Kenobi was killed off in the original Star Wars movie because, lulz, George Lucas had nothing left for him to do. I find myself in a similar situation.
I have — out of desperation — shoehorned myself as a character into the first novel in what is meant to be a five novel series. Things are going really, really, well.
But for one thing — after the first book, I have nothing for my proxy me to do. So, I’m killing the character off before the end of the first book. In short — I plan on killing off the protagonist of my first novel off in mid-story. Or, not really mid-story — his murder will be about as strategic as I can get — but he won’t make it to the end of the novel’s plot.
Now, in the context of five novels it makes total sense — if you read all five novels then, obviously, his death is the emotional hand off to the real “heart” of the story, the woman who loves my interpolation of the Lisbeth Salander trope. But if you were to just read the first novel you might be taken aback that I killed off the hero of the story.
So, yes, it’s risky. But I hope that given that it is obvious that there are TWO heroes to the story that if I kill off one of them, people will be upset…and interested in where the story goes after that point.
Anyway. I’m sure I’m breaking like three or four fundimental rules of novel storytelling by doing such a thing, but fuck you. There is no revealed truth as to how to write a novel or a screenplay or TV — the point is to tell a great story and to entertain the audience.
I don’t know what else will happen, but that’s my goal.
