: Re: Killing off a character What are the long term effects of killing off a main character (early into a series) that represents someone you'd like to move on from? Would that be cathartic, or

@Si5022468

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While I agree with @Henry Taylor, I would also like to add it may depend. I find that writing such pieces may be cathartic only if well done (at least for some people).

An example: Bobby is a bully (and represents all the bullies that made my life hell) so I make him act as despicable as possible, then I have Tommy take issue with him and give him a gruesome lesson. This satisfies my need for revenge and I feel vindicated... for a while. Sooner or later, a new Bobby will emerge in my writings and I will again feel the need to make him suffer.

This becomes a vicious circle and, if I can't break away from it, then there isn't much catharses in the writing for me as a writer, is there?

What I found was the most cathartic for me as a writer was writing these Bobby characters from their POV (at least on occasional chapters) and giving them a rich personality. Making them more human and less villain. Trying to understand what was behind their actions (without falling into the trap of always giving them a hellish life at home, even though that reason may apply to some bullies in real life).

Then I'd look into trying to have my MC search for ways to fight and overcome the bullying.

I found that it was the combination of understanding my foe and searching for natural ways of defeating them that brought on the much desired feeling of catharses.

But if you're writing a mystery and your killer is aiming at bullies, that's a different story. However, the killing itself is probably not going to be cathartic in the long run, but rather how the killer evolves (for the writer also evolves with the MC in some ways) and learns different ways of dealing with the difficulty.

Of course some people will find a deserved savage death to be cathartic, and it may very well be the case. But if one finds the need to dish out these deaths to the same characters over and over, then it's not cathartic at all.

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