Oh, Okay.

So, according to the outline for my fourth book, I only have 3 chapters and an epilogue left until I've finished.

Hmm.

At this current moment in time, this book will be the shortest out of all of the ones I've written for the series. Not counting my novella of course. Right now I think I'm just shy of 70,000 words for the novel. If I had to guess, I might just crack over 80,000 - if I'm lucky.

Now is that a bad thing? Having your second to last book of a series be the shortest of them all? I really don't know. At the moment I feel as though I'm running straight into the book, so it's likely that I need to go back, write a whole new introductory chapter for the book and then pick up after that. I mean, a chapter might only add about 2,000 words, but it might be enough that I don't feel like a silly person.

I suppose I could look at moving bits of book two to book three and bits of book three to book four. But I don't like that idea. This could change, naturally, but at the moment, I really like where I chose to end each of the books. I guess the beauty of writing in today's world is the fact that you can always go back and change things.

With only three chapters left (according to my outline. Which is likely to be off), I find myself dragging my feet to finish it. I know precisely why. I'm coming up to a character death. Those are never fun. I've been killing characters since the second book, maiming characters since the third, and brutally harming them all since the first. I guess you could say I'm not very nice to my characters sometimes.

Despite putting them all through very real scenarios and suffering in very real ways, I'm not looking forward to this one. Character deaths are always difficult. Any writer (or storyteller in general), knows that. When you take the time to develop characters, it's hard to essentially banish them from your thoughts again. And I think for writers of series books, it's even harder.

When you write a book series (or a movie series I suppose), you've spent an inordinately long amount of time with a group of characters. For me, I've spent years, probably close to ten years, with these characters. It's a hard experience to take a personality that's been in your head for so long that you can't even tell when they appeared and then suddenly make them disappear. Their voice can't pop back into your head willy-nilly because...well, you've killed them.

Even though, as the writer, I know in the end everything's okay, I don't want to experience this. Last time I wrote a character's death, I sat like a lump on a log for a week and couldn't move forward. I practically cried myself to sleep. In the second book when I killed characters, I was bawling at my desk at all hours, wishing I didn't have to do this.

That then raises the ultimate question: does the character have to die?

It's an important juncture to reach as a writer. If you an answer that question with an honest answer that it does benefit the story and it does serve a purpose, then you're okay. But you can't just have characters dying for kicks or to show "how dangerous the situation is." On one hand, yes, the reader needs to know just how drastic the scenario is that you've placed your characters in. However, sometimes I think people get carried away.

For instance, with Harry Potter, I found some of the deaths to be meaningful and have a purpose. I understand Rowling's problem though: when you have a major final battle, you can't just have everyone you've ever met walk off the field with some nicks and cuts. On the flip side though, things are a little ridiculous when you go so far as to kill both Harry's owl and his wand.

Then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Twilight. When people should die, they die. If a battle is talked about and prepared for but then in the end, everyone talks and it's all okay and nothing happens, that's not only unrealistic, it's boring.

The goal is to find the happy medium. It's a hard thing to accomplish. You can't just have everyone live. That's boring and unrealistic. Yet you can't have everyone die. That's also unrealistic. There need to be stakes and there needs to be risks, but at the same time, a chunk of your characters can survive the bloodshed. After all, someone's gotta be around to tell the story afterwards, right?

I think (in my limited view point), I've done a good job determining who should die and who should live. I also think that those that survive suffer enough from either emotional or physical damages that it's obvious everyone was effected somehow. At least, that's the hope. There's always the knowledge that I might have screwed up somehow.

But, like I said before, that's the beauty of writing. I can always change it. There's always the ability to edit. And when all five books have been written and I get the overall feedback from my friends and family members, then I'll do an overhaul of the series. I do want to make this the best story I can write, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Let's just see how well I can do that.

Currently Writing: Unseen
Currently Reading: Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "There's a Place for Us" by Carrie Underwood