Not like kill in the story but like stop developing and abandon them.
For instance, my comic was originally gonna have a quintet of the main group but I had to drop it down to a trio cus I realised that these two other characters were essentially like "fusions" of the main trio. so yeah, I guess they were kinda useless lol
local_movies
yes, quite a few. i cleaned out my character profiles last year i think and got rid of so many characters, some were half-baked that i had planned to use in the story, but completely scrapped them because they didn't make sense to the plot, not to mention that a lot of my main characters changed a lot too which also contributed to that.
pets
definitely! I had a story with over 50 characters I had to drop because the plot was just going nowhere. It was my first project, and it was more of a comfort thing than an actual story. I kept maybe 3 or 4 characters and reused them it my current stories.
I've left a lot of important characters behind that helped me through really dark periods, and I still love them, but stopping their development was key to getting to where I am today. Plus, they still live on in my newer characters, I see them in them all the time!
Yesyesyes totally.
I had to drop one recently, Fia. I was hesitant because he was the first character I created for the story and was very convenient to reveal information through. It's important to note here that every character is supposed to be severely flawed, and not just for relatability (as in, not "clumsy, not booksmart, awkward, impulsive, easily distracted"- I mean, "arrogant, gets others into trouble with a heroic complex, cowardly, egotistical, unrealistic, self-centered" type of flawed), but so their good traits would seem more charming and I could do some wild character arc stuff.
However, the issue came in when I realized Fia was unlikable, and his personality was subconsciously from a much older story of mine. Overall, he was boring and irredeemable- not any kind of care, effort, or moment without hostility toward any other character. I didn't even know how to introduce him. I myself just didn't like him. The story definitely felt way better once I decided to just cut him.
If anyone is seeing this and considering scrapping a character, just try it- you might make your story like eight billion times better
yes! personally, of you cannot stand writing a character, maybe just scrap them. and this goes for villains as well. my villain (well more like anti-villain) is horrible but she was still so amazingly fun to write, i'm not saying you should love your villains but if you van't bear writing them, then it's better to just not waste your time on them
(also i only started wb like a month ago so take advice with a grain of salt lol)
brightness_7
from my main cast I deleted three characters. for now.
in case of the first one, I realized I was getting more and more tired with writing her. every scene she appeared in I didn't know how to write dialogue for her or understand what she wanted. yes, I did define her personality, motivations and goals, but I just needed time to understand that she was slowing down the plot, not pushing it forward.
and with the other two, I dreaded this moment. I loved their dynamic with my whole heart, so when the thought of scrapping them popped into my mind I immediately rejected it. but then I dug deeper into their story and what they bring to the plot. and then instead of "but I love them so much how can I even think of them not being" I thought "yeah I'll delete them". and instead of guilt and panic I felt relief.
but at the same time they had some qualities that I didn't want to get rid of completely. as I said, I loved the dynamic of my duo, the carelesness of hers and the gentleness of his, so I modified some characters and gave some of their personality traits to my existing heroes so as not to lose them. I can say that I incorporated that two characters into the remaining of the main cast, and gave their dynamic to the other couple.
as for my first one, I kept her. but as a character that appears only in the epilogue. she's still important to one person in the main cast so I couldn't just erase her completely. the mains are doing well without her. and she still has an emotional impact on the story. I just moved her to a better place and time.
I see that you already figured that out, but if anyone's still struggling to delete a character, this is some of my advice I can give: define what qualities, relationships, or impact on the plot you want to keep in your story, and then determine if you need a whole separate person to carry it all. as I stated earlier, if you can move some of them to another character, then deleting is probably the better decision. and if you really want to keep the character, make them less important, or at least not part of the main cast, so they won't take as much of your time and words writing and developing them. and when you decide to delete them, that feeling of relief is the best sign of making the right choice.
group
I've definitely killed off characters, but I've kinda just retconned out quite a few more. My current project has been overhauled twice now, and in both reboots, I took out characters that weren't really pushing the plot forward or that I didn't know how to write well. I've lost a total of 8 characters that way, although I really liked a couple of them. They just weren't doin' much.
In terms of actually in canon killing them off, that's happened three times. All of them were boring in their own right, so I kinda modified them into plot devices so they could at least be useful before they got unalived. Two of them were in the original set of 10 characters total (that has now grown to 26) so I felt bad removing them entirely, and the third was in the first wave of new characters when we were only at 16 total. We gave them decent endings at least (the third guy not so much, but at least his death was dramatic as hell).
Yes, to be honest..It was an OC, which in my opinion, was stupidly crazy. And was also a Mary Sue so I had to get rid of her and make a new Oc and story in her place. I will not give you more details because this character was flat out cringe, to the point where my friends hated me. And at that point I had to leave a certain website for both of those reasons and because of my parents, who didn't like me talking to people online. I chat with people that I know every so often, but that's about it. Sorry for wasting your time.
I've had to do this with quite a few of my OCs. Mostly because the RPs I had them in died, and I realized they were only suited for those RPs. Some of the traits for those characters were given to others that I've kept around, but mostly the death of these characters was almost mercy.
Yes and then I proceeded to make a bunch of aus where they survived
I had to kill off two side characters that had a big impact of the main characters so sorta I guess
