One Quick Trick…

In working today I ended up writing the two paragraph selection below. The sentence in red is the the one I want to call your attention to.

“Gentlemen, as ridiculous as Reverend Beecher’s argument is, it does bear consideration.” Major Forest took the stick from his nephew. “Many of you have killed other men. Most in our company have not, and certainly not in cold blood. And that’s what it will be. You’ll be laying in wait, timing that sentry as he walks his watch. You’ll see him come to the end, pause and turn. Right there, right where he slows down, you’ll make his wife a widow, his babies orphans and set his mother to crying her eyes out. For all you know, he’s just hungry, lonely and scared; and would have surrendered to you first he saw you. Are you ready to murder men who haven’t done anything to you?”

A chill ran up Nathaniel’s spine. He’d killed his share. /Hell, I’ve killed enough to account for all the Bookworms and double for Beecher./ Damned few were the ones he’d regretted. All the men he’d killed needed killing; but some of them only needed it a little bit and if someone had talked sense into them, they might be on the green side of grass even today.

When I first wrote that sentence, it read, “He hadn’t regretted a one of them.” It’s a good line, and most likely true of this particular character. It’s certainly suggested by the one that follows, or the first half of it anyway. The second half shows some regret or at least hesitation.

The real difference between them is that one is definitive and the other is flexible. As much as humanly possible, you want to give yourself flexibility. Now I know some of Nathaniel’s background—including one major incident where he smoked a bunch of guys, and did so rather remorselessly. That’s not in the book, but I’m going to use it either in ancillary fiction or in a later book. But because I don’t know exactly what happened, I don’t want to lock myself in.

What if, for example, when I come to write that story, it works out better dramatically that his best friend, or maybe his older brother, is one of the ones that has to be killed. (Hey, great idea, let me write that down.) Well, then, there might be some room for regret and a sharp-eyed reader (Yes, I’m talking about you) might be inclined to blog about how I was revising my universe on the fly—that being the polite way to say I’d made a mistake.

It’s also important that I noted that he did regret some of the killings. If he didn’t, he’d be a sociopath. All too often writers decide to make characters tougher than nails by denying them an emotional side. Granted, in something like the Twilight series, characters just gush emotion everywhere. Finding a balance is good, so allowing characters to be human by admitting mistakes, or at least considering having made them, is to be desired. It allows readers to connect with those characters and that’s what will keep them coming back.

I would be remiss in not noting that this sort of advice is a sample of the work you’ll find in my newsletter, The Secrets. Click on the image below to subscribe.